Allow me to introduce to a lesser-known figure named Rabbi Moshe ben Yosef Trani (1505-1585), also known as the Mabit. The Mabit lived in Tzfas at the same time that Rabbi Yosef Karo (author of the Shulchan Aruch) lived there and he even served on the same beis din as Rabbi Karo did. He wrote many important works, including Kiryas Sefer (a commentary to Maimonides’ Mishnah Torah), Iggeres Derech HaShem (a short mussar tract), Beis Elohim (a three-part work that discusses prayer, repentance, and the 13 Principles of Faith), a commentary to Perek Shira, and three volumes of halachic responsa.
In one of his responsa (vol. 1 §276), the Mabit inform his interlocuter Eliezer that his interlocuter’s name comes not from Eliezer the servant of Abraham (Gen. 15:2) – who is described as a cursed person (see Rashi to Gen. 24:39) – but rather from the name of Moses’ second son Eliezer (Ex. 18:4, I Chron. 23:15). The Mabit takes this idea a few steps further and states that one should not give names to Jewish children from Biblical names that are recorded before the time of Abraham. He even explicitly states that optimally one should not name a child Adam or Noach (Noah) because those names appear in the Bible before the time of Abraham. He likewise writes that even though Shem and Eiver (Eber) were righteous men, one should not name children after them because the antecedents of these names did not keep the Torah in its entirety (even though they were certainly righteous according to Noahide standards). He says the same thing about the name Yefes (Yefet, Japheth) “and other similar names.”
Rabbi Chaim Benveniste (1603–1673) in Knesses HaGedolah (to Tur Yoreh Deah §265:8) questions the Mabit’s ruling based on the fact that the Talmud often mentions an Amoraic sage named “Rabbi Binyamin bar Yefes.” Since his father’s name Yefes chronologically appears in the Bible before Abraham, this would mean that his grandfather who named him Yefes would be in violation of the Mabit’s injunction, which is hard to believe.
Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai (1724-1806, also known as the Chida), discusses the Mabit’s ruling in several different places. In his work Birkei Yosef (Yoreh Deah §265:6), he cites Rabbi Benveniste’s hesitations, and adds that we also find the name of a Tannaic sage Akavya ben Mahalalel in the Mishnah (for example, see Avos 3:1), whose father’s name seems to be derived from the biblical Mahalalel listed smack in the middle of the ten generations between Adam and Noach (Gen. 5:12-17, I Chron. 1:2). Rabbi Azulai concludes his discussion by noting that the prevailing practice is not to refrain from naming children Adam, Noach, or similar names.
The Chida in his works Shem HaGedolim (s.v. Avraham Gaon) and responsa Yosef Ometz (§11:3) again cites the Mabit’s words along with Rabbi Benveniste’s criticism. In both of those sources, he discusses the matter at length, adding that part of what makes the matter so difficult is that the Mabit presents his position without citing any precedent in Chazal or in the Geonic literature, but simply states it by fiat that one may not name a child using a name from before the times of Abraham. The Chida admits that if the Mabit would have presented his view as merely “good advice,” then there would be no reason to criticize him, but alas he presents it as normative almost in a halachic sense.
One of the problems with the Mabit’s position that the Chida focuses on is how Moses was able to name his son Eliezer, if that name is clearly from the time before Abraham (as we mentioned)? The Chida raises this question and offers a fascinating answer: He assumes that the reason why the Mabit forbids using pre-Abrahamic names is that because those people were not privy to the entirety of the Torah (like later Abraham was) – and could not even have had a chance to have mastered that body of knowledge – they have the status of “wicked people” (reshaim) and it is forbidden to name one’s child after a rasha.
The Chida argues that the prohibition of naming after a rasha applies only to an ordinary name, but if the name in question has an especially positive connotation, then it is permitted to use such a name, even if it was previously borne by a rasha. Based on this, the Chida answers that since the semantic meaning of the name Eliezer has a beautiful connotation — E-li means “my G-d” and ezer means “helps” — Moses saw fit to name his son Eliezer, despite that name predating Abraham. In fact, the Chida cites precedent to this effect in the fact that responsa Besamim Rosh (attributed to the Rabbeinu Asher, the father of the Tur) states that giving the name Yishmael is appropriate even if one presumes that Ishmael did not do teshuvah simply because the name itself has a good connotation — yishma means “He will listen” and E-l means “G-d.” (It should be noted that nowadays the accepted view is that Besamim Rosh was not written by Rabbeinu Asher, but is actually an early modern forgery by proto-maskil Saul Berlin.)
Alternatively, the Chida answers that Moses did not name his son Eliezer after the historic Eliezer who was Abraham’s servant. Rather, Moses named his son Eliezer as an original name on account of Hashem saving Moses from the sword of Pharaoh (see Ex. 18:4). According to this, Mabit’s injunction does not apply.
Rabbi David Zacut Modena (Zecher David 1:82) offers a similar discussion that takes the teeth out of Mabit’s ban: in earlier generations, people had access to prophecy-like Divine inspiration that would allow them to coin new names based on what was occurring when the child was born. But in later generations, Divine inspiration had become more limited. Consequently, parents can no longer tap into that prophecy-like power to coin new names, but only to decide which pre-existing names should be given to which child. Accordingly, he explains that all the examples of giving names that are traced to pre-Abrahamic times were not actually naming the child after somebody from before Abraham, but were actually coining new names that happened to be identical to names that we know about from the Bible that predate Abraham.
A similar point is made by Rabbi Shabsai Lipshutz (1845-1929) in Bris Avos (§8:34), and is cited by Rabbi Yossele Weisberg (d. 2001), the famous mohel of Jerusalem (in Otzar HaBris vol. 1 ch. 9 fn. 3): The Mabit only maintains that is forbidden to name a child after one of the pre-Abrahamic characters in the Bible in a way that there is a clear connection between the child being named and his Biblical “namesake.” But if one merely chooses a pre-Abrahamic name from Tanach to give to one’s child without specifically linking him to that pre-Abrahamic figure as his namesake, this is not included in the Mabit’s ban – whether or not one has another reason as to why this name is appropriate for this child.
He gives several examples: if one’s son was born with beautiful eyes and his parents therefore wanted to call him Yefet which denotes “beauty,” this is not a problem. Or if one was harried by having to relocate many times before finally finding a place to settle, so he wanted to name his child Noach (“rest”), this too is a-okay. And likewise, if, for whatever reason, a father wants to praise Hashem in his child’s name – for example, he wanted to give the boy the name Mahalalel (mehallel means “he is praising,” and E-l means “G-d”) – then Rabbi Lipschutz asserts that even the Mabit would agree that such naming conventions are permitted. According to this, one may give the name Adam or Noach to a child, but should nonetheless have in mind that the boy is not being named after the Biblical Adam or Biblical Noach, but rather after somebody else with those names who lived after the times of Abraham.
In more contemporary times, the posek Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch was asked (responsa Teshuvos V’Hanhagos vol. 1 §605) about naming a child “Adam.” He wrote in the beginning of his responsum that he had never heard of naming a boy “Adam,” although he had heard of naming a girl “Chava.” He then cites the Mabit’s opinion that one should not name children names that appear in the Bible before the time of Abraham, but also cites that the Chida did not accept this stringency.
Ultimately, Rabbi Sternbuch writes that in optimal settings, one should not put oneself into such a precarious situation that depends on a dispute between great authorities like the Mabit and the Chida. Nonetheless, in the unique circumstances that he was asked about it, he concluded that it was appropriate to the name child Adam: the father of the boy in question was not religious and his religious family wanted to stop him from naming his son Adam, so Rabbi Sternbuch ruled that on the contrary, one should not be stringent on the father’s account, and should rather allow the father to give the name Adam to his son, with the hopes that perhaps this will somehow arouse the father to return to observance. At the end of his responsum, Rabbi Sternbuch also adds a caveat to the Mabit’s ruling that if one isn’t naming the child after the Biblical Noach, but rather after a family relative named Noach, then there is absolutely no problem.
It is related that somebody once told Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman (1914-2017) that he wanted to name his newborn child Adam, but Rabbi Steinman told him that giving that name is not recommended and invoked the Mabit’s responsum.
Another story is told about Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910-1995): There was once a woman whose brother Shem tragically died at a young age in a car accident. Her family wanted her to name her firstborn son “Shem” after her deceased brother. But her husband was uncomfortable with giving the name “Shem” because it is a very irregular name and he had never met another person called Shem. Even though Noah’s son Shem is considered to have been a righteous person, and the Forefathers were said to have studied under Shem, the husband still did not feel right naming his son “Shem.” So, he asked Rabbi Auerbach for advice: On the one hand, the name “Shem” didn’t sit well with him, yet on the other hand, he didn’t want to offend his wife’s family. Rabbi Auerbach came up with a solution that could make everybody happy – name the child “Shem Tov,” which is a name borne by several Spanish Rishonim. And that’s what they did.
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Going back to the main assertion made by the Mabit that giving names from pre-Abrahamic is inappropriate, many sages have pointed out that we find many examples of such names throughout Jewish history, including in Tanach and in Chazal. Besides for the examples we mentioned above, Rabbi Chaim Palagi (Ginzei Chaim SHIN §92) points out that the shofet Gideon named his son Avimelech (Jud. 8:31), even though that name was borne by the Phillistine king of Gerar from the times of Abraham (Gen. 20:2). Likewise, Rabbi Eliezer Fleckles (responsa Teshuva M’Ahavah vol. 1 §35), after approvingly citing the Chida’s comments (implying that he too does not feel that one must take heed of the Mabit’s ruling), adds another example of a pre-Abrahamic name given to a post-Abrahamic individual: Jacob’s firstborn Reuben named his own firstborn Chanoch (Gen. 46:9, Ex. 6:14, Num. 26:5, I Chron. 5:3), which is the same name borne by the pre-Abrahamic Chanoch (Gen. 4:17, 5:18-24, I Chron. 1:3).
In fact, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky (1928-2022) in his work Ta’ama D’Kra (Parshas Noach) offers a comprehensive survey of thirty-three pre-Abrahamic names from the Bible that he shows were used later in Biblical times, in the times of Chazal, or later in Jewish history. For examples: The Book of Chronicles (I Chron. 4:18) mentions somebody from the Tribe of Judah named Yered (Jared), which is a name that appears in the generations between Adam and Noah (Gen. 5:15-20, I Chron 1:2). Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (ch. 48) mentions a man named Mesushelach (Methusaleh) whose granddaughter Rachel was among the Jews enslaved in Egypt, and his name likewise appears in the generations between Adam and Noah (Gen. 5:21-27, I Chron. 1:3) – famously as the longest-living person recorded in Tanach. And the Medieval rabbinic travelogue of Rabbi Binyamin of Tudela mentions a sage named Rabbi Yoktan (Joktan) of Tibet, whose name is clearly styled after the name of the Biblical Yoktan, Noah’s great-great-great-grandson (Gen. 10:25: 10:29, I Chron. 1:19, 1:23).
Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, the rebbe of Sanz, writes in his responsa Divrei Yatziv (Even HaEzer §100) that it is possible that appearances of seemingly pre-Abrahamic names in Tannaic or Amoraic times may not truly reflect the giving of those original Biblical names, as it is quite possible that the latter instances were actually pronounced slightly differently than the ostensible Biblical originals. Meaning, even if the Bible talks about somebody name Yefes and Mahalalel, it is possible that the name of Rabbi Binyamin’s father was actually, say, Yafat, and the name of Akavya’s father was pronounced Mahalalol (or something like that) in a way that the pronunciation of these later names does not totally line up with how the original names in Tanach are pronounced. Rabbi Kanievsky also considers such a possibility.
Truth be told, if one looks very closely at the Mabit’s wording, he never states that is absolutely forbidden to name after pre-Abrahamic figures. Perhaps then the ban that he mentioned was simply a minhag (custom) in a specific time/place that does not apply to other times or places. In fact, throughout the generations there were many prominent Jews (including rabbis) who bore the names Adam, Noach, and Chanoch. For examples, the semi-mythical Rabbi Adam Baal Shem, who was said to be the teacher of the Baal Shem Tov, bore the name Adam. And Rabbi Noach Chaim Tzvi Berlin (1734-1802), the Chief Rabbi of the triple community of Altona Hamburg and Wansbeck, bore the name Noach. And Rabbi Chanoch ben Moshe, who along with his father was among the legendary Four Captives and was instrumental in establishing the Torah community in early Medieval Cordoba, Spain.