Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 328

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/328

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Later research turned up additional information relevant to this report. See the end of the letter for details.

Greetings,

This is the information we found on the name "Chai" that you were looking for as a Middle Eastern or North African name.

As it turns out, we found the Hebrew name "Chaiya," which was probably used as a name for Jewish women. Although we don't have any examples of this name, we have several reasons for believing that it was used.

"Chaiya" (pronounced with a "ch" as in Gaelic or German) appears to be one form of the name that was turned into "Eve" in English. As a biblical name, it's a likely name for any period. The male version of this name, "Chaim," is found in period (since men's names were recorded much more than women's, a male form of a female name is a good sign that the female version also existed). Finally, children who were critically ill were sometimes given "Chaiya" or "Chaim" (which means "life") as a new or additional name to confuse the evil eye. (1)

It appears that the spelling "Chaiya" is not a particularly common one. In the Hebrew alphabet, this name is spelled with the letters "het," "vet," and "heh," and a more common Anglicization of this name is "Chavah." (2)

You can see a description of the Hebrew alphabet at the Web page

http://www.macom.co.il/hebrew/the.alphabet.html

Still, "Chaiya" would be an appropriate name for your desired persona.

We hope this is helpful. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

Jaelle of Armida, Arval D'Espas Nord, Alexander Traveller, Evan da Collaureo, Walraven van Nijmege, Solveig Throndarsdottir, Pedro de Alcazar, Da'ud ibn Auda, Talan Gwynek, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel

(1) Kaganoff, B. "A Dictionary of Jewish Names and their History."

(2) The Soncino Chumash, New York, The Socino Press, fifth impression, 1964.

Corrections and Additions

The Hebrew spelling of Chavah given here is incorrect; the name is spelled het-vav-heh in Genesis 3:20. However, it is not clear that Chaiya is in fact derived from Chavah and therefore that this spelling is appropriate. Chaiya is identical to the feminine singular form of the Hebrew adjective "living", so we recommend using the Hebrew spelling of that word, het-yud-heh.

The URL given for the Hebrew alphabet is no longer valid. At the time of this correction, we can recommend http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm.