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Help[Opinions] Re: it would be kind of like ...
in reply to a message by RoxStar
Not really. Its not "owned" by Jews. Its a Hebrew Biblical name, which means that anyone who follows the Bible could have the name.
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People who don't follow the Bible can have it too, says the atheist grandmother of Abraham, whose mother is also an atheist.
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that is true, however ...
As I said a little ways above, it isn't just a matter of languages.
Ibrahim and Avrom are the same name as Abraham, but no Jewish person would be likely to use Ibrahim, no Muslimn would be likely to use Avram, and I doubt your daughter would have chosen either one of them even though they are the same names as Abraham. You can say well, she liked the sound of Abraham best, and you'd be right, but I'm guessing it would be more than just sound that kept her from considering the other two.
Or consider the name Ebony. I happen to think this is a beautiful name, and I'm told that in Australia and the UK, it's fairly common on white girls, but here in the US it is most decidedly a culturally black name. You could say that Ebony is on a par with other precious-object names like Amber and Crystal, and again, you'd be right, but cold hard provable facts about origin and meaning aren't the only factors involved, for better or worse.
As I said a little ways above, it isn't just a matter of languages.
Ibrahim and Avrom are the same name as Abraham, but no Jewish person would be likely to use Ibrahim, no Muslimn would be likely to use Avram, and I doubt your daughter would have chosen either one of them even though they are the same names as Abraham. You can say well, she liked the sound of Abraham best, and you'd be right, but I'm guessing it would be more than just sound that kept her from considering the other two.
Or consider the name Ebony. I happen to think this is a beautiful name, and I'm told that in Australia and the UK, it's fairly common on white girls, but here in the US it is most decidedly a culturally black name. You could say that Ebony is on a par with other precious-object names like Amber and Crystal, and again, you'd be right, but cold hard provable facts about origin and meaning aren't the only factors involved, for better or worse.
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That's true. Abraham is a part of gentile Americans' culture. Even though at some point it came to be considered a predominately Jewish name, further back in history the Puritans began using Old Testament names, Abraham among them. We had a famous non-Jewish President named Abraham, after all. Ibrahim and Avram are not a part of our culture.
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It's interesting (maybe nauseating) to think about how our descendants will consider our name trends and the cultural motivations for them. We might say the Puritans used names for philosophical, religious, and political reasons they were at least semi-conscious of.... Or were they?
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