HUNGARIAN SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (H-SIG)
A Jewish-Gen SIG
http://www.jewishgen.org/Hungary/

Jewish Naming Customs in Hungary from the Turn of the Twentieth Century until the Holocaust

Kinga Frojimovics
 The 23^rd International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, July 20-25, 2003, Washington DC

Abstract

Jewish Naming Customs in Hungary From the Turn of the Twentieth Century Until the Holocaust

    My aim is to describe the fundamentally different naming customs of the Neology and the Orthodoxy in Hungary from the turn of the twentieth Century until the Holocaust. The differences can be seen not only in the family names and the first names, which is quite well researched, but also in the Hebrew/Yiddish names. My analysis is based upon the names in the registers of births of four important Jewish communities: the Orthodox Jewish communities of Eger and Paks, and the Neolog Jewish communities of Kecskemét and Zalaszentgrót.

    From the point of view of the history of the Jews in Hungary, the period I am concerned with can be divided into two sub-periods. The first, the second half of the era of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, was a period of assimilation promoted by the liberal Hungarian political elite. For example, a massive wave of name-magyarization characterized this period. In the second period, after the First World War, a Conservative-Christian political elite rose to power in Hungary. Against the previous assimilation-promoting policy, they adopted a nationalist, exclusive policy towards the religious and/or ethnic minorities of Hungary. I shall analyze the names accumulated in the four registers of births between 1890-1910 and between 1920-1940.

    The simultaneous examination of the Jewish first, family, and Hebrew names enables us to analyze complex historical processes within the Jewish society. While the first and family names inform us about the relationship between Jews and the surrounding society, the Hebrew names show the different relationship of the Jews belonging to the two major religious trends to the Jewish traditions.

Types of Names

Family Names

Table 1: Types of the Orthodox family names between 1890 and 1940

Table 2: Types of the Neolog family names between 1890 and 1940

 
Hebrew family names: The most frequent Hebrew family names are: Kohn and Lévi (or variations of Levi such as Lőwy, Lövy and Lövi). These two names make up the 80% of the total occurrences of Hebrew family names within the examined Orthodox communities, and  87,5% of the examined Neolog communities.

Slav family names: The most frequent Slav family names consist of two parts. The first part is either a Hebrew/Yiddish name, or a Hebrew/Yiddish name with a diminutive suffix. The second part is an attached -vics/vits/vitz (somebody’s son). Examples: Davidovits (son of Dávid), Jontovics (son of Jom Tov), Lebovits (son of Leb), and Berkovics (son of Beer-ko), Herskovits (son of Hers/Hirs-ko), Moskovits (son of Mose-ko). Within the examined Orthodox communities these types of names make up the 44% of the total number of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities these types of names make up the 33% of the total number of the family names.

German family names: There are no dominant types. However, we can see that within the examined Orthodox communities the most frequent 3 names—Schwarcz, Weisz, and Klein—make up the 22% of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities the most frequent 3 names—Weisz, Steiner, and Stein—make up the 11.5% of the family names.

Hungarian family names: There are no dominant types.

First Names (Given Names)

Table 3: Orthodox and Neolog first names between 1890 and 1940

 
Until the First World War

The 10 most frequent male first names listed according to their frequency are:  Sándor (142), József (117), László (82), István (82), Imre (78), Jenő (75), Gyula (50), Béla (50), Miklós (48), Ferencz (47), György (46), Pál (39). These names, or their variations,  were given to the 52% of the male babies.

The most frequent male first names given by the Orthodoxy are: Sándor (69), József (73), Jenő (39), Imre (36), Béla (32) and Miklós (32).

The most frequent male first names given by the Neology are: Sándor (73), József (63), István (62), László (51), Imre (42).

The 10 most frequent female first names, listed according to their frequency are:  Erzsébet (129), Ilona (122), Róza (106), Margit (101), Mária (65), Júlia (46), Gizella (44), Sarolta (36), Anna (34), Jolán (29). These names, or their variations,  were given to the 49.6% of the female babies. Concerning female first names there are no differences between the Orthodoxy and the Neology.

Inter-War Period

The most frequent male first names given by the Orthodoxy are: Sándor, György, László.

The most frequent male first names given by the Neology are: István, Sándor, József.

The most frequent female first names given by the Orthodoxy are: Éva, Judit, Róza.

The most frequent female first names given by the Neology are: Éva, Magda/Magdolna, Zsuzsanna.

Hebrew Names

Table 4: Orthodox and Neolog Hebrew names between 1890 and 1940

 
The most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Orthodoxy listed according to their frequency are: Jichak (32), Avraham (30), Joszef (30), Mose (28), Mordechaj (23), Jakov (22).

The most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Neology listed according to their frequency are: Avraham (44), Jichak (40), Joszef (35), Mose (34), Haim (22), Jakov (22).

The most frequent Yiddish names given by both trends were: Beer (Hebrew: Dov), Hirsch or Hers (Hebrew: Cvi), Leb (Hebrew: Arje) and Wolf (Hebrew: Zeev).

The most frequent female Hebrew names (they are Hebrew or Yiddish) given by the Orthodoxy listed according to their frequency are: Rahel (43), Eszter (41), Hana (38), Lea (37), Sara (35), Rivka (30) Mirjam (27), Gitl (25), Bela (23), Rezl (20), Jentl (13), Jitl (13), Mindl (13) Perl (12).

The most frequent female Hebrew names (they are Hebrew or Yiddish) given by the Neology listed according to their frequency are: Bela and Bile (68), Blima and Blime  (53), Bluma and Blumele  (47), Certl and Cetl (26), Bracha  (21), Brindl  (18), Buna (15), Ciperl (11).

 Article

By embracing Christianity through baptism, a person becomes a Christian and wins admittance into the Christian society. The same way, by Magyarizing his name, by embracing this “national baptism,” a Hungarian person with an alien name becomes completely and irrevocably part of the Hungarian society, becomes a true son of the nation. From social and patriotic points of view, this latter kind of baptism is even more important than the first kind, since while the first kind of baptism gives only a first name and a religion, the Magyarization of one’s name changes the entire family’s name. By that it strengthens our faith in one another, assists equality, in other words, it has an important ethical role in the gathering and keeping together of our nation. 

A Hungarian name is virtually a declaration of political faith for a Hungarian. The Hungarian identity and sensibility of a person who bears a Hungarian name cannot be doubted, since it is possible to change one’s Hungarian name into something else if one does not want to be a Hungarian any more.[9]

The politician Zoltán Lengyel argued for name-Magyarization within the framework of a democratic civil political program:

There is no creative work without democracy. There is no democracy without a civil society. There is no civil society without national unity. There is no national unity without the dominance of the national language. And the trade mark of the dominance of the national language is the dominance of national names.[10]

        The attitude towards the assimilation of ethnic groups viewed as alien by the Hungarian society, changed dramatically in the inter-war period. As a consequence of the Trianon Peace treaty, which followed the end of the First World War, Hungary lost more than two-thirds of its territory. Moreover, from being part of a multinational European power, it suddenly became a small nation-state surrounded by hostile countries. In the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Hungarian nation could ensure its advantage in numbers, its hegemony that is, over other ethnic groups only by consciously assimilating—at least as far as linguistic and cultural Magyarization goes—those members of other ethnic groups who were willing to assimilate. After the First World War, after becoming a small nation-state, Hungary did not need this strategy any more. The majority of the ethnic groups that threatened the Hungarian hegemony in the previous era, lived in those territories which were cut off from the country at the Trianon Peace treaty. Both the Hungarian public and the political elite viewed the ethnic groups that had remained in Hungary—mostly Germans, Slovaks, Rumanians, and Jews—as internal enemies.

Thus, in the inter-war period, name-Magyarization was certainly not promoted officially. After 1919, for instance, the trustworthiness of every person who applied for Magyarizing his/her name was checked from the point of view of fidelity to the Hungarian nation. In other words, the applicant’s behavior during the revolutions of 1918/1919 was examined. Moreover, the applicant had to prove that he/she was not “unworthy of wearing a Hungarian name” [11] As a consequence of these restrictive measures, the name-Magyarizing movement strongly declined in the 1920s. The name-Magyarizing of the Jews declined even more sharply. While during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Jews constituted more then 50% of the people who Magyarized their names, in the year of 1920, they constituted only 13% of the total name-Magyarizing population. This proportion decreased even further: between 1923 and 1929, Jews constituted only 2,2% of the total name-Magyarizing population. From 1938—the year of the codification of the first (anti)-Jewish law—every application for name-Magyarization by a Jew was turned down, even though the name-Magyarization of Jews was never officially prohibited.[12]

Contemporaries, such as the leading Hungarian statistician of the inter-war period, Alajos Kovács, also realized the decline of the name-Magyarization movement within the Jewish community. The anti-Semitic Alajos Kovács by mixing up causes and effects wrote the following: “As a consequence of the experiences of Communism [the Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919) – F.K.] a certain distrust concerning the Jewry can be sensed. Owing to this, the Jews, themselves, do not make efforts to Magyarize their names since the war.”[13]

Keeping this historical background in mind, let us examine the assimilational strategies and tendencies of the Jews belonging to the two major Jewish religious trends in Hungary, as far as it can be detected in the process of name-Magyarization.

I established five categories according to the origin of the family names: Hebrew, Hungarian, German, Slav, and other. The next two tables show the types of family names worn by the Orthodox and the Neolog Jews of the examined Jewish communities:

Table 1: Types of the Orthodox family names between 1890 and 1940

Table 2: Types of the Neolog family names between 1890 and 1940

 The two Tables show that the overwhelming majority of the family names of the Jews in Hungary was German, even in the period stretching from the turn of the century until the Holocaust. More than 85% of the family names in the examined Orthodox communities was German. Within the Neolog communities the proportion of the German family names was also high; it was almost 70% of the total number of family names. There are, however, significant differences between the two trends.

After the German names, the most frequent ones were the Hungarian and the Slav names among the Orthodox family names. Both of them made up about 6% of the family names. The family names with Hebrew origin made up the 3.1% of the names. Within the examined Neolog communities we can see that the order of frequency of the family names according to their origins is different. After the German names, the Hungarian family names were the most frequent. They made up almost one-fourth of the family names. The Hebrew family names constituted 3 % of the names and the Slav names made up 2.8% of the names. It is obvious, thus, that the Neologs Magyarized their names more frequently than the Orthodox families. In other words, the Neologs used more frequently the means of name-Magyarization to demonstrate their readiness to assimilate than the Orthodox Jews.

If we compare the decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with the inter-war period, the difference between the two trends becomes even more pronounced. While in the inter-war years the proportion of the German family names slightly decreased within the Orthodox communities, the proportion of the Hungarian names also decreased (from 6% to 5.1%). The proportion of the Slav names remained unchanged, and the proportion of the Hebrew names significantly increased (from 2.5% to 5.9%). This does not mean, of course, that the families bearing German or Hungarian names have changed their names into Hebrew ones. Most probably, more new people joined the examined Orthodox Jewish communities who had Hebrew or Slav family names, than German or Hungarian names. It is clear, however, that name-Magyarization became even less popular within the examined Orthodox communities between the two world wars than in the previous period, in which it was already markedly less popular in their circles than within the examined Neolog communities.

In the case of the Neologs we can witness an opposite tendency concerning Hungarian family names. Between the two world wars, the proportion of the German family names significantly decreased from 70.4% to 61.8%. The proportion of the Slav names also decreased slightly from 3.1% to 2.3%. The proportion of the Hebrew family names slightly increased, from 2.8% to 3.5%, and drastically increased the proportion of the Hungarian names, from 21.9% to 29.8%. Thus, we can observe, that in the inter-war period almost one-third of the Neologs wore Hungarian family names. This signifies that the Neologs were still inclined to follow the policy of assimilation in a predominantly rejecting social milieu.

Let us now briefly assess the various types of family names. The most frequent Hebrew family names were: Kohn and Lévi (or variations of Levi such as Lőwy, Lövy and Lövi).  These two names made up the 80% of the total occurrences of Hebrew family names within the examined Orthodox communities, and  87,5% of the examined Neolog communities. Besides the two most frequent names, Daniel, Katz, and Sofer also appeared a few times. Sofer was the name of the Rabbi dynasty of Eger.

The most frequent Slav family names in both the Neolog and the Orthodox communities consisted of two parts. The first part is either a Hebrew/Yiddish name, or a Hebrew/Yiddish name with a diminutive suffix. The second part is an attached -vics/vits/vitz (somebody’s son), such as Davidovits (son of Dávid), Jontovics (son of Jom Tov), Lebovits (son of Leb), and Berkovics (son of Beer-ko), Herskovits (son of Hers/Hirs-ko), Moskovits (son of Mose-ko). Within the examined Orthodox communities these types of names made up the 44% of the total number of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities these types of names made up the 33% of the total number of the family names. Therefore, the majority of the Slav names can be viewed as Hebrew names, since one can recognize their Hebrew/Yiddish bases. The name “Pollák,” which means Polish, was widespread in both trends.

There were no dominant family names among the German and the Hungarian names. They were remarkably diverse. However, we can see that within the examined Orthodox communities the most frequent 3 names—Schwarcz, Weisz, and Klein—made up the 22% of the family names. Within the examined Neolog communities the most frequent 3 names—Weisz, Steiner, and Stein—made up the 11.5% of the family names. The Hungarian family names were even more diverse than the German ones. There were 49 different Hungarian family names in the Orthodox communities. 84% of these names—41 names in all—surfaced trice or less frequently in the registers of births. In the case of the Neologs, the 75% of the 118 Hungarian family names—89 name in all—appeared trice or less frequently in the registers.

Now let us turn our attention to the first names or given names.

Table 3: Orthodox and Neolog first names between 1890 and 1940

        The third table calls attention to an interesting and unexpected demographic phenomenon. We have 3082 first names from the period between 1890 and 1940. Thus, 3082 babies were born alive and received names in the four Jewish communities under scrutiny. Almost 54% of these babies were born in the two Orthodox communities. We can see that in the two examined decades of the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, between 1890 and 1910, more babies were born in the Orthodox communities than in the Neolog ones. Almost 55% of the babies were born in the Orthodox communities. This fits our expectations. However, in the inter-war period, we can detect an opposite tendency. Slightly more children were born in the two Neolog communities than in the two Orthodox ones. The 50.6% of the babies were born in the Neolog Jewish communities of Kecskemét and Zalaszentgrót in the inter-war period. Unexpectedly, thus, in the period between the two world wars, the natural growth within the examined Orthodox and the Neolog communities was about the same. It is also interesting in terms of demography, that all in all, in both examined periods, and in the communities of both trends more boys were born than girls. As far as naming customs are concerned, we can see that both the Neolog and the Orthodox parents used more different female first names than male first names. In the two Orthodox communities we can find 104 different male first names, and 107 female first names. In the Neolog communities there were 80 different male first names and 91 female first names.

The 10 most frequent male first names listed according to their frequency were:  Sándor (142), József (117), László (82), István (82), Imre (78), Jenő (75), Gyula (50), Béla (50), Miklós (48), Ferencz (47), György (46), Pál (39). These names, or their variations, were given to the 52% of the male babies. In both trends, the most frequently given names were Sándor (O 69, N 73) and József (O 73, N 63). Within the Orthodox communities, Jenő (39), Imre (36), Béla (32) and Miklós (32) followed the most frequent two names. These names, which were fashionable in contemporary Hungary, were given to 30% of the Orthodox boys. By contrast, in the Neolog communities, the two most frequent names were followed by István (62), László (51) and Imre (42). These names are the names of members of the first Hungarian royal dynasty, the Árpád dynasty, who became sainted during the middle ages. Thus, the Neologs show a preference for giving their children the names of the prominent characters of Christian Hungarian history. These names have a special Hungarian national connotation. These names also surface within the Orthodox communities, but the Neologs display an unmistakable preference for them. This is in complete harmony with the tendency which we have seen concerning the phenomenon of name-Magyarization. The Neologs resorted to the external signs of cultural assimilation more than the Orthodox Jews did. (The first five most frequent names—Sándor, József, István, László, Imre—were given to the 38% of the boys in the two Neolog communities in the examined periods.

The 10 most frequent female first names, listed according to their frequency were:  Erzsébet (129), Ilona (122), Róza (106), Margit (101), Mária (65), Júlia (46), Gizella (44), Sarolta (36), Anna (34), Jolán (29). These names, or their variations, were given to the 49.6% of the female babies between 1890 and 1940.

It is striking that the 5 most frequent female first names, both collectively and severally in the two trends, are typical Christian names connected to famous saints and to the mother of Jesus. Besides the non trend-specific dominance of these names, there are trend-specific characteristics as well. Three female first names, Jolán (21-8), Eszter (19-5) and Sarolta (31-5), were almost exclusively given by Orthodox parents. Two other names, Irma (17-3) and Katalin (21-6), on the other hand, were much more popular among Neolog parents than among Orthodox ones.

Since 85% of the examined births happened in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, between 1890 and 1910, the most frequent first names mirror mainly the naming customs of that period. In the inter-war period, we can find naming customs which markedly differ from the previous period. It is true about both trends that none of the names became as dominant as the male first names: Sándor and József, and the female first names: Erzsébet and Ilona, were in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Both trends employed more diverse names. However, we can still see that there were differences between the two trends. In the inter-war period, the most frequent male first names among the Orthodox Jews were Sándor, György, and László. By contrast, the most frequent male first names among the Neologs were still István, Sándor, and József. In the case of the Orthodox communities, we could see, thus, that the names had changed. They became more Hungarian to a certain extent. Within the Neolog communities, the dominance of the first names well-known from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy remained unchanged, still, there occurred a significant change. The name “István” became the most popular male first name. Thus, even though we have much less data from the inter-war period than from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, we can infer that the inclination of the Neologs towards assimilation did not much decrease in the midst of their now openly hostile surroundings.

In the inter-war period, the three most frequent female first names given by the Orthodox parents were Éva, Judit and Róza. Whereas, the most frequent female first names given by the Neologs were Éva, Magda or Magdolna, and Zsuzsanna. With the exception of “Róza,” thus, the names which were popular in the previous period had disappeared. They were replaced in both trends by such Biblical names that sounded familiar in Hungarian as well.

Finally, let us examine the naming customs concerning Hebrew or Synagogue-al names within the examined Jewish communities.

Table 4: Orthodox and Neolog Hebrew names between 1890 and 1940

By comparing the third and the fourth tables we can see that while we know the first names of  more than 1600 (1656) Orthodox babies, we know the Hebrew names of only about 1500 (1488) of them. The Hebrew names of 11% of the Orthodox babies were not recorded in the registers of births. In the case of the Neologs, the situation is even worse. The Hebrew names of 22% of the Neolog babies were not recorded in the registers of births. We have 1426 first names and only 1114 Hebrew names.

The most frequent male Hebrew names are almost without exception Biblical names connected to the period of the Patriarchs. The most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Orthodoxy listed according to their frequency are: Jichak (32), Avraham (30), Joszef (30), Mose (28), Mordechaj (23), and Jakov (22). Whereas, the most frequent male Hebrew names given by the Neology listed according to their frequency are: Avraham (44), Jichak (40), Joszef (35), Mose (34), Haim (22), and Jakov (22). These names were given to the one fifth of the Orthodox boys and to the one third of the Neolog boys. Thus, the trends are not very different in this respect.

The picture is different, however, if we consider the so called double names, consisting of two names. Double names have a long tradition in the Hebrew naming customs. Many double names were inspired by the Tanach. The most famous among them are those which are connected to the blessing of Jacob, that is when Jacob blessed his twelve sons. Customary double names which originate in Jacob’s blessing, for example, are Jehuda Arje,[14] or Jehuda Leb in its Yiddish form; Naftali Cvi,[15] or Naftali Hirsch in its Yiddish form; and Benjamin Zeev,[16] or Benjamin Wolf in its Yiddish form. Other double names, which also have their origins in the Bible, emphasize life by adding the name “Haim” to another name. Such double name is Joszef Haim[17] originating in the story in which Jacob’s sons tell the aged patriarch that not only Joseph is alive but he is doing very well in Egypt. Another wide-spread double name containing Haim is Jakov Haim,[18] which originates in the pasuk that tells us that Jacob lived in Egypt for 17 years. The double name, Jakov Joszef,[19] originates from the beginning of the story in which Joseph is sold by his brethren.

We can find these double names among the names of the Jews of Hungary belonging to both trends. However, from the names of the four examined Jewish communities we can extrapolate that the Orthodox Jews liked double names much more than the Neologs. Whereas 38% of the Orthodox boys wore double names, only the 25% of the Neolog boys were given such names.

Double names seem to be popular not only because of their Biblical origins, but because they allowed parents to give their children both Hebrew and Yiddish names. Almost one third of the Orthodox double names contained at least one Yiddish element. ((68 double names, 32 %)) 16% of the double names of the Neolog boys was Hebrew-Yiddish compounds. There were 19 such double names in my sample. Parents belonging to both trends gave Yiddish names which had only one component. If we add to the Hebrew-Yiddish double names the single-component Yiddish names, we can see an even more significant difference between the trends. 29% of the Orthodox boys wore Yiddish or partly Yiddish names. By contrast, only 14% of the Neolog boys had Yiddish or partly Yiddish names. The most frequent Yiddish names given by both trends were: Beer (in Hebrew: Dov), Hirsch or Hers (in Hebrew: Cvi), Leb (in Hebrew: Arje) and Wolf (in Hebrew: Zeev).

In the case of the female Hebrew names, there are traditionally more Yiddish names than Hebrew ones. The reason for this can be found in the fact that women, who were excluded from the active part of the services in the Synagogue such as aliah needed their Hebrew names much less frequently than men. In the examined Orthodox communities, the first seven most frequent female Hebrew names—Rahel (43), Eszter (41), Hana (38), Lea (37), Sara (35), Rivka (30), and Mirjam (27)—were Biblical Hebrew names, but the second seven most frequent female Hebrew names were Yiddish: Gitl (25), Bela (23), Rezl (20), Jentl (13), Jitl (13), Mindl (13), and Perl (12). These 14 names made up more than half , 53%, of the names of the girls.

In the Neolog communities, the dominance of the Yiddish names among the Hebrew names were even more pronounced. The most frequent female Hebrew names given by the Neologs listed according to their frequency were: Bela and Bile (68), Blima and Blime  (53), Bluma and Blumele  (47), Certl and Cetl (26), Bracha  (21), Brindl  (18), Buna (15), Ciperl (11). All of these names are in Yiddish, except Bracha, which is a Hebrew non-Biblical name. The first Biblical Hebrew Hebrew name, Dina, is at the eleventh place. It occurs only nine times. 

Within the examined Orthodox communities, male and female Hebrew names from the Tanach, chiefly the names of the patriarchs and the matriarchs, were wide-spread and popular. By contrast, although the examined Neolog communities preferred Hebrew Hebrew names for men, for women Neologs preferred Yiddish Hebrew names. 82% of the Neolog girls were given Yiddish, or partly Yiddish names. (414-91). By contrast, 51% of the Orthodox girls had Yiddish or partly Yiddish Hebrew names, and 49 % had Hebrew Hebrew names.

Double names or name pairs were popular among females as well. “Duvris Dvora” (9) and “Dvora Eszter” (8) were the most popular names within the Neolog communities. Among the Orthodox Jews, the most popular double name was Haja Sara. It surfaced 10 times, while other double names appeared only twice. Like many male double names, the name “Haja Sara” comes from the Tanach. Its origin is connected to the weekly portion that begins with the words “Haje Sara.”[20]

Now we can summarize our findings. The two major Jewish religious trends in Hungary, the Orthodoxy and the Neology, followed very different strategies concerning assimilation. Orthodox Jews met the minimal requirements of assimilation, the majority of them wore Hungarian first names already in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. However, Orthodox Jews displayed radically less readiness to Magyarize their family names than the Neologs. In other words, the Orthodox Jews were more reluctant to exhibit this highly visible sign of assimilation requiring an official-administrational process, than the Neologs. The Neologs, by contrast, not only participated in the name-Magyarizing movement much more actively then their Orthodox co-religonists, but they preferred to give their children first names signaling their belonging to the Hungarian nation even in the inter-war period, when the surrounding society became increasingly hostile. From the Hebrew or Synagogue-al names we could see that the trends had different attitudes towards the Jewish religious and cultural traditions. Orthodox Jews usually gave their male children Hebrew names from the Tanach or rather from the Torah. A significant portion of the Orthodox men, however, wore double Hebrew names one element of which was in Yiddish. The widespread  use of Yiddish components in the Hebrew name of Orthodox men used day by day in the Synagogue signifies that the element of Jewish culture which was connected to Yiddish was also a living tradition in some way. In the case of Neolog men we have found almost exclusively Hebrew Hebrew names. Contrary to the Orthodox naming custom, the Neologs gave Yiddish Hebrew names to most of the girls. Probably we have this abundance of Yiddish female Hebrew names, because for the Neologs, who were less well versed in the Tanach and the traditions than the orthodox Jews, it was easier to interpret Yiddish names with the help of their knowledge of German. They still preferred to give traditional Hebrew Hebrew names to the men who prayed in the synagogue even if not every single day. Hebrew-Yiddish double names as Hebrew names appear much less frequently among the Neologs. For the Neolog Jews religion and everyday life were separate realms, and the Yiddiskeit, those parts of the Jewish tradition that were connected to Yiddish disappeared from their lives almost without a trace. Neologs in Hungary, similarly to the liberal Jews in other countries, became part of the culture of their surroundings by the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Neologs, at least according to their self-assessment, became culturally and nationally Hungarian, that is, Hungarians of the Mosaic faith. This is mirrored clearly in the naming customs of the Neologs, especially if we compare and contrast them to the naming customs of the Orthodox trend.