New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesHistorical confusion on Isidore.
This site says it's Greek, it means 'gift of Isis', and it used to be a common Jewish name.
Basically, how did Isis get involved in a Greek name, and why did the Jews use a name associated with a goddess from another religion?
Basically, how did Isis get involved in a Greek name, and why did the Jews use a name associated with a goddess from another religion?
1
Replies
There's some discussion here on Greek names honoring Isis, at Oxford's Lexicon of Greek Personal Names site:
http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/names/meaning.html
Isis worship became quite widespread among the Greeks and Romans both; you can visit a temple of Isis at Pompeii, for instance. It's also important to remember that as a result of Alexander the Great's conquests, and the subsequent Ptolemaic (Macedonian and Greek) dynasty in Egypt, there was a lot of cultural fusion going on. Egypt was full of Greek speakers, and Isidoros/Isidora are very well-represented names in documents from the Greco-Roman period.
http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/names/meaning.html
Isis worship became quite widespread among the Greeks and Romans both; you can visit a temple of Isis at Pompeii, for instance. It's also important to remember that as a result of Alexander the Great's conquests, and the subsequent Ptolemaic (Macedonian and Greek) dynasty in Egypt, there was a lot of cultural fusion going on. Egypt was full of Greek speakers, and Isidoros/Isidora are very well-represented names in documents from the Greco-Roman period.
1
I can't help with the Isis/Greek origin question.
But as to why the name came to be adopted among Jews, this website explains it pretty well:
http://www.jewfaq.org/jnames.htm
"Names that were once thought of as stereotypically Jewish, such as Ira, Irving and Isadore, were actually attempts to Americanize Hebrew names like Isaac and Israel, and in any case are quite rare in America today."
In Jewish tradition, a new baby is named after a deceased relative, but only the first letter of the name needs to be the same. Names like Irving and Isadore bring to mind an elderly man today - they were popular in the early part of the 20th century in the U.S., which is right when many Eastern European Jews were immigrating to the U.S.
In the religious Jewish tradition, "I" names are pretty common - Isaac, Isaiah, Israel, etc. But there were slimmer pickings when it came to secular American "I" names in the 1900's. So while the Jewish immigrants named their sons Irving and Isadore in order to Americanize the names but still follow the old traditions - the number of Jewish people using those names greatly outnumbered their overall popularity in the US, which means that the names came to acquire the connotation of being Jewish.
But as to why the name came to be adopted among Jews, this website explains it pretty well:
http://www.jewfaq.org/jnames.htm
"Names that were once thought of as stereotypically Jewish, such as Ira, Irving and Isadore, were actually attempts to Americanize Hebrew names like Isaac and Israel, and in any case are quite rare in America today."
In Jewish tradition, a new baby is named after a deceased relative, but only the first letter of the name needs to be the same. Names like Irving and Isadore bring to mind an elderly man today - they were popular in the early part of the 20th century in the U.S., which is right when many Eastern European Jews were immigrating to the U.S.
In the religious Jewish tradition, "I" names are pretty common - Isaac, Isaiah, Israel, etc. But there were slimmer pickings when it came to secular American "I" names in the 1900's. So while the Jewish immigrants named their sons Irving and Isadore in order to Americanize the names but still follow the old traditions - the number of Jewish people using those names greatly outnumbered their overall popularity in the US, which means that the names came to acquire the connotation of being Jewish.
1