Hannah writes:
I have a theoretical question for you about interfaith families’ naming practices. I know that Christians tend to honor people who are still alive, while Jews tend to honor people who have passed away. How would an interfaith family sort out the issue of honor names? One method that makes the most sense to me would be to use the Christian method to honor Christian family members and the Jewish method to honor Jewish family members… but is there a more practical way of doing this?
No babies currently on the way, I’m just curious to hear what you (and the commenters!) have to say on the subject.
In general, Christians use names of people either alive or dead, and there aren’t any standard religion-based rules about it. I’d think that in a situation where one parent’s religion has rules and the other parent’s religion doesn’t, the parents would defer to the side that has rules. If I were one of the parents, I would want to find a compromise that made things feel more balanced: “Okay, we’ll use my religion’s naming rule, but then let’s pick the name from your side of the family,” for example. (Or, since there are likely to be many such compromises over the years, something like “Okay, we’ll use my religion’s naming rule, but we’ll go to your parents’ house every Easter.”)
The big conflict would arise if there were an important naming tradition from one parent’s side of the family that couldn’t be used with the other parent’s side of the family: if, for example, a Christian parent was part of a Sr./Jr./III line-up, but the other parent was Jewish. If religion weren’t in the picture and we were just talking about two conflicting naming traditions (e.g., one family uses family names and the other uses names starting with E), I’d say the options are to combine traditions, to flip a coin, to weigh importance, to bargain, or to ditch both traditions. But when it comes to religious rules, it’s harder to use any of those tactics—and can feel very unfair to the parent who doesn’t feel governed by those rules. It can also put a lot of pressure on a parent who doesn’t feel governed by those traditions anymore EITHER, but knows their family would be shocked if those traditions were ignored.
At some point, too, I think it’s good to check where the line is between religious rules and cultural traditions. That line can get verrrry blurry, as you might expect—but I see a definite difference between “This is important to my religion” and “This is important to my culture.” Both parents come from their own cultures, and neither culture should get to make all the rules or claim priority over the other. (Neither religion should, either, but it’s harder to know what to do when both religions think they’re real and the other isn’t; it’s easier to understand with cultures.)
I suppose as with many things it depends how traditional/strict the particular families are, and how flexibly they interpret the particular rule, and how much importance they put on it being followed or not followed. Does anyone have any anecdotes about this kind of situation? I’d be interested to hear from anyone who comes from a family with religious naming rules, or anyone who named a baby with someone from that sort of family. What did you do, and how did you figure it out and make it fair, and how did both families react?
From the interwebs about Coco Arquette:
Courteney Cox Arquette’s daughter Coco was originally to be named Courteney after her mother and grandmother. However the Arquette family objected to this as naming a child after a living relative goes against Jewish tradition. Coco was the nickname for Courteney that was given to Cox’s mother as a child and that is how they got Coco.
That’s all I’ve got. :P
My husband and I are interfaith (his family is Jewish, though non-practicing), and this came up to some degree during our name discussions. He wanted to honor his late mother with either her name or her first initial (which is a common way of honoring deceased family in Jewish tradition — i.e., if the ancestor’s name is Elizabeth and you have a boy, you’d choose whatever boy name you like that begins with E, and it would be considered an honor name). Since we had a girl, we used his mom’s first name as my daughter’s middle name.
Before we knew she was a girl, we discussed boy names, and I wanted to honor my living grandfather and father by giving the baby their first name (they have the same one) as his middle name. I got zero pushback from my husband on this, and I can’t imagine his family would have objected on the grounds of tradition — but again, they’re not particularly observant, and the honorees were on my side of the family so perhaps that wouldn’t have been as much of an issue.
Well, my husband and I are both Jewish, though I was raised more observant than he. We agreed that we would follow Ashkenazic Jewish naming traditions and chose to name our (living) children after important family members who had already died. (Sephardic Jewish tradition does include naming after living relatives.) Some people choose English names after loved ones, others choose Hebrew names, and some choose both. To further differentiate matters from Christian naming traditions, it’s common for Jews to name just using the first letter of someone’s name, although using the whole name is not uncommon. (That’s different from Swistle’s view that using just the first letter is a diminished/diluted honor.) Deciding to follow Jewish tradition limited our name choices to specific letters of the alphabet, but even when we were struggling to choose a name, we stuck with the tradition – it felt more important in terms of criteria than any other “rule” or preference we would have had about names.
We chose English names after loved ones and Hebrew names based on meaning. Thus, our oldest was named in English after my husband’s brother and my two grandmothers. Her Hebrew name means “gracious jewel.” Our youngest was named in English after my paternal and my husband’s maternal grandfather. Her Hebrew name means “I have light; treasure.” Our middle child, who was stillborn, was named in English based on meaning. This is not a specific Jewish tradition, but since the tradition of naming after dead loved-ones is said to be because the new baby carries on the person’s name and good traits and we knew that wouldn’t be happening with that baby, we didn’t feel it was appropriate to follow tradition. She did not receive a Hebrew name, as one only receives a Hebrew name if s/he is born and takes a breath.
Not sure if that helps clarify or just serves to muddle the question. ;)
I’m not sure if this would be allowed:
Do both! If there are two names that you would like to use, one from each side of the family, use both.
1. You could use one for a first name and one for middle name. Eg. use Jewish name/way to honour name as the first name then use the Christian name as a middle name (or vice versa)
2. If you can’t decide on which one gets first name/middle name… Use them both as middle names. Both our children have two middle names, one to honour each of their grandparents on both sides.
Would this be allowed, to combine both faiths??
My understanding is that the not naming after a living person is a cultural, not religious, tradition. It’s so the angel of death, coming to visit the elder person, doesn’t take the younger by mistake. One would especially make sure not to use the exact same name.
That said, our mixed religion family plays it safe on this point.
My husband’s family’s naming tradition is based on culture, not religion, as it is Hawaiian, so my take is probably slightly skewed. However, in the Hawaiian culture, your name is your property, so naming your child after someone you want to honor is not something they do. That is considered stealing. Obviously, different people take it to different degrees. In his family, each child has an English name and a Hawaiian name. So we decided to use our daughter’s English name as an honor name (her name is blend of my first and middle names), and her Hawaiian name is one that has not been used in his family. I think it would depend on what is more important to your family, the name or the tradition.