Some usage questions
I know these names have been used in their countries, but I'm not sure how popular they are today or even if they're still used.Are Zipporah and Yakov still used in Israel?Is Amanda common in Germany?Is the name Anwar used in Egypt?And is the name Geneviève still given in France?
Thank you in advance!
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Zipporah and Yakov are used today in America in religious Jewish communities. I have known people with both names (in the US).
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Zipporah and Yakov are still used in Israel every now and then, but they're very old-fashioned. Especially Zipporah.
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Geneviève is considered somewhat old-fasioned in France. Not sure if it's experiencing a comeback, though.Amanda is well-known in Germany - but not popular (never has been).
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I can answer the first question: from talks with Israeli friends, I think names like Zipporah and Yakov are mainly favoured by Orthodox Jews, while secular ones aren't so keen on them.
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Zipporah and Yakov are still used in Israel.~Ilana~
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Is Anwar used in Egypt? Haven't you ever heard of Anwar Sadat? :)http://www.ibiblio.org/sullivan/bios/Sadat-bio.htmlIf your question is "are there children being born in Egypt today named Anwar"?, that's hard to definitely answer as Egypt is not a country you can easily get statistics from. But it would boggle my mind to think that there are no kids born in the last few years in Egypt named Anwar. Here is a list of flu victims in Egypt which has a 14 year old named Anwar in Alexandria who had the flu in January 2008, so the name was still definitely in use 15 years ago:http://www.newfluwiki2.com/diary/2035/

This message was edited 8/9/2009, 6:50 AM

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Amanda is not common today in Germany.I found it at rank 52 of a list of popular names in Germany of the decade that startet at 1890:
http://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/3741-1890er-jahre.htmIn the corresponding hitparade of 1900, it dropped to 77, in the hitparade of 1920 it's gone i.e. below 100.
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Amanda isn't really common in Germany at all. It never got as popular here as it was in the US. I only know of one Amanda (around four years old) whose parents pronounce her name the English way. I would guess most Amandas are either very young (under 12) or pretty old. It was on #417 in 2008. The only other chart entry I can find is in the 1890s at #52 and in the 1900s when it was #77.
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