What do Pope Benedict XVI, Barack Obama, Naftali Bennett, and Hosni Mubarak all have in common? Yes, they were all political leaders in the early 21st century, but this column is about names, not politics. So, my answer is actually that all their names are related to each other. Let me explain.
Our starting point is the Biblical name Baruch. That name was borne by the prime student of the prophet Jeremiah, who also served as Jeremiah’s scribe. His name appears 23 times in the Book of Jeremiah. The name Baruch also appears three times in Nehemiah (Neh. 3:20, 10:7, 11:5) when discussing the people who contributed to the building of the wall around Jerusalem and when listing people who returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile. Down to this very day, the name Baruch remains popular both in Ashkenazi and Sefardi circles.
There are several other Biblical names that are related to Baruch, if not siblings, then at least like first cousins: The father of Job’s friend Elihu was named Barachel (Job 32:2, 32:6) and there was a guy named Bracha from tribe of Benjamin who joined up with King David (I Chron. 12:3). Parenthetically, the name Bracha is nowadays almost always a feminine given name (for example, it was my late mother’s Hebrew name), even though in Biblical times it seems to have been a masculine given name. Going back to Biblical Hebrew names related to Baruch, we laos have Berachiah (Zech. 1:1, eh. 3:4, 3:30, 6:19, I Chron. 3:20, 9:16, 15:23) and Bercheyahu (Zech. 1:7, I Chron. 6:24, 15:17, II Chron. 28:12). Interestingly, there were several different sages of the Tannaic and Amoraic periods name Rabbi Berechiah, mostly cited in the Midrashim. After that, the name Berechiah had largely fallen into disuse, with one major exception being Rabbi Berechiah Beirach Shapira of Krakow (1608-1666) – author of Zera Beirach – and his descendants who are named after him.
All of these Hebrew names are derived from the triliteral Hebrew root bet-reish-kaf, which means “blessing.” A blessing (brachah) is a prayer, invocation, or wish for good to be bestowed upon a person or situation. It has long been noted that the gematria (“numerical value”) of the three letters comprising this root all represent multiples of two in the ones, tens, and hundreds places. Meaning: bet = 2, kaf = 20, and reish = 200. This numerical pattern symbolizes the idea of multiplication and abundance, reflecting the essence of a blessing as a divine means of increasing or doubling whatever good one already possesses. Meaning, it’s a way of asking Hashem to divinely multiply that which one already has to create a doubled bounty.
Moreover, this concept of multiplication ties into the fundamental role of a brachah as a bridge between the human and the divine. Reciting a brachah acknowledges that all growth, prosperity, and success ultimately emanate from a higher, boundless source. When we recite “Baruch atah Hashem…” (Blessed art Thou, Hashem), we are not “blessing” Him in the sense of bestowing something upon Him – for Hashem is infinite and lacks nothing. Instead, we are affirming His role as the ultimate source of all blessings, recognizing His boundless capacity to bestow goodness upon the world. In this way, a brachah becomes an act of deep humility and gratitude, as we align ourselves with the divine flow of abundance and acknowledge our dependence on His infinite generosity.
And this leads us directly to the Latin name Benedict, which is traditionally understood to be a form of the name Baruch. Let’s parse the name Benedict for its requisite parts: bene- means “good” (as in: benefit, benevolent, benefactor, benign, Buenos dias) and -dict means “saying” (as in: dictionary, dictate, dictator, verdict, contradiction). This means that the term benediction refers to a “blessing” because it involves articulating something good or invoking goodness upon another, thereby aligning with the Hebrew concept of a brachah as a wish for divine multiplication and abundance. The famous Jewish heretic from Amsterdam Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was also sometimes known by his Latinized name Benedictus de Spinoza. Needless to say, he was really a Benedict Arnold to the Jewish people. And when the former Joseph Ratzinger became the pope and decided to take on the papal name Benedict, he was using a Latin form of the name Baruch.
Now let’s talk about Yiddish/German. The verb for “to bless” or “to recite/make a blessing” is bentsh, which is directly derived from Latin word benedict. As often happens, it became common for certain Yiddish name to be associated with certain Hebrew names (like Tzvi and Hirsch, Dov and Ber, Binyamin and Wolf), and the Yiddish name often associated with the Hebrew name Baruch is Bendit/Bendet, which is a hypocrostic form of Benedict. It seems that the surname Bennet is actually a form of this Yiddish name associated with Baruch, so now you see the connection between Pope Benedict and Naftali Bennett. Other Jewish surnames related to Baruch include Baruchoff, Benedetto, Benedikt, and Bender.
And now let’s talk about Arabic. As my readers likely know already, Arabic is actually quite similar to Hebrew. Both languages are part of a family of languages called Semitic languages (which also includes Aramaic, Ge’ez, Akkadian, Ugaritic and other languages that nobody speaks nowadays). It turns out that Mr. Obama’s first name Barack (sometimes spelled Barak) is a given name of Arabic origin, which derives from the Arabic cognate to the Semitic root BET-REISH-KAF. In other words, Barak also means “blessed” and is essentially an Arabic form of the Hebrew Baruch. Needleess to say, the name Barack has nothing to do with the Hebrew word barak, (meaning “lightning),” which is also used as a personal name, as in Barak of Judges 4.
The Hebrew word mevorach is a passive participle derived from the root BET-REISH-KAF and is used to refer to “he who is blessed.” Well, as you guessed it, the same thing occurs in Arabic, so the surname of the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak actually means “he who is blessed.” If you’ve ever heard a Sefardi fellow use the Arabic interjection “mabrouk” (sometimes spelled “mabrook”) instead of “mazel tov,” now you know what it means: you should be blessed!
Here are some questions I’ve received from readers.
Blima
Question: A shidduch was proposed to us for our daughter, which we were very interested in. The other side had hesitations because the boy’s mother was called by the same name as our daughter – although she had a second unused name. My husband proposed to them that we would add a name to my daughter’s full name and call her by that extra name. It was awkward presenting this idea to my daughter, and I was quite surprised when she proclaimed, “I never loved my (Yiddish) name (Blimi) anyway.” We added a similar sounding Hebrew name (Miriam, and now call her Mimi). And Mazel tov! My husband made a kiddush in shul and, of course, my cute niece sent over pink cupcakes 🙂
-R. Herbst
Answer: Such a happy ending! I hope to write about Rav Yehuda HaChassid’s will about not having daughter and mother-in-law with the same name in a future essay. But I’ll leave you with an uplifting story about my neighbor, Rabbi Izak Blau. When he was born, my Yerushalmi neighbor was actually name Moshe Izak Blau. Later on in life, his daughter Tzipporah married a fellow by the name of Moshe Chaim Binyamin Guttfarb, and the couple lived in the city of Kiev in Ukraine. The story goes that for 15 years after they got married, they didn’t have any children. This was attributed to them violating Rav Yehuda HaChassid’s instructions that a father-in-law and son-in-law should not have the same name, and here both were named Moshe. At some point, Moshe Izak Blau decided to do something about this situation, and he quietly changed his name from Moshe Izak to just Izak. Every time his friends called him Moshe Izak, he corrected them and said his name is just plain old Izak. He even changed is name on government records and on his electric bill. Not long after, Izak Blau merited the birth of a granddaughter – a daughter (named Chaya Edel) was born to his daughter Tzipporah. Apparently, this story was such a sensation back in 2016 that it was even reported in the Arabic media here in Israel.
-RCK
Rinah
Question: My Friend Chava Rivka says the name Rinah is a men’s name from Divrei HaYamim, the grandson of Yehuda. This does not sound correct to me. Where exactly is this brought down? I told her I don’t think so… but maybe I was wrong?
-Sara Elana Kravitz
Answer: Your friend is correct. Look at I Chronicles 4:20.
-RCK
Sorotzkin
Question: I recently heard that the last name Sorotzkin means “descendant of Sarah.” However, I also saw online that Sorotzkin is from the town of Serotzk in Lomza. Which of these makes most sense?
-Zerachya Shicker
Answer: When I received your question, I first consulted with renowned expert in Jewish onomastics, Dr. Alexandre Beider. He wrote that explaining Sorotzkin as derived from the female given name Sarah is well-founded. That matronymic surname may have been adopted by a son or a son-in-law of some lady named Sarah. He also wrote that forms of Sorotzkin (namely, Sorotskin and Sorochkin) are attested to in White Russian (Belrussian) towns like Minsk, Vitebsk, Polotsk, Nevel, Mstislavl, and Chernigov, which are quite far away from Serock in Poland.
I then turned to my friend Zalman Sorotzkin from England, who wrote to me that his family does indeed have a tradition that their family patriarch Rabbi Leib Soros’s surname originates from a portmanteau of soros (i.e., Sarah’s) and kind (“child”). I would add that there are several other Jewish surnames that also seem to be related to the name Sarah, including Shore, Sirkes, Sharlin, Saretsky and Sarles. I remember way back when I was in nursery school in Emek Hebrew Academy, there was a girl in my class named Sara Sarles. Interestingly, some have argued that the Hungarian surname Soros might be related to the name Sarah, although others see it as related to the name Schorsch, which is a Germanized form of George. I’ve also been told that szoros in Hungarian can also mean “hairy, furry.”
-RCK
Tzipa
Question: Checking names for gittin at the end of Even HaEzer, you’ll find many Yiddish names that were once accepted and used. Could you help me find the origins of the name Tzipa?
-Rabbi Zvi Block
Answer: Thanks for writing to me. As far as I can see, the name Tzipa is actually a derivative of the Hebrew name Tziporah, but is not actually an original Yiddish name. The general rule codified by the Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer §129:34) is that when it comes to spelling names on a gett, names ending with the ah sound are spelled with the letter hey if they come from Hebrew, and are spelled with the letter alpeh if they come from other languages.
Even though the Beit Shmuel (Seder Shemot, Shemot Nashim, TZADI) rules that one should spell the name tzadi-yod-peh-aleph, which suggests that it is not originally Hebrew, his source is the Turei Zahav (ibid.), who actually writes tzadi-yod-peh-hey. Based on this, R’ Shlomo Ganzfried, the author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, writes in his work Ohalei Shem that Tzipa should be spelled tzadi-yod-peh-hey. This suggest that the name is of Hebrew origin and is simply a derivative of Tziporah. The same is seen from Dr. Alexander Beider’s Dictionary of Ashkenzi Given Names, where he writes that Tzipa is simply a derivative / nickname of Tziporah.
On the other hand, R’ Ephraim Zalman Margules in Tiv Gittin and R’ Shraga Feivel HaLevi in Mikdash Me’at (Shemot Nashim TZADI) disagree with Rabbi Ganzfried. They rule that the spelling of Tzipa depends on whether or not the woman also goes by the name Tziporah. If she also goes by Tziporah, then you write “Tzipporah who is nicknamed Tzipa (tzadi-yod-peh-hey)” with a hey, because the name serves as a derivative of Tziporah (so it is considered a Hebrew name, which is spelled with a hey at the end). But if she only goes by Tzipa and nobody ever calls her Tziporah, then it is sort of as if the name Tzipa takes on a life of its own and does not function as a nickname for Tziporah, so you spell it tzadi-yod-peh-aleph as though it were a foreign (Aramaic / Yiddish) name.
-RCK
