by Rabbi Yisrael Rutman

Since 1999, the name Nevaeh (pronounced nah-VAY-uh) has become the 70th most post popular name for girls in the United States. Its meteoric rise in the charts is unprecedented, showing up only in 2001 as No. 266. Today there are some 4,457 newborns who have been given the name, according to the Social Security Administration, which keeps records of such things.

As The New York Times observed this week, “Nevaeh is not in the Bible or any religious text. It is not from a foreign language. It is not the name of a celebrity, real or fictional. Nevaeh is Heaven spelled backward.”

Although it’s a cultural phenomenon which has surprised everybody, The Times tries to account for it: “The name has hit a cultural nerve with its religious overtones, creative twist and fashionable final “ah” sound.” Lest you suspect that Americans have simply forgotten how to spell forward, the name Heaven is also up there in the rankings, at No. 245. Presumably, the Nevaeh parents were aware of the option.

In Jewish tradition, we tend to take a less whimsical approach to baby naming. The name has an influence on the child, for better or for worse, and so if you want the best for your child, you will choose carefully. Not every name in the Torah comes with a hechsher. Pharaoh, Amalek and Laban, for example.

The safest choice is one of the Patriarchs or Matriarchs—Abraham (Avraham), Isaac (Yitzchak), Jacob (Yaakov), Sarah, Rebecca (Rivka), Rachel, Leah. For holiness and social acceptability, you can hardly go wrong. Even in this secular age, biblical names are still popular, at least in America. Anything beyond the founding family, though, is already an innovation in some circles, and a rabbi is best consulted before announcing a name that you may some day regret having stuck your kid with. If you name the child after a great rabbi or rebbetzin of recent times, you can’t go far wrong, since they themselves presumably were given names that bear no esoteric stigma. Even so, there are trends to consider. Zalman and Sprintza no longer have the cache they once had.

The closest Hebrew equivalent to heaven is shamayim, though I don’t know of anybody by that name.The closest thing I can think of is a little Jewish girl we know by the name of Eden, a heavenly child.

We do, however, have some perfectly angelic names to choose from—Gabriel and Raphael, for example. In Jewish tradition, Gabriel is the angel of judgment, Raphael the angel of healing.

There are Israelis called Rom, which refers to a high place. In America, there was the Eastern religious personality, Baba Ram Daas. His given name was Richard Alpert; a Jew searching for spirituality outside of Judaism. The name he took for himself sounds rather Hindu or Tibetan, and very mysterious, but it evinced a sly, lingering Jewish identity. Baba Ram Daas are actually Hebrew words, which mean “Gate of High Knowledge.”

Traditional Jewish names are far from boring, once you know what they mean, and they are all replete with meaning. For example, Abraham means “the father of a multitude of nations”; Sarah derives from “princess”. Moses is taken from a verb meaning “drawn from the water,” because he was rescued in a basket floating in the Nile where his mother had put him to save him from the Egyptians. It was doubly appropriate, since he was destined to “draw” his people out of the Egyptian house of bondage.

I wouldn’t trade my own name for any other. Israel (Yisrael) was another name for the Patriarch Jacob. After defeating the angel of Esau, G-d bestowed on him the name Yisrael, which means “G-d will rule.” His original name, Yaakov, referred to his grasping at the heel of his brother Esau. It reflects the role of the underling, struggling from behind. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that the new name did not supplant the old one, but reveals a new dimension. For when a Yaakov, who is physically weak and suffers under the heel of his enemies, triumphs despite their overwhelming physical might, his victory reveals the existence of a great spiritual power.

Thus, Israel is also a name for the Jewish people in general, signifying as it does the historical saga of our people. But there is another reason. Each of the letters in Israel (Yisrael in Hebrew) also represent the names of one or more of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs:The yud is for Yitzchak and Yaakov, s(h)in for Sarah, reish for Rebecca and Rachel, aleph for Abraham, and lamed for Leah. Thus, the greatest names in Jewish history are imbedded in the name Israel.

Even if you spell it backwards.

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1. And He Who Studies The Past
2. Is There Life After The Holidays?
3. Where Angels Come From, & Why Not All Angels Are Created Equal
4. Obituaries I Would Like To Read
5. The Miners of Chile and The Jewish Connection