Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Weird Jewish Naming

I realized one day that many English proper names of today were once derived from very traditional Jewish names.

Few examples below:

Daniel
Esther
Hannah
Nathan
Josh
Samuel
Simon
Peter
David

On the same day, I asked myself the question: would Jewish people find it weird that a significant number of people in western civilizations are giving their kids Jewish names (rather than a name like as Frank, Clive or Melvin)?

I didn't really find it weird, until I imagined an American couple naming their first child Confucius (a Chinese derivative). Now that would be weird (!!)

I assume that you are Chinese, if you're reading this post.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

gotta love your google ads - i almost want to click that one lol...orientbrides.com

Jason P said...

It seems to make enough sense when you lay out religions and nations in a flowchart. Then there's the fact that every second Arab dude is a Mohammed, plus the shared root node of religion means there's Ibrahims floating about too.