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I would write something sensible-esque here but the I'm just not that sort of person - sorry!

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Religious Names

Isn't it odd how you can find Christians who are named "Christian" (Hans Christian Andersen), Muslims who are named "Muslim" (Muslim ibn al-Hajjaaj) but never any Jews who are named "Jew". It may possibly have something to do with what each of the three terms mean. As far as I am aware, Christian is some sort of derivation of Christ, Muslim is a fourth form active participle of the arabic verb sa-la-ma meaning "one who submits" and Jew is a derivation from Judea/Judah. Even so, this alone does not explain why you can't find Jews who are named Jew...

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