Jewish Name - Change of Name

Change of Name

Change of name was not an unusual occurrence in Biblical times, if one may judge by the instances occurring among the Patriarchs, and it seems to have been not altogether unknown in later times. Thus, Moses Benveniste mentions a certain Obadiah who wandered from Germany to Turkey in 1654 and changed his name to Moses because the former name was unusual. Later in the Middle Ages a person who was dangerously sick would change his name in the hope that the Angel of Death, who summons persons by name, would be baffled thereby. This custom, known as meshanneh shem, is given in the Talmud and is mentioned by Judah Ḥasid. One of the names thus adopted was the appropriate one of Ḥayyim. In order to prevent any misunderstanding at the resurrection the cabalists later recommended persons to learn a psalm the first and last verses of which began and ended with the first and last letters of their names. Particular care is to be taken in the writing of names in legal documents, the slightest error in which invalidates them. Hence there are quite a number of monographs on names, both personal and geographical, the first of which was that written by Simḥah Cohen; the best known is that of Samuel ben Phoebus and Ephraim Zalman Margulies entitled Ṭib Giṭṭin.