The name is not Jewish in etymology but German - meaning a stag or male dear. The derivative of this name Herschel is however Yiddish because it marries the German Hersch with the Hebrew El (a name of God) which becomes "God's stag". The popularity of the name relates to several symbolic uses of the stag (Hebrew Tzvi) in the Song of Songs. The name was also used as a secular substitute for the Hebrew name Naftoli because the Tribe from which the name derives had a stag/gazelle as its symbol (Tzvi is a modern adoptation dating only from about 300 years ago).