Naming

A mother’s joy, loss, and recovery serves as an etiology of human grief.

She named him Moses (מֹשֶׁה) explaining, “I drew him (מְשִׁיתִהוּ) out of the water” (Exod 2:10).

The different usages of the names Jacob and Israel reflect a geographic divide between the northern and southern kingdoms’ stance toward this patriarch.

A background fraught with favoritism

Who gets to name the child? Priestly and non-Priestly texts give two different answers.

Naming practices in the biblical and ancient Near Eastern cultures differed significantly from those of medieval Jews in Fatimid Egypt (7^th-12^th cent. CE) as evidenced by the genizah findings. Examining these names presents us with important historical and anthropological data.