The Name "Edith"

[RC Klein]

I was recently looking up the history of the name Edith, and I would like to share with you a little-known source.

According to Wikipedia, Edith is a female given name, derived from the Old English words ēad, meaning 'riches or blessed'. This was interesting to me because my late mother was named "Edith" (actually Edit in Hungarian as she was from Slovakia) and her Hebrew named was Bracha. Anyways, I'm wondering how an Old English word became a popular Hungarian Jewish name.

I've found very early Jewish sources in which the name Edith seems to appear, although it's hard to exactly because there are quite a few variants: According to some Midrashic traditions, it seems that Lot's wife was named Edith or something like that. In all editions of Sefer ha-Yashar, her name is given as עדית. I didn't yet have a chance to consult with the manuscripts of Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (available here), but the standard editions of Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (ch. 25) that I have seen so far give Lot's wife's name as עידית. In the Higer edition of Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, her name is given as אשעורית which is similar to the version found in Moshav Zekanim: עורית. Nachmanides (to Gen. 19:17) reads: עירית while Pirush ha-Tur ha-Aruch (Gen. 19:26) reads: עיסית. Different editions of Yalkut Shimoni (Vayera 84) give her name differently: some have עירית some have עידית. In a tradition which completely differs from all of this, Sefer ha-Pliyah records her name as מלח.

Kol Tuv,

Reuven Chaim Klein

Beitar Illit, Israel

Check out my book Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew

[Yigal Levin]

Shalom Reuven.

 

According to the Wikipedia article you cited, Edith was very popular all over Europe in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, which, I would guess, is how your grandmother got it. Many Jews, especially women but also men, commonly used their "secular" names, while their "Hebrew" names (which were often actually Yiddish) were used mostly for mi-sheberachs and the likes.

 

Interestingly, עידית is also a very common Israeli name. In Hazal, עידית is the best, most fertile, land, as opposed to בינונית and זיבורית. I don't know how that meaning evolved, but I don't know of it being used as a personal name before modern times. My uneducated guess would be that early Zionists, many of whom had yeshiva backgrounds, "adopted" the popular European name and gave it a Hebrew-agricultural meaning, which is why it’s spelled with an ayin and not an aleph. And then, once it was known as a "Hebrew" name, it remained popular precisely because it's "bi-lingual".

 

Yigal

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[Alexandre Beider]

I think you try to establish a link based on a fortuitous coincidence of several letters, a link that is anachronistic.

Edit was a popular given name in Hungary not only among Jews, but also Catholics. Jews just started to use it (most likely, during the 19th century) as a fashionable name borrowed from the Christian majority. Usually, in such scenario the new fashionable name was replacing some internal, Yiddish, name. Most likely, in this case, Edit was replacing E(y)del 'noble' used by Jews since the Middle Ages.

Alexander

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[Dan Nussbaum]

My grandmother's sister was given the name Ita when she was born in Ukraine in 1890. When she came to the States she took the name Edith.

Daniel Nussbaum II, M.D., FAAP
Retired Developmental Pediatrician
Rochester, New York

Tone can be misinterpreted in email. Please read my words with warmth, kindness, and good intentions.

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