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ArchivesSo confused: Naomi, Noam, Naamah
Of these three names, here are the original forms I've tracked down:
Naomi: No'omi (BtN, Wikipedia), Naami (Hebrew Letters)
Noam: none listed (BtN, Hebrew Letters), "male version of the female No'omi" (Wikipedia)
Naamah: none listed (BtN, Hebrew Letters), Na'amah (Wikipedia)
Besides the "No'omi vs. Naami" issue, I'm confused over what exactly the etymological connection between these three names is. Based on the meanings and the Hebrew script Wikipedia has (which I don't think the board's able to display), these names are clearly closely related etymologically... but I think the visual differences in their transliterated forms might be seriously throwing me.
I mean, I could see the "familial relation" if the names were normally transliterated as Noami/No'ami, Noam/No'am, and Noamah/No'amah, but No'omi/Naami, Noam, and Naamah/Na'amah? Huh?
I hope Miss Claire or someone else can help shed some light on this! (Besides, the thought that Noam's a masculine form of Naomi is really cool to me. There are so few masculine forms of generally female names, after all!)
Miranda
"You've been downgraded to a class three tropical storm." -- My mother to my father, re: Hurricane Dennis
Proud adopter of 15 punctuation marks; see my profile for their names.
Naomi: No'omi (BtN, Wikipedia), Naami (Hebrew Letters)
Noam: none listed (BtN, Hebrew Letters), "male version of the female No'omi" (Wikipedia)
Naamah: none listed (BtN, Hebrew Letters), Na'amah (Wikipedia)
Besides the "No'omi vs. Naami" issue, I'm confused over what exactly the etymological connection between these three names is. Based on the meanings and the Hebrew script Wikipedia has (which I don't think the board's able to display), these names are clearly closely related etymologically... but I think the visual differences in their transliterated forms might be seriously throwing me.
I mean, I could see the "familial relation" if the names were normally transliterated as Noami/No'ami, Noam/No'am, and Noamah/No'amah, but No'omi/Naami, Noam, and Naamah/Na'amah? Huh?
I hope Miss Claire or someone else can help shed some light on this! (Besides, the thought that Noam's a masculine form of Naomi is really cool to me. There are so few masculine forms of generally female names, after all!)
Miranda
"You've been downgraded to a class three tropical storm." -- My mother to my father, re: Hurricane Dennis
Proud adopter of 15 punctuation marks; see my profile for their names.
1
Replies
I can understand your confusion, but things usually get clearer in Hebrew as soon as you leave out the vowels. So what you get is the verbal root „na’am“ (Nun-Ayin-Mem; the Ayin is usually represented by the apostrophe, but not always), which means „to be pleasant, lovely, delightful“. The adjective is „na’im“ and it is used with a song, wine, people and God. The noun „no’am“ then means „pleasantness“.
Now what does „na’am“ mean in a name? It can refer to God, saying that God is the embodiment or source of all that is pleasant to mankind. The biblical name Elnaam („God is pleasant/ness“) points in that direction. But there are also names like Avinoam („(my) father is pleasant“) or Achinoam („(my) brother is pl.“; by the way a feminine name).
Martin Noth (Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung, Stuttgart 1928) states another possible translation, which I think is quite evident: the child itself is a „pleasure“ either to its parents or to someone else.
No to the confusion with the vowels. I don’t know how all those variations of the name really came about: Naemi, Naomi, Noomi. The biblical name is Noomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth. I think the confusion is due to a certain sort of vowel in the Hebrew language, the „chateph vowels“ (I don’t think you really want to know more about them). There is a-a and o-o (and also e-e) and to some degree they are interchangeable (and maybe got mixed up a bit when transcribed into other languages). Vowels don’t really mean a lot in Hebrew.
To complete the list of N’M names in the bible: there is also Naam and the Aramaic name Naeman (Naaman in the English bible, so it’s the same confusion here).
By the way, there is no rule for masculine and feminine names in Hebrew, no special endings for girls’ names, a lot of names are unisex.
Last bit: I don’t know what the I in Noomi means. Maybe it means nothing.
Did I complete your confusion?
Andy ;—)
Now what does „na’am“ mean in a name? It can refer to God, saying that God is the embodiment or source of all that is pleasant to mankind. The biblical name Elnaam („God is pleasant/ness“) points in that direction. But there are also names like Avinoam („(my) father is pleasant“) or Achinoam („(my) brother is pl.“; by the way a feminine name).
Martin Noth (Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung, Stuttgart 1928) states another possible translation, which I think is quite evident: the child itself is a „pleasure“ either to its parents or to someone else.
No to the confusion with the vowels. I don’t know how all those variations of the name really came about: Naemi, Naomi, Noomi. The biblical name is Noomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth. I think the confusion is due to a certain sort of vowel in the Hebrew language, the „chateph vowels“ (I don’t think you really want to know more about them). There is a-a and o-o (and also e-e) and to some degree they are interchangeable (and maybe got mixed up a bit when transcribed into other languages). Vowels don’t really mean a lot in Hebrew.
To complete the list of N’M names in the bible: there is also Naam and the Aramaic name Naeman (Naaman in the English bible, so it’s the same confusion here).
By the way, there is no rule for masculine and feminine names in Hebrew, no special endings for girls’ names, a lot of names are unisex.
Last bit: I don’t know what the I in Noomi means. Maybe it means nothing.
Did I complete your confusion?
Andy ;—)
1
That helped a lot!
I suspected it was something to do with difficulty in translating vowels, but I didn't know exactly what. The explanation that vowels are rather arbitrary makes sense, and helps aliviate my confusion. Thank you!
OT: I like Avinoam's meaning! :-D
Miranda
"You've been downgraded to a class three tropical storm." -- My mother to my father, re: Hurricane Dennis
Proud adopter of 15 punctuation marks; see my profile for their names.
I suspected it was something to do with difficulty in translating vowels, but I didn't know exactly what. The explanation that vowels are rather arbitrary makes sense, and helps aliviate my confusion. Thank you!
OT: I like Avinoam's meaning! :-D
"You've been downgraded to a class three tropical storm." -- My mother to my father, re: Hurricane Dennis
Proud adopter of 15 punctuation marks; see my profile for their names.
1