ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3372
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3372
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From: Melissa Barton 
23 Apr 2010

Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel!
We apologize for the time it has taken to complete this letter. We hope that
it is still of use to you.

You asked us to suggest a time and place for which a name meaning
'Shoshana(or Shoshanna) daughter of Reuven' would be appropriate. You
specified that
you would accept any transliteration of the name, and did not have a problem
using the Hebrew spelling and alphabet. You were also interested in <
Shoshana Simcha> as a double given name. In this letter we will use standard
Hebrew forms to refer to the name elements generically.

<Shoshanah> derives from the Hebrew noun meaning "lily" or "rose." The name
<Shoshanah> is not found in the Hebrew Bible, although the Hebrew common
noun from which it derives appears in Song of Songs 2:1. The earliest
evidence for the use of the name <Shoshanah> is the apocryphal book of
Susanna. (The Apocrypha are not part of the Hebrew Bible.) Although
<Susanna> was used by medieval Christians, <Shoshanah> was not a common
Jewish name before 1600 and is not often encountered in records referring to
Ashkenazic Jewish bearers [1]. We could not find examples of <Shoshana>
among Sephardic Jews.

In Hebrew, it is spelled [shin vav shin nun heh]. Examples in Hebrew are
found in Germany, dated from 1318 to before 1342, and Austria, dated to 1641
[1]. We also found references in Czech-language records to Jewish women
using names that are forms of <Shoshanah>: <Suzanne> in 1481, <Zuzana> in
1545, and <Zuzanna> in 1546.

<Simkhah> is derived from the Hebrew noun "joy" (it may also be
transliterated as <Simchah>, <Simhah>, or <Simxah>). It has the distinction
of being one of only a few Hebrew names we have found that were used by both
men and women throughout Europe in our period. As a feminine name, <Simkhah>
appears numerous times in Hebrew records in Germany [1,2], dated between
1211 and c. 1660 [1]; in Navarre (Spain), dated c. 1325 and c. 1362 [3]; and
in Prague (modern Czech Republic), dated to 1648. In Hebrew, it was spelled
[sin mem khet heh].

Both <Shoshanah> and <Simkhah> may be transliterated without the final
silent /h/.

<Ruven> is a Biblical given name (Genesis 29:32) that was used by Jews from
Italy and southern France before it spread to Germany in the 13th century;
its spread was both by migration and by direct borrowing from the Bible [1].
It appears in Hebrew-language records from Kiev (Russia) in the 10th century
[1] and Germany in the 13th to 17th centuries [1,4].  It can also be
documented among Sephardic Jews in 13th-15th century Catalonia in Latinized
form as <Ruben> [8]. The Hebrew spelling is [resh alef vav bet nun-sofit].

Patronymic bynames (i.e., those that identify the father) are traditionally
used in Jewish names, so <Simkhah bas Ruven> (Ashkenazic) or <Simkhah bat
Ruven> (Sephardic) would be an excellent feminine name in Hebrew. ('Daughter
of', <bas> and <bat>, are discussed in [7].) Both name elements were very
common throughout Europe [1]. <Shoshanah bas Ruven> is a less likely name,
mostly limited to 14th-century Germany.

The use of a double given name like <Shoshanah Simkhah> is uncommon for
Jewish women in our period; we found three examples from late 13th- to
mid-14th-century Rhineland (Germany) and three from 16th century Prague [1].
These sources do not provide examples of a double given name combined with a
patronymic byname, but we consider it possible in formal documents like
wills and census records. However, most of these double given name examples
consist of one Hebrew name and one vernacular name, e.g. <Bona Ester>. There
is less evidence for double given Hebrew names.

In addition, the name pattern <X called Y> is found in Hebrew, where 'X' is
a Hebrew name and 'Y' is a vernacular form or different Germanic name that
has been transliterated into Hebrew; this occurred in Germany between the
13th and 16th centuries [1]. As example of this pattern would be <Simkhah
called Fro"ude>.

For your desired name, you have several plausible options, depending on
whether you wish to have a name as it would have been written in Hebrew (see
above), as it would have been used in Yiddish among the Jews themselves in
everyday life, or as it would have been used when a Jew interacted with her
non-Jewish neighbors or in non-Jewish documents. Here we have focused on
Hebrew possibilities.

Records in Hebrew tended to be formal in nature, so may not reflect the
names used in everyday life (kinnuim) among the Jews themselves. Feminine
names tended to be secular only, so their names in Hebrew and non-Jewish
sources were more likely to correspond to what they used from day to day
than male names [1].

To summarize, in Hebrew, <Simkhah bas (or bat) Ruven> is an excellent Jewish
name through much of Europe during the 13th to 16th centuries. <Shoshanah
bas Ruven> would be a fine name for 14th-century Germany. While have no
specific examples of a double given name used with a patronymic, we believe
that <Shoshanah Simkhah bas Ruven> would be a possible, if unusual, name for
14th century Rhineland (Germany), at least for formal written use.

Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Dominic Beniamin, Blaise de Cormeilles, Brian Dorcha
ua Connail, Bronwen ferch Gwyn ap Rhys, D'vorah bat Atar, Juetta Copin,
Juliana de Luna, Lillia de Vaux, Mari neyn Brian, Sheryn, Talan Gwynek,
Ursula Georges, and Gunnvor silfraharr contributed to this letter. We hope
it has been useful to you and that you will not hesitate to write us again
if you have any questions.

For the Academy,

Lillia de Vaux and Leonor Ruiz de Liso/n
23 April 2010

--
References and Notes:

[1] Beider, Alexander. _A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names: Their
Origins, Structure. Pronunciation, and Migrations_ Bergenfield, NJ:
Avotaynu, 2000.

Note: <Shoshanah> appears under the header <Shoshane> (p. 570), the
feminine form of <Simkha> under <Sime> (pp. 572-3), and <Ruben> under
<Ruvn> (pp. 407-8). The German loan translation <Fro"ude> is found
under <Freyde> (pp. 503-5). Many of Beider's sources use modern
transliterations, and where he transliterated Yiddish phonetic forms
from Hebrew to Latin characters, he used a standard Yiddish to English
scheme.

[2] Socin, Adolf. _Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch. Nach oberrheinischen
Quellen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts_. Basel: Helbing &
Lichtenhahn,1903; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966.
pp. 561-4.

[3] Kahen, Julie. "Jewish Women's Names in 13th to 15th Century
Navarre". (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, no date).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juetta/nav_intro.html

[4] Stampnitzky, Julie, "Names from Hebrew Chronicles of the 10th to
13th Centuries" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, no date).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juetta/crusades.html

[5] Codex Gigas. Manuscript A 148, leaf 4v (WWW: National Library of
Sweden, no date).
http://www.kb.se/codex-gigas/eng/

Note: The Codex Gigas is an early 13th-century manuscript from Bohemia
that includes the Latin Vulgate. <Ruben> appears on page 4v, column 1,
line 6:
http://www.kb.se/codex-gigas/eng/Browse-the-Manuscript/Bible-Old-Testament/Forsta-Moseboken-Genesis/

[6] J{u"}rgen, Hans and Herbst, Ronny. _Luther's Biblia (1545)_ (WWW:
self-published, 2008).
http://lutherbibel.net/

[7] Stampnitzky, Julie. "Medieval Jewish Names Research: Glossary for
Titles and Bynames" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2003).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juetta/titles.html

[8] Smith, Julia. "Jews in Catalonia: 1250 to 1400" (WWW: Academy of S.
Gabriel, 2002).
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/catalan-jews/