feature story
A NEW STUDY EXPLAINS WHY
STARBUCKS CAN’T SPELL
YOUR JEWISH NAME
20 SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
The results suggest my family’s first names were
typical: In the century since my grandparents (Albert,
Sarah, Sam and Bessie) arrived at Ellis Island, and
after an era of Susans and Scotts, American Jews
became more and more likely to give their children
Biblical, Hebrew, Israeli and even ambiguous names
that have come to sound “Jewish.” “The top 10 names
for Jewish girls and boys in each decade reflect these
changes,” the authors write, “such as Ellen and
Robert in the 1950s, Rebecca and Joshua in the 1970s,
and Noa and Ari in the 2010s.”
It’s a story about acculturation, say the authors,
but also about distinctiveness: Once they felt fully
at home, Jews asserted themselves by picking names
that proudly asserted their Jewishness.

On Sept. 8, I spoke with Benor, vice provost at
HUC-JIR in Los Angeles, professor of contemporary
Jewish studies and linguistics and director of the
Jewish Language Project. Our conversation touched
on, among other things, today’s most popular Jewish
names, the Jewish names people give to their pets and
the aliases many people give to Starbucks baristas.

Mostly we spoke about the ways Jewish tradition and
American innovation are expressed in our first names.

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency: I want to start with the
big takeaway from your study: “Younger Jews are
significantly more likely than older Jews to have
Distinctively Jewish names.” Does that sound right?
Sarah Bunin Benor: Definitely. The thing that I
think people are going to be most excited about is the
chart showing the most popular names by decade.

If you look at the 1950s, you have girls’ names like
Barbara, Linda and Robin. These are not distinctively
Jewish and not biblical. And then by the 1980s, it’s
very biblical: Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca. By the 2000s
the top three names are Hannah, Maya and Miriam.

JTA Illustration by Grace Yagel
M y parents, children of Eastern European
Jewish immigrants, were named Irving
and Naomi. They named their three sons
Stephen, Jeffrey and Andrew. My kids’ names are
Noah, Elie and Kayla.

Our first names capture the sweep of the American
Jewish experience, from the early 20th century to
the early 21st. At each stop on the journey, kids were
given names — sometimes “Jewish,” sometimes not
— that tell you something about how they fit both
into Jewish tradition and the American mosaic.

A new study from the Jewish Language Project at
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
charts how Jewish names have evolved over that history
and what they say about American Jewish identity. For
“American Jewish Personal Names,” Sarah Bunin Benor
and Alicia B. Chandler surveyed over 11,000 people,
mostly Jews, asking about the names they were given
and the names they were giving their children.

BY ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL