Name meme

[chanaleh]

Okay, I'm in. :-)


If you call me Erica, you are most people.
[Forgot one: If you call me Erika, you are our Director of Marketing down the hall, or anyone else well-meaning but not terribly observant.]
If you call me Er, you are jessruth.
If you call me Muffin, you are either Lisa "Buttercup" Ferguson, or someone who sees more of me via e-mail than in real life.
If you call me Erica Lynn, you are either a close relative in a good mood, or someone who knows me only from e-mail.
If you call me Erica Lynnie-Binnie or Erica Berica, you are my mom.
If you call me baby doll, you are also my mom (although, time was, you might have been jonathanjo).
If you call me Peanut, you are definitely my dad.
If you call me Eureka, you are also my dad.
If you call me Auntie Erica, you are my almost-six-year-old niece Eva, or someone else in my family referencing her.

If you call me Chanaleh, you know me principally from LJ (chaiya tried this on me in person at least once, but in general, hardly anyone seems to).
If you call me Chana-Rivka, especially in a put-on Russian accent, you are my former co-worker Sadi.
If you call me Chana-Rivka bat Avraham v'Sara, you are calling me up to the Torah.
If you call me Chana-Rivka bat Avraham avinu, you are a gabbai in Some Other Congregation calling me up to the Torah.

If you call me Miss Erica, you are my current boss -- or, come to think of it, possibly my previous boss.
If you call me Schultzie, especially in a put-on Hogan's Heroes German accent, you are Jerry, my long-ago boss and acting teacher (and my friend Lisa's stepfather).
If you call me Fräulein Schultz, you are scholargipsy.
If you call me Miss Schultz!, you are probably Jennifer Dolgoff calling me at the office to make a brunch date because you haven't talked to me in forever and you miss me!
If you call me Mrs. Schultz (or even better, "E Schultz"), you are a telemarketer.

If you call me Hey You, you are ablock. :-)
If you call me babe, at least currently, you are most likely tenore.
If you call me Beautiful, you are probably points, or possibly n2mlq.
If you call me chiquita, you are struct.
If you call me Kitzel, you are Josh Breindel.
If you call me Muffinel, you are David Sherwood.
If you call me E., you are jonathanjo.
If you call me erc, you are unmistakably cos.

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's an impressive list. Mine's nothing like so long.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I'm reaching a bit :-) But it's more fun that way.

[jessruth.livejournal.com]

Am I really the only one who calls you "Er"??

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Routinely, yes!

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Actually, with the Erika-with-a-k in the mix, hakamadare and I have taken to referring to you as Erica-Chanaleh when we talk about you. You know, when we sit around and talk about your love life. *grin*

[cos]

*laugh* Assuming you're referring to quiteodd, I brought her into this social mix, so that means I take the credit/blame for another name for Erica :)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Nooo, I think she means bluepapercup.
Nice try though. ;-)

[cos]

Oh, I guess I did know she had a k, but I forgot.
Then again geminigirl is yet another Erika-with-a-k.

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Too many Ericas! And now, too many Erikas!

bluepapercup is who I was originally referring to. She's a friend from Tufts who took massage class with me. :)

[cos]

Yup, I've met her a few times, including at least once at your place. I just forgot she had a 'k'.

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

Hey, what about me? I call you "Fraulein Schultz"! But no props for my nickname.

Harrumph.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Meep! I knew I was forgetting *something*. Consider it amended, above.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Remind me--is "bat Avraham v'Sara" the standard for converts?

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Yep. Being as our own parents don't (typically!) have Hebrew names, we are assigned Abraham the Patriarch -- the first Jew and hence, technically, the first Jew-by-choice -- as our spiritual patronymic (with, by extension, Sara the Matriarch).

Which is why the really formal correct thing is to say "bat Avraham avinu [v'Sara imeinu]", just to remove any ambiguity as to which Avraham might possibly be intended. But, by the same token, that has a certain tang of reminding the convert of his/her former status, which is halachically a big faux pas -- so it's nicer to use "bat Avraham v'Sara" and let the juxtaposition speak for itself.

Not that everyone knows this... which is why, one of the first few times I was called up at Tremont St., someone enthusiastically came up to me after the Torah service and said, "Wow, that's so cool, your parents are really Avraham and Sara?!" Um... not as such, no... :-)

But when I hear someone else called up as "bat Avraham v'Sara", I say to myself, and perhaps afterwards to them, "Ah -- my spiritual sibling!"

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Hm. Suppose you married a non-Jew and had a child, who you named Rachel. She'd be Jewish, since her mother is; would she be Rachel bat Chana-Rivka? (Even in a congregation that announces both father and mother?)

Or suppose I marry a non-Jew (not hard to do) and have a daughter who I name Rachel, and when she turns 21, she converts to Judaism. Is she Rachel bat Avraham because she converted, or is she Rachel bat Chaim? Is she Rachel bat Chaim v'Sara, as if my wife is named Sara?

I know it's silly to wonder such things, but that's what being Jewish is all about.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Suppose you married a non-Jew

Also not hard to imagine, the way I've been going lately... :-P

and had a child [...] would she be Rachel bat Chana-Rivka? (Even in a congregation that announces both father and mother?)

I believe so, yes. In fact, there's someone in our congregation who does go under "bat Chana-Rivka" (literally, that's also her mother's name!) and I'm pretty sure that's why.

Or suppose I marry a non-Jew (not hard to do) and have a daughter [...] Is she Rachel bat Avraham because she converted, or is she Rachel bat Chaim? Is she Rachel bat Chaim v'Sara, as if my wife is named Sara?

This, I don't actually know the technical ruling on. I suspect that formally she should be called "bat Avraham" (to prevent anything as unreasonably silly as "bat Chaim v'Sara"), and that that's what would legally need to appear on, say, her ketubah.

However, I am also told that, whatever one's "legal" Hebrew name, one can use pretty much anything one likes colloquially (i.e., to be called up to the Torah), so your hypothetical daughter could be bat mitzvahed [after her conversion, say; unless we're talking a Reform bat mitzvah, but I won't even get into guessing how they handle these things] as Rachel bat Chaim and leave it at that. I knew someone else who had converted but still preferred to be called up under her own parents' names, so she invented Hebrew names for them. (Her father's name was Peter so she denoted him as "Even", which likewise means "stone". I thought that was actually pretty clever.)