#true names
Ashkenazi baby naming superstitions - how far does not naming a baby after a living person go? Would you be comfortable naming a baby after someone’s middle name or if the baby and the other person’s name mean similar things but in different languages (like naming a baby Simcha after someone named Joy)? What about using a name that just so happens to be the same name as someone else you know?
For me personally?
I would not name after someone else I knew. But, if a name was coincidentally similar in meaning to another name that is not the same name, and who I was not deliberately naming them after, that would be a-okay. But again, that’s just my own personal thoughts on it
My older sister has a middle name that’s directly after my (Catholic) grandmother, who went by a nickname. My middle name before I transitioned was another language’s form of my aunt’s name. Naming a kid Simcha after Joy sounds fine to me, if Joy’s Hebrew name isn’t Simcha.
I wouldn’t be comfortable naming a child in honor of a living person even in a transformed version, not because of superstition (in the sense of fearing that it will cause something bad to happen) but because We Don’t Do That, and to knowingly do something for a living person that is traditionally done for the dead strikes me as a profound insult verging on a curse. (Yes, even if they wouldn’t see it that way at all, even if they don’t know about the tradition, Ido.)
Using a name that just happens to be the same as that of someone else I know, well, the more people one knows, the less avoidable that is. I wouldn’t have a problem with that.
Fey gain power over someone by having their name, the most powerful of Fey wouldn’t be kings or queens, but coffee shop baristas.
The tricky part is figuring out which names are True Names, and which aren’t.
Fae #1: “I know that ‘Jesus’ is a common name in some cultures, but I’m pretty sure this one was just a white boy joking about his hair length.”
Fae #2: “Well this one has to be real; there have been three different Blorbos today, and that can’t be a coincidence.”
