Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses Jews who have names of Gentiles. It is a known halakhic and moral debate about the practice of choosing Gentile names. Different communities have different customs and that will not be the focus of our discussion. But there is a fascinating Midrash about the history and process of Jewish names. It states in Bereishis Rabbah 37:7:

A dispute between Rabbi Yose and Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel. Rabbi Yose says: The ancients who knew their lineage (as they lived hundreds of years so they could keep records by their recollection) name their children based on occurrences and events. In our times, as we do not keep track of our lineage well, we name our children based on our ancestors. Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel says: The ancients who had divinely inspired precognition, were able to name their children based on the events that would occur. However, we who do not have that degree of foreknowledge, we name our children after ancestors.

It is difficult to parse what is the exact dispute between these two sages. The way I understand it, it would seem that Rabbi Yose holds that parents can name their children without even a sure understanding of their future, perhaps with hopes for their future. That is to say, we have this principle that a name influences a person. Midrash Tamchuma (Ha’azinu 7) states:

זְכֹר יְמוֹת עוֹלָם בִּינוּ שְׁנוֹת דּוֹר וָדוֹר. לְעוֹלָם יִבְדֹּק אָדָם בַּשֵּׁמוֹת לִקְרֹא לִבְנוֹ, הָרָאוּי לִהְיוֹת צַדִּיק. כִּי לִפְעָמִים הַשֵּׁם גּוֹרֵם טוֹב אוֹ גּוֹרֵם רָע, כְּמוֹ שֶׁמָּצִינוּ בַּמְּרַגְּלִים, שַׁמּוּעַ בֶּן זַכּוּר (במדבר יג, ד), עַל שֶׁלֹּא שָׁמַע בְּדִבְרֵי הַמָּקוֹם, וּכְאִלּוּ שָׁאַל בִּזְכוּרוֹ. וְכֵן הוּא אוֹמֵר, כִּי חַטַּאת קֶסֶם מֶרִי (ש״‎א טו, כ). שָׁפַט בֶּן חוֹרִי (במדבר יג, ה), עַל שֶׁלֹּא שָׁפַט אֶת יִצְרוֹ, וְנַעֲשָׂה חוֹרִי מִן הָאָרֶץ. …

Remember the days of yore; understand the years of each generation: Always should a man check the names to call his son one that is fitting to be righteous - as sometimes the name causes good or causes bad, as we found by the scouts (Numbers 13:4-15): Shamua son of Zakur, since he did not listen (shama) to the words of the Omnipresent, and it was as if he asked his male (zikhuro) organ (a type of divination), as it states (I Samuel 15:23), "For rebellion is like the sin of divination"; Shafat son of Chori, since he did not judge (shafat) his [evil] inclination, and he was made a hole (chori) from the earth; [The Midrash goes on to get any other examples of the different names of the spies, and how it portended their sinful behavior.]

On the other hand we can say Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel holds that in order to choose the name properly one must have Ruach Hakodesh, otherwise the name will not fit the person. In a situation, where one is lacking in the Ruach Hakodesh it is best to go with an ancestor’s name, because there will still be some kind of consonance with the overall Middos of the family. 

And in most of the biblical narratives, the names are related to events, past or future. In Megillas Rus, you couldn’t have a better predictor of doom and early death than the names Machlon and Kilyon, which means sickness and destruction. Where those their actual names? Or is it something that was inserted as an editorial by Ruach Hakodesh? Or were their names similar or had different implications when they were born? I don’t know. Sometimes biblical characters name their children ugly names, too, simply to commemorate the experience. We have ma’achah (Bereishis 22:24) which means smooshed. Does that mean that when the baby was born she came out malformed? I would say so. And what about Achran, which means “Ugly one” (Bamidbar 1:13). Even Binyamin is a complicated name, with mixed meanings. His mother named him after the pain she went through, as an expression of sorrow, and perhaps also dedication and sacrifice. However, since his mother died during childbirth, his father re-purposed his name with a more optimistic connotation (Bereishis 15:18):

וַיְהִ֞י בְּצֵ֤את נַפְשָׁהּ֙ כִּ֣י מֵ֔תָה וַתִּקְרָ֥א שְׁמ֖וֹ בֶּן־אוֹנִ֑י וְאָבִ֖יו קָֽרָא־ל֥וֹ בִנְיָמִֽין׃

But as she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni (son of my pain); but his father called him Benjamin (right-hand son).

It is hard to imagine a culture without the free and cheap use of written media, let alone photographs and such. In an oral culture, they did not have family picture albums. At such a momentous event like the birth of a child, giving a name that describes the circumstances of the birth served as a mnemonic to recall the events. It is like a verbal photo album.

Pele Yoetz 381 takes a strong stand on the value of choosing a name that recalls, and then engenders gratitude for God's kindness regarding the circumstances of the birth or future aspirations. He says, “A name expressing gratitude toward God and hoping for future benefit is worth seven times that of naming after an ancestor.”

Intuitively, it would seem a chosen name subliminally and psychologically influences a child. My name is Simcha. Did it somehow make me feel more happy? I don’t know. There is an interesting study that discovered that the name itself does not seem to influence attitude, however, the phonetic structure and expression of the name does seem to have impact. There are certain words and letter combinations that are stronger and harsher and others that are softer, kind of like music. Here is what researchers Sidhu, Deschamps, Bourdage and  Pexman report (“Does the name say it all? Investigating phoneme-personality sound symbolism in first names.“, August 2019Journal of Experimental Psychology):

Sound symbolism has typically been demonstrated as an association between certain phonemes and perceptual dimensions (e.g., size or shape). For instance, the maluma-takete effect is the sound symbolic association between sonorant and voiceless stop phonemes and round and sharp visual shapes, respectively. Here we explored a novel association between phonemes and a more abstract dimension: personality. Further, although sound symbolism has often been examined using nonwords, here we studied it in the context of existing first names….

…We found that participants associated these with different personality factors from the HEXACO model of personality. In general, names with sonorant phonemes (e.g., Mona, Owen) were associated with high Emotionality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, whereas names with voiceless stop phonemes (e.g., Katie, Curtis) were associated with high Extraversion. 

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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