But he wasn’t really surprised. As director of the Project for the Study of Jewish Onomastics at Bar-Ilan University, he knows that names reflect the identity pattern of Jews throughout history.
Early Jewish immigrants to the United States, looking to assimilate, turned Shmuel into Sam. The next generation transformed it into Scott. And Jews reclaiming their roots today, particularly those who are returning to religion, are reviving the original Hebrew names, Demsky said.
On Monday, students and professors of the science of names gathered at Hebrew University’s Mt. Scopus campus for the Fifth International Conference on Jewish Onomastics. Participants from the United States, Europe and Israel came for the event, sponsored by Bar-Ilan University. It was held in cooperation with the 13th World Congress of Jewish Studies that is meeting on the campus this week.
Prof. Edwin Lawson of New York was honored for his work, in particular for his annotated bibliography “These are the Names: Studies in Jewish Onomastics.”
Avraham Stahl, who died April 2000 in Jerusalem, was also honored for his publications, including “What is Your Name? The Given Names and Surnames of the Jewish People.”
Interest in the subject of Jewish names has increased by 180 percent in the last decade, said Lawson.
“It’s a phenomenal explosion of research. Those of us working on Jewish names are in something of a hot topic,” he said.
Lawson attributes the surge in part to improvements in search and retrieval methods. “It’s possible to tap into sources unavailable 10 years ago.”
Clues into one’s historical culture and value system are all wrapped up in the names people receive, Demsky said. Those from a traditional Ashkenazi family might be named for a dead relative, but those of Sephardi origin could be named for a living relative.
“Jews have been everywhere in the world, and Jewish naming behavior is affected by the historical, political, social [and] economic situation they find themselves in,” said Prof. Stanley Lieberson of Harvard University.
Academic Claude Denjean noted that Jews near the northern Mediterranean in the 13th to 15th centuries were likely to have a Hebrew name for religious and communal use and a Latin name for work and interacting with Christians.
Lieberson said the list of names on a memorial plaque to Jews who died defending Germany in World War I speaks to the process of assimilation.
In contrast, when comparing the top 25 boys’ names for Jews and Catholics in Bialystok, Poland, between 1885 and 1905, there was only one common name, Joseph. “There were none for the girls,” Lieberson said. That speaks to the high degree of separation between the two groups, he suggested.
The story is very different in America, where there is a tremendous overlap between names given to Jews and non-Jews, Lieberman said. He draws his conclusions from studies done on Jewish names in California and Illinois.
American Jews started off with a distinctive set of names, but rapidly took on American ones for their children, he said. In America 17 of the top 20 names for Jewish and non-Jewish males are the same.
Initially names like Moses, Solomon and Isaac gave way to Marvin, Morton, Stanley, Ira and Irving. But although they were English names, they quickly became associated with Jews and thus became “contaminated.”
Jews dropped them in the next generation because they sounded “too Jewish,” and non-Jews didn’t want to use them for the same reason, Lieberson said.
It helps that biblical names are popular with both cultures, he said. But the biblical names Jews chose in America were not the same ones most used in Europe. Ruth was not common in Bialystok, for example. But from 1916 through the 1930s, it was the sixth most popular girl’s name in America.
It slips in favor of Judith, which is replaced after a time by Deborah, Lieberson said.
Sarah is now the most popular biblical name in America, Demsky added.
There has been a resurgence in the last few decades in biblical names, but it’s not related to a religious revival, Lieberson said. New Testament names, such as Matthew and Paul, are popular for Jewish boys.