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in reply to a message by LMS
If the vast majority of people have a very strong impression of it as a Jewish name, that's more significant than a technical fact. And the question was about impressions.
ETA: To put this a little better: Your reasoning seems to be "Rivka is from The Old Testament in the Bible, and Christians believe in The Old Testament, therefore, Rivka is a Christian just as much as Jewish name. That's a fact."
But if it has been used historically overwhelmingly only by Jews, that's a fact also, and has a strong influence on how the name is perceived.
The original question was "What would you think if...", not "Is this a Jewish name?", so people responded with the second fact in mind. Anyway, I saw only one response that could possibly be construed as stating a fact---"Rivka is so very Jewish." The rest were all dealing with impressions, so it's not really accurate to say that anyone was "insisting" it's only a Jewish name or that that was being "thrown around as fact."
Nobody said a Christian can't or shouldn't use it. You just seem to not want vigdis to be at all influenced by the fact that it's widely perceived as a Jewish name, but if that's the case she should at least be aware of it.
ETA: To put this a little better: Your reasoning seems to be "Rivka is from The Old Testament in the Bible, and Christians believe in The Old Testament, therefore, Rivka is a Christian just as much as Jewish name. That's a fact."
But if it has been used historically overwhelmingly only by Jews, that's a fact also, and has a strong influence on how the name is perceived.
The original question was "What would you think if...", not "Is this a Jewish name?", so people responded with the second fact in mind. Anyway, I saw only one response that could possibly be construed as stating a fact---"Rivka is so very Jewish." The rest were all dealing with impressions, so it's not really accurate to say that anyone was "insisting" it's only a Jewish name or that that was being "thrown around as fact."
Nobody said a Christian can't or shouldn't use it. You just seem to not want vigdis to be at all influenced by the fact that it's widely perceived as a Jewish name, but if that's the case she should at least be aware of it.
This message was edited 1/9/2016, 6:32 AM
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