The name Tikla
Udi Cain
I got a reply for my question with regard to a name that I found in the
back of my maternal G'grandmother's tombstone from 1965. She ordered to
put the names of the relatives who were murdered in the holocaust,
on her grave. One was Tikla, daughter of Rabbi Abraham and her daughter.
"The name Teckla or Tikla is a Ukrainian name. It was used by Jews and
non-Jews alike. It is still used today although not common.
I just returned from Ukraine where I met a woman with this name and was
given that explanation."
I think that Tikla was the Hebrew name of my maternal grandfather's cousin,
Trude. They lived in Rogazen, Prussia until the end of WW I and then went
to Berlin. They were from the Loszynski (pronounced Loshinski) family,
which I had already suspect, that they came from Russia to Prussia, maybe
in the 18th century, I've found Lozinski from Dobrisk.
I'm still confused with the name Tikla, mainly because the names on the
tombstone were the Hebrew names of people from whom few were called other
names in Berlin,
Someone suggested that it was misreading and it might had been Tikva, but
as I answered her:
The cemetery in Sanhedria, Jerusalem, is a very preserved one,
The tombstone is in perfect shape.
and the Lammed is Lammed.
Taf Kuf Lammed Heh.
Since my English is not my "best side", I hope that my "thinking aloud" on
the note makes any sense.
Any idea?
Regards from Jerusalem,
Udi Cain (Chaikin)
Names: CHAIKIN; SALASNIK; WOLODARSKI; TROTSKI; HALBEZ/GULBEZ;
(Russia & Ukraine)
LOSZYNSKI/LOSHINSKI; ARENHEIM; BIEBER; WRESCHNER; OPPENHEIMER; BADT;
NATHANSON; JACOBI; (Prussia & Berlin)
mailto:cha...@netvision.net.il
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Judith Romney Wegner
In answer to your message below, concerning your ancestor whose name was
rendered TQLH on her stone, it does not follow that this was a "Hebrew"
name (as you put it), even if she used it as her "Jewish" name or her only
name. For reasons given below, it is very unlikely that this name is based
on the Hebrew root TQL -- it is probably a transliteration of the Greek
name Thekla. As you yourself say, someone told you that the name Tekla or
Tikla was commonly used in the Ukraine by Jews and Gentiles alike. I
would assume that this is simply the Ukrainian version of the name Thekla
- (just as Thecla is the Latin version). Thekla was a disciple of St. Paul
in the first century, and is considered the first female Christian martyr!
The Byzantine (Gk.Orthodox) churches flourished in the Ukraine, which would
certainly explain why Thekla was a big name there.
The reason I would place a heavy bet that the name TQLH is not derived from
Hebrew at all is that the Hebrew root T-Q-L has only one set of
connotations, all of them very bad and therefore highly unlikely to be
given to any child as a birthname: the noun TQLH in Hebrew (sometimes
vocalized as TaQQaLaH and sometimes as TeQaLah) means as follows (acc. to
the Alcalay dictionary):
"Obstacle, hindrance, hurdle, stumbling block; fault; failure, hitch,
offence; incident, accident, mishap, diaster, misfortune." This is surely
not a name that a parent would give to any child (not even to one who was
in fact conceived by accident or whose birth was considered, God forbid, a
misfortune!).
The same spelling , in a slightly different grammatical form, teqalah,
also appears in the mahzor for the High Holy Days, near the end of the
Shemoneh Esreh. Birnbaum translates it "offense."
If this were my ancestor, I would conclude that she had a non-Hebrew name
(namely, Thekla) which just coincidentally happened to transliterate
into the letters TQLH -- but has absolutely no actual connection with
Hebrew language as such.
Judith Romney Wegner
>Dear JewishGenners,
>
>I got a reply for my question with regard to a name that I found in the
>back of my maternal G'grandmother's tombstone from 1965. She ordered to
>put the names of the relatives who were murdered in the holocaust,
>on her grave. One was Tikla, daughter of Rabbi Abraham and her daughter.
>
>"The name Teckla or Tikla is a Ukrainian name. It was used by Jews and
>non-Jews alike. It is still used today although not common.
>I just returned from Ukraine where I met a woman with this name and was
>given that explanation."
>
>I think that Tikla was the Hebrew name of my maternal grandfather's
>cousin, Trude. Someone suggested that it was misreading and it might had
>been Tikva, but as I answered her:
> The cemetery in Sanhedria, Jerusalem, is a very preserved one,
>The tombstone is in perfect shape.
>and the Lammed is Lammed.
>Taf Kuf Lammed Heh.
>Udi Cain
mailto:j...@Brown.edu
Viktor.Tsiporine
> Dear JewishGenners,
>
> I got a reply for my question with regard to a name that I found in the
> back of my maternal G'grandmother's tombstone from 1965. She ordered to
> put the names of the relatives who were murdered in the holocaust,
> on her grave. One was Tikla, daughter of Rabbi Abraham and her daughter.
>
> "The name Teckla or Tikla is a Ukrainian name. It was used by Jews and
> non-Jews alike. It is still used today although not common.
> I just returned from Ukraine where I met a woman with this name and was
> given that explanation."
>
> I think that Tikla was the Hebrew name of my maternal grandfather's
> cousin, Trude.
Hello,
I think it deals very probably about the greco-slavic name Thekla
(russian: Fekla), quite frequently used in the christl.-ortodox. space
till the II. WW. It is present in the russian name calendar:
St. Thekla, aged virgin, martyred at Iconium.
Regards.
mailto:
Udi Cain
It's very interesting that a religious cousin of mine who was given the
name Judith, told me that she found out that Judith (Jewish female) is very
popular amongst Christians. Why do I raise that fact? Because in the first
century A.D. a woman that had anything to do with the beginning of
Christianity, had to be either a pagan name, or Jewish name. The name is
not common amongst us Jews, but it can be of Jewish origin. our Tikla's
G'grandfather was the "Dayan" Rabbi Wreschner, who is considered as the
"right hand" of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. Although they turned secular in her
generation, they would have used a Hebrew origin name (I am 99% sure that
her local name was Trude). So just like Judith who killed Holparness (I
hope I spell it right), Thekla became a popular name in Christian circles.
Regards, Udi Cain.
>Dear Udi,
Thekla was a disciple of St. Paul
>in the first century, and is considered the first female Christian martyr!
>The Byzantine (Gk.Orthodox) churches flourished in the Ukraine, which
>would certainly explain why Thekla was a big name there.
>
>Judith Romney Wegner
mailto:cha...@netvision.net.il
Judith Romney Wegner
>
>It's very interesting that a religious cousin of mine who was given the
>name Judith, told me that she found out that Judith (Jewish female) is very
>popular amongst Christians. Why do I raise that fact? Because in the first
>century A.D. a woman that had anything to do with the beginning of
>Christianity, had to be either a pagan name, or Jewish name. The name is
>not common amongst us Jews, but it can be of Jewish origin. our Tikla's
>G'grandfather was the "Dayan" Rabbi Wreschner, who is considered as the
>"right hand" of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. Although they turned secular in her
>generation, they would have used a Hebrew origin name (I am 99% sure that
>her local name was Trude). So just like Judith who killed Holparness (I
>hope I spell it right), Thekla became a popular name in Christian circles.
>
>Regards, Udi Cain.
>
Dear Uri,
All well and good (it was Holofernes whom Judith killed), but your analogy
between Judith and Thekla is false, not the least because your argument is
an "argument from silence." We *know* that the Judith in the Apocrypha
story was a Jewish person (whether historical or mythical makes
no difference here). But we haven't a shred of evidence for the name
Tikla as being Jewish (the original Thekla was a gentile disciple of St.
Paul), and as I said before, the root meaning of T-Q-L in Hebrew is so
negative that I am quite sure it never was given as a Hebrew name.
Many Jewish women in secular cultures are given names that are either from
the New Testament or otherwise of Christian origin -- for instance I know a
quite orthodox Jewish woman called Catherine, -- and my own middle name
happens to be Priscilla (a New Testament gentile woman) after my Victorian
grandmother Priscilla Cohen. But, one learns to live with it ....
Judith Romney Wegner
mailto:j...@Brown.edu
Udi Cain
It's a pleasure "debating" with you, and thank you for sharing us with
your huge spring of knowledge. Please don't forget that our modern Hebrew
had awaked, just like the Phoenix, about 100 years ago, mostly, thanks to
people like Eliezer Ben Yehuda.
Bear in mind that ancient Hebrew was influenced by canaanite languages as
from ancient Egypt and the languages that were used in the Mesopotamia and
Persia.
Many words were "lost" to the Hebrew, and many were "found" in the 19th
century. People like Hyman Arenheim (Who was a Rabbi and interpreter who
knew ancient Greek just like Hebrew, German and many more, and was the
G'uncle of our Tikla, and my uncle Josef Loszynski who got shot in the old
city of Jerusalem while fighting as soldier in IDF in 1948, also got that
bless and knew seven languages) brought to life ancient frozen words.
T-Q-L is by all means the Hebrew word for To relieve, so why not base your
explanation on that?
We know that some times, two words are becoming one, as name, like
BenYamin; Eliezer; Yehoshua and many more. So why not Takel-Lah (Get her
Relieve) that became Takelah?
Regards, Udi Cain.
MODERATOR NOTE: Please continue this discussion privately, as we are
drifting away from genealogy.
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