The Jeff Malka Sephardic Collection

Given Names in the Sephardic Diaspora

The present database covers 1,484 given names, their various spellings and their diminutives born in medieval Spain, in the countries all around the Mediterranean Basin, in the three north-European communities of: Amsterdam, Hamburg and London as well as in the Caribbean.

Each name has the following details provided: the name, its root name if dealing with a variant or diminutive, the gender, the language, the meaning, the place where it was first found and its source, and the diminutives of the root names.

Selection of Names:
The names are Jewish but also vernacular ones especially among women. The male vernacular names are mostly those that were used as “classical” equivalents of Jewish names, such as Albert for Abraham or Maurice/Moritz for Moshe.

Because of the variety of sources, the many languages the names are written in, and the different transliteration rules from an alphabet to another, the number of spellings for a single name is large. The numerous diminutives are the result of the diversity of cultural environments Sephardim lived in.

Gender:
The gender is given because it is not always obvious.

Language:
This is the language in which the name is given. Sometimes names are a compound of two elements from two different languages. In other cases it was impossible to determine the original language as in cases where it could be Spanish or Italian – two languages with very strong Latin roots. In such cases the Language is entered as Spanish or Italian.

Meaning:
A meaning is provided for all the names except eight where it was unclear.
In addition to the strict meaning, the following details were added.

• For biblical names, the role in the Bible and the exact citation (Book name Chapter : Verse).
• Many biblical names do not appear transliterated from Hebrew spelled such as Yosef, Shmuel, Yaakov but with their “foreign” spelling such as Joseph, Samuel, Jacob. These last spellings. are the versions found in the Septuagint and Vulgata first translations of the Bible in foreign languages of the original Hebrew names. In the present database, this detail has been shortened to: “Septuagint and Vulgata version of”.
• Several short explanations about the name choice and/or frequency.
• Vernacular or Hebrew equivalent, if known
• “See” reference in order to indicate that the root name is listed.
• “See also” reference to names with a similar meaning.

Place and Source:
The aim of this place/source list was to cover all the parts of the Sephardic Diaspora. This is why the sources are not only published material but also archival material mostly computerized and posted on www.SephardicGen.com (SG) and even several diminutives current in Morocco and Bulgaria or Serbian based on my personal knowledge.

Once the sources were compiled, there were no planned order for examining the sources and extracting the names from them. A name with a specific spelling as well as the place/source where it was found was entered only once. From that point on, only a different spelling of the already included name, from the same or a different place/source, was entered.

Below is a table of places and sources.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the tremendous contributions and lifelong dedication of Mathilde Tagger, z"l who made this index available. For many years, and right until her untimely death, Mathilde Tagger was a very close friend and collaborator with Jeff Malka. Together they worked to promote Sephardic genealogy research and educate the public about its enormous potential.

In addition, we express our grateful appreciation to Dr. Jeff Malka for his monumental ongoing effort to collect and make accessible Sephardic genealogical information, and for his generosity in contributing his extraordinarily valuable collection to JewishGen.

Search the Database

This collection can be searched by via the JewishGen Sephardic Database, the JewishGen Jeff Malka Collection or the JewishGen Sephardic Collection