Amharic Names and Hebraized Names of Ethiopian Jews

This paper deals with the general features of the naming system of Ethiopian Jews in Ethiopia and Israel, with special emphasis on the latter. For most of those born in Ethiopia, the names were of Amharic origin, while for a few, they were from Tigrinya. Hebrew or Biblical names, on the other hand, were bestowed on those born in Israel and those who arrived in Israel in the 1980s. When Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel in the 1980s, they were bestowed with Biblical or Hebrew names, sometimes on the basis of phonetic similarity or semantic matching with Amharic names. However, in many instances, the names were assigned arbitrarily. The new names were claimed to accelerate the immigrants’ integration into mainstream Israeli society. However, educated Ethiopian Jews saw the name change as a pressure applied by the rabbinical establishment to erase their cultural identity. In the past few years, acts of discrimination led some youth whose names were Hebraized to return to their original Amharic name as a defiance towards the past hegemonic practice.