Reply To: Jews Who Are Known By Their Non-Jewish Name

I’m 5th generation American and our family stretches to the 9th generation.
From births starting in the 1880s our family gave English and Hebrew names (NOT Yiddish). The English names were for everyday use and the Hebrew names were for shul, yeshiva, day school religious ceremonies. English names were used in the house.
When I started Day school more than 60 years ago the teacher looked at the enrollment card saw an English name that began with an ‘M’ (made up for this post) and started calling me Moyshe. I ignored the teacher. After 5 minutes I was asked if it was Mendel. I replied no. In our family our English names have no correlation to our Hebrew names…my Hebrew name is Ben Tziyon (all made up for this post). So in school I had one name and at home another.

After 1948 some of the relatives looked for names that could be the same in Hebrew and English so we would not stand out in advanced education and the business world. An example is my sister Tamara