On the Naming of Birds, Redux
One downside to my reduced posting rate is that I'm missing a lot of posts about Birdie. Here's one of the more important things that has happened. On October 30, she had her Hebrew naming ceremony.
There's no specific rules about when babies should get their Hebrew name, although pragmatically it's usually shortly after birth. Due to a lack of a functioning synagogue, my sister and I didn't get ours until we moved to North Dakota which means we were probably around 8 and 4. Better late than never, right? With Birdie finally up to date on Covid vaccines, we opted to have October 30 ceremony. My parents came to visit and our cousin the rabbi's family came over. A ceremony was conducted with other family members coming in via Zoom, not dissimilar from our wedding. Those of us present in the house had a nice dinner afterwards.
Since both my sister and I have names that come straight out of the bible, our Hebrew names were also relatively straightforward; basically the Hebrew version of our normal names. Birdie's actual names do not have particularly direct Hebrew variants, so we went with a combination of "naming the kiddo for departed relatives" and "names that M liked." The upshot is that:
-Birdie's everyday first name has a connection to M's paternal grandmother. It's not the same name, because M's paternal grandmother hated her name, but it's got a connection.
- Birdie's Hebrew first name is both a name M really liked and a name that has a connection to M's maternal grandmother.
- Birdie's Hebrew middle name is a straight translation of the first name of my father's paternal grandmother, who was the only relative I had who was both born in the old country and lived long enough for me to meet.
And with that, the first major religious ceremony of Birdie's life is passed. More to come...
There's no specific rules about when babies should get their Hebrew name, although pragmatically it's usually shortly after birth. Due to a lack of a functioning synagogue, my sister and I didn't get ours until we moved to North Dakota which means we were probably around 8 and 4. Better late than never, right? With Birdie finally up to date on Covid vaccines, we opted to have October 30 ceremony. My parents came to visit and our cousin the rabbi's family came over. A ceremony was conducted with other family members coming in via Zoom, not dissimilar from our wedding. Those of us present in the house had a nice dinner afterwards.
Since both my sister and I have names that come straight out of the bible, our Hebrew names were also relatively straightforward; basically the Hebrew version of our normal names. Birdie's actual names do not have particularly direct Hebrew variants, so we went with a combination of "naming the kiddo for departed relatives" and "names that M liked." The upshot is that:
-Birdie's everyday first name has a connection to M's paternal grandmother. It's not the same name, because M's paternal grandmother hated her name, but it's got a connection.
- Birdie's Hebrew first name is both a name M really liked and a name that has a connection to M's maternal grandmother.
- Birdie's Hebrew middle name is a straight translation of the first name of my father's paternal grandmother, who was the only relative I had who was both born in the old country and lived long enough for me to meet.
And with that, the first major religious ceremony of Birdie's life is passed. More to come...