A kinnui (כנוי‎) or kinui (translated as "nickname")[1][2] is the secular name held by Jewish people[3][4] in relation to the language spoken by the country they reside in, differing from their Biblical Hebrew name.

The religious name is in Hebrew (for example, Moses ben Maimon;[4]: 175  Joseph ben Gershon;[5] Shlomeh Arieh ben David HaLevi;[6] Gershom ben Judah; Devorah bat Avraham), and the secular name is in whatever language is in use in the geographic locality (for example, Isaiah Berlin;[7] Solomon Lyon Barnard;[6] Sigmund Freud;[8] Golda Meir;[9] Etta Cone[10]).

History

When Jews arrived in a new country, a secular name was often chosen from the local language. In Central and Eastern Europe, Yiddish[11] was the secular language, so a Hebrew name was used in religious and Jewish community contexts and a Yiddish name was used (the kinnuy) in secular contexts. In France, the secular name was in French; in Spain in Spanish and other vernacular languages, in North Africa and the Middle East in Arabic,[12] in ancient Babylon, the kinnui was in Babylonian and so on. Some kinnuim (the Hebrew plural of kinnui) sound similar to the corresponding Hebrew name, for example Mendel for Menachem, Anshel for Asher. A few kinnuim are based on the animal-like attributes of four of the sons of Jacob[13] and one of his grandsons: Judah, the lion (cf. the family name Lyon, Loewe); Benjamin, the wolf (cf. the family name Woolf); Naphtali, the deer (cf. the family names Hirsch, Hersch, Harris); and Issachar,[14] the donkey[15](or the bear) (cf. the family names Bar, Baer, Barell, Barnard, Bernhardt, Berthold, Schulter[16]); plus Ephraim, the fish (cf. the family name Fish).[17]

Among Arabic-speaking Jews, Arabic names were adopted, such as Ḥassan, Abdallah, Sahl; or Hebrew names were translated into Arabic, for example, Eleazar into Mansur, Ovadia into Abdallah, Matzliah into Maimun.[16] Ibn, analogous to the Hebrew ben, was used to form a family name. Examples of this formula are Ibn Aknin, Ibn Danan, Ibn Laṭif. In the Jews of Arab lands a linguistic mixing happened and names appear with both Hebrew and Arabic elements in the same name, for example, Abraham ibn Ezra.[18] A peculiarity of the Arabic names is the kunya, the by-name given to a father after the birth of his son, by which the father is named after the son (using the prefix "Abu"). For example, Abu Yunus is a kunya for the father of a son named Jonah. "Abu" also forms family names, as in the case of Abudarham or Abulafia.[16] The Arabic article "al" appears in quite a number of names, as in Al-Ḥarisi.[16]

Usage

The secular name is the name that appears in civil documents. The "shem hakodesh" usually appears only in connection with Jewish religious observances, for example, a record of circumcision (brit[4]), in a marriage contract (ketubah[4]), a writ of divorce (get[4]) or on a memorial stone. Often, both names appear together, e.g. Menachem Mendel, Jehuda Leib.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Ben-Yehuda, Ehud and Weinstein, David. Pocket English-Hebrew, Hebrew-English Dictionary. Pocket Books, New York,1977, p. 129.)
  2. ↑ Warren Blatt "presentation first given at the 18th Seminar on Jewish Genealogy, Los Angeles, July 1998" http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/givennames/slide6.html
  3. ↑ Potok, Chaim. Wanderings: History of the Jews. Ballantine Books, New York, 1978
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Telushkin, Joseph. Jewish literacy. William Morrow and company, New York, 1991.
  5. ↑ Deutsch, Gotthard; Feilchenfeld, Alfred. "Josel (Joselmann, Joselin) of Rosheim (Joseph ben Gershon Loanz)". Jewish Encyclopedia.
  6. 1 2 "BARNARD Solomon Lyon [Shlomeh Arieh b David HaLevi] b. 1845 Dover, Kent d. 20 Aug 1910: CemeteryScribes Jewish tombstone inscriptions, Find a grave Genealogy, Family History".
  7. ↑ Ignatieff,Michael. Isaiah Berlin: A Life. Henry Holt and company, New York, 1999
  8. ↑ "Freud, Sigmund | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy".
  9. ↑ "Golda Meir". Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
  10. ↑ Gabriel, Mary, The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone. Bancroft Press, Baltimore, 2002
  11. ↑ "Yiddish Language and Culture". Judaism 101. Tracey R. Rich.
  12. ↑ "Jewish Surnames". Archived from the original on 2011-10-05. Retrieved 2011-08-12.
  13. ↑ "Jacob | Hebrew patriarch".
  14. ↑ "The Tribe of Issachar".
  15. ↑ Genesis at 49:1-27 http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0149.htm#1
  16. 1 2 3 4 Jacobs, Joseph. "Names (personal)". Jewish Encyclopedia.
  17. ↑ "Kinnuim-English". Archived from the original on 2008-12-22. Retrieved 2009-09-03.
  18. ↑ "Abraham Ibn Ezra".
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