Choosing a Hebrew name is one of those parts of becoming Jewish that can feel both incredibly meaningful and weirdly high pressure. You’re choosing a name you may use when you’re called to the Torah, on Jewish documents, when someone prays for you – potentially for the rest of your Jewish life. No pressure or anything. 😅
But there isn’t one mystical, cosmically correct Hebrew name hiding somewhere that you have to discover. You can choose a name because of its meaning, because it connects you to someone you admire, because it relates to your English name, or simply because something about it feels like you. And if you were born Jewish but never received a Hebrew name, you can use the same process to choose one later in life.
There are, however, a few things I wish people knew before getting emotionally attached to a name – including one lesson I learned the hard way when the Hebrew name I loved turned out to sound unfortunately close to the modern Hebrew word for disease. Whoops.
So let’s walk through eight practical steps for choosing a Hebrew name you won’t regret – and what you should check with your rabbi before making it official.
And if choosing your Hebrew name is one of the many things you want to discuss with your rabbi, grab my FREE Rabbi Meeting Prep Sheet when you join my mailing list. It’ll help you organize your questions and walk into your next rabbi meeting knowing exactly what you want to talk about.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
You can spend months or even years converting to Judaism.
And then someone random comes up to you and says, “So what Hebrew name are you choosing?” And then you remember that you’re supposed to choose a name that you’re gonna use for the rest of your Jewish life. No pressure!
So how do you choose a Hebrew name?
Maybe you’re not converting, maybe you were born Jewish and you’re becoming more observant later in life and you never got a Hebrew name so now you’d like to adopt one. Everything here will be just as relevant for you.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, BuildingaJewishLife.com.
And yes, Kochava is my Hebrew name.
My “real” Hebrew name is Kochava Yocheved, both names together.
And if you need to have a conversation with your rabbi about this or something else, you can feel a lot more prepared if you get my free Rabbi Meeting Prep Sheet. You can get it for free by joining my mailing list at the link down in the description below.
So here are eight steps to pick a name that you don’t regret.
First, a quick review of what a Hebrew name is actually for.
We use it at different ritual times within the Jewish faith, like praying for someone who is sick, you would use their Hebrew name. Being called up to the Torah in synagogue, they will call you by your Hebrew name. It’ll be on Jewish religious documents like wedding documents or conversion documents.
And some people choose to use it in everyday life. Some people even legally change their name to their Hebrew name.
Do you have to use your Hebrew name in everyday life? No. You can continue using your English name all you want. You can even use your English name in some situations and your Hebrew name in others. Some people continue their English name at work, but in their personal life they use the Hebrew name.
It’s totally up to you what you would like to do.
And no, there is no perfect correct name for you.
You can really stress yourself out and think that this is like some cosmic SAT question, that G-d has a special name that has been chosen for you and you have to find it. That’s putting a lot of pressure on yourself.
The name you choose will be the right name. It will be the name that Hashem wanted you to have.
You don’t have to mind-read G-d to figure out what your Hebrew name is.
So where do you find names? Honestly, the best place is baby naming websites or books.
To my knowledge, there is only one Jewish baby naming website that is actually Jewish, and that is Kveller. I’ll put a link down to their baby names down in the description below.
The other websites like babynamer.com or Nameberry are useful. They can give you ideas.
But I would definitely proofread and double-check anything that they have written. They may have spelling wrong, they may have pronunciation wrong, they may have the meaning wrong altogether. They may even have something mislabeled as Hebrew when it’s not. So take secular baby naming websites with a grain of salt, a very big grain of salt.
There are, however, a couple of books of Jewish baby names, and I’ll link to some of those down in the description below, too.
So let’s start picking a name.
The first and most obvious thing to start with is the meaning of the name. Think of meanings that are meaningful to you and see if there are names that convey that idea.
Maybe it’s a quality you wanna cultivate, or it’s related to a season or holiday that you love.
Name lists are great for this, like “20 names for spring babies,” that sort of thing.
Secondly, look at the Jewish people and stories that matter to you.
Biblical figures are the obvious choice, but they’re not the only one. There are the people in the Talmud, in later sources, even in modern Jewish history.
For converts, Ruth or Rut is an obvious choice because of her conversion narrative in the Bible. But you don’t have to make your name connected to your conversion at all. It doesn’t have to reflect that you’re a convert in some way.
One way that you don’t get a Hebrew name is generally your rabbi is not going to name you.
That’s a really common myth out there, and occasionally a rabbi will suggest a name, but I do know one person who had a rabbi tell them, “Your name will be this.” But that person was converting in a very ultra-Orthodox environment.
The average person accessing the internet to get on YouTube, your rabbi is not going to name you. It’s a choice for you to make, not for them. But of course, you can ask them for their advice and their recommendations. They’re a great source for names.
Three, you can connect it to your current English name. A lot of people go this route. Like for instance, your English name starts with M, so you decide to get a Hebrew name that starts with M.
Or you have an English name that is almost a Hebrew name. Like a Rachel could become a Rochel. Or a Nathan could become Natanel.
You could go a layer deeper and choose a name that has the same meaning as your English name.
Four, think about honoring someone you know.
I actually almost did this. I took a very long time to convert and, and I have two conversions. But for a couple of years at one point, I was really convinced that my Hebrew name was gonna be Nechama. Because I met this convert woman who was so nice and was like everything I aspired to be, and her name was Nechama.
So I was like, “Good.” Settled and found that really quick! And I still like that name, but it wasn’t the name that spoke to me in the end. I’ll tell you the absolutely hilarious story about my Hebrew name down, uh, later in this video.
But there are naming conventions around naming yourself after living people, so I would double-check that with your rabbi. Some communities, that is not done. It’s seen as a bad luck for you or the other person. But you can still use them to inspire a name.
Five. Yes, you can have more than one name. Like my name is Kochava Yocheved. My first conversion, my conservative conversion, I chose the name Kochava. And then when I went through my Orthodox conversion, I decided to add a second name to, I guess, make a difference between the two conversions.
And because we are a sucker for pain, my husband and I gave our children three Hebrew names each because he has three Hebrew names. And so my children just have the longest Hebrew names on the face of the earth. And I low-key regret it. I love their names, but it’s a lot to remember. And yes, they also have three English names because I am a masochist clearly.
Six, actually say the name. Can you say it? Can you pronounce it? I will tell you that when I chose Kochava, I could not pronounce it correctly. I still couldn’t make the ch sound consistently.
Relatedly to that, I named my first child with a ch in the name when I still couldn’t pronounce it consistently, and I am only able to pronounce it fairly consistently now because I have spent the last 10 years yelling after a child with the name that has it in it. So I guess it’s kinda like exposure therapy.
But do know that occasionally people will tease you if you can’t pronounce your own Hebrew name. That will happen.
Seven, and most important of all, check in with your rabbi early about any names you’re considering. Like, once you get it down to a short list, run it by your rabbi to see if there are any red flags.
Because I did not do this. It did not even occur to me to do this. And for about two years, I was set on a name that I really loved that I found on some secular baby naming website, probably Nameberry.
If I remember correctly, it was Mahala.
And I distinctly remember being on the phone with my rabbi in my parents’ backyard, which is weird because I, this is the only phone call I ever remember having with my rabbi. So I don’t know why it happened, but we were talking about my Hebrew name, and I told him this name, and he just stopped. And the line was silent for several seconds.
And then he told me that I shouldn’t choose that name. And of course, I was so upset. Like, “What are you talking about?” I had grown really connected to that name.
But then he explained that in modern Hebrew, machala means disease.
And in many communities, it is actually the word for cancer because, like, you give power to a thing if you name it, so if you call it cancer, that gives it more power, so you just call it “the disease.” Yeah, that’s a thing that happens in some ultra-Orthodox communities.
Especially around breast cancer. Because of course, we also can’t say breast.
The Hebrew name I wanted was just too close to this word. People were going to mess it up, and people were going to get confused.
And he was right. But boy did I hate giving that up.
But on the bright side, it’s like almost 20 years later, and I can’t even remember the name that it was that I was so connected to.
Things turned out all right.
Eight, don’t wait until the last possible second.
You don’t need to choose your name at the beginning of your conversion. And in fact, I would advise against choosing a Hebrew name until you’ve been in the conversion process for at least six months to a year.
If you’re having only a year-long conversion process, I’d wait until like nine months in. Because I want you to have as much foundational Jewish knowledge as possible. You’re only going to really know the possibilities when you have a basic Jewish education.
When you’re early in the process, you’re naturally going to be choosing from a much smaller pool and have much higher risk of choosing something that’s not gonna work out.
And if you want to know if converts are treated the same way as born Jews, check out this video next.
