Personal Names
Soon after birth, children are given a personal first name that, in most cases, stays with them throughout their lives. By the Middle Ages, when infant baptism was the rule, Christian children received their names at a baptismal ceremony; his or her very existence, theologically and culturally, was linked with having a name.4 Jewish boys got their names at circumcision, Jewish girls on the first Sabbath after their birth or at their benediction a month later.5 Personal names are perpetuated after death by being given to a member of a new generation, and the practice in southern Italy, Greece, and many other places today is to give the paternal grandfather’s or grandmother’s name to the firstborn son or daughter and the maternal grandfather’s or grandmother’s name to the next child.6 Baptismal names might be altered during one’s lifetime by entering a monastery and acquiring a new name; in the Byzantine sphere this name commonly began with the same initial as the former name.7 In addition, given names might be amended or effaced by the use of nicknames, and in the later Middle Ages these nicknames often became, or were supplemented by, a surname. Our sources often reveal the personal and sometimes the family names of craftsmen and patrons, of clerics and laypeople who indicated their presence and some important elements of their identity in painted or incised texts. Names of the deceased are recorded by family or associates whose identity was somehow connected to theirs, and who therefore might indicate kinship, religion, age, or other components of identity as part of their commemoration. The most important part of being a recognized individual was, and remains, having a name, and ethnographic studies reveal that even in modern times, a Salentine baby is in a sense not really born until his or her name has been officially recorded.8
Jewish Names
Jews, and others, believed that there was an intimate connection between one’s name and one’s essence. The Hebrew word for soul, neshama, has as its stem the word shem, which means name.9 Midrashic literature contains many references to the power of names, and urges discretion in selecting a good name for a child inasmuch as the name itself might be an influence for good or for evil.10 According to the Talmud, it was meritorious to keep one’s Jewish name,11 and several midrashim noted that one of the reasons the Hebrews merited liberation from Egypt—and thus communal identity as Jews—was that they kept their Jewish names.12 Hebrew names were integral to their identity as Jews; at the same time, the Talmud recognized that many postexilic Jews had adopted the non-Jewish names found in their new environments.13 Acts 18:24 describes a learned Jew named Apollo who confessed Christ, undisturbed by any pagan religious connotations, and numerous epitaphs reveal that theophoric pagan names were common in antiquity.14 Apparently this continued into the Middle Ages; a thirteenth-century Ashkenazic treatise argues that Jews should not be taking the names of heathen idols or saints.15 Yet this was possible because male Jews had two names: a sacred name, the shem ha-kodesh, used in religious contexts and for such important life-cycle events as marriage and death, and a secular name, the kinnui, which could be anything at all but was often a vernacular translation of, or a name similar in sound to, the sacred name.16 A Hebrew name was required for males because it was the language of the celestial court; the angels, messengers of God, were monolingual, and the angel of death demanded one’s proper (Hebrew) name.17
The whole range of Jewish onomastic possibilities can be observed in the medieval Salento. Material evidence for local Jewish names comes exclusively from funerary inscriptions, which always record the sacred name but, unfortunately, do not postdate the tenth century, and a small number of carved synagogue texts. In order to expand this paltry data set, I also consider documentary and literary evidence from liturgical poetry, a family chronicle, letters, and a twelfth-century travel account.18 In addition, I include evidence from Bari and Trani, north of the Salento (but do not venture farther north to Siponto or inland to Venosa), and move back into the seventh/eighth century and forward into the fifteenth. Nevertheless, the sample of Jewish names remains so small that nothing can be said statistically about onomastic preferences; for this reason I have not noted how many individuals have a particular given name.
From the early period, seventh/eighth to twelfth century, special mention must be made of a Jewish “dynasty” from Oria, famous—if only legendarily—for successfully exempting their community from the conversion orders issued by the Byzantine emperors Basil I and Romanos I Lekapenos. In 1054, a genealogical chronicle (Megillat Yuhasin, “Scroll of Genealogy,” better known as Megillat Ahima‘az or the Chronicle of Ahima‘az) was completed by a family member who had settled in Capua, outside the Salento.19 Among the names associated with early medieval Oria are Ahima‘az, author of the work, and his forebears Amittai, Baruch [cf. 18, 50], Eleazar, Hassadiah, Papoleon, Shephatiah (who allegedly debated with Basil I in Constantinople),20 Abdiel, Hananel, Shemu’el (Samuel) [cf. 13, 123], and Paltiel. Theophoric names ending in –el, referring to God, were especially popular in Italy.21 Other names from Oria include Ahima‘az’s distant relative Shabbetai Donnolo [cf. 125, 131], a tenth-century philosopher, astrologer, physician, and acquaintance of Saint Neilos of Rossano,22 as well as Abraham, Yehoshaphat, and Hodijah. The flourishing Oria Jewish community disappears from the historical record in the tenth century, probably due to the city’s destruction during Arab raids in 925, after which the ancestors of Ahima‘az scattered to Amalfi, Benevento, and Capua.23
Additional Hebrew male names from the early period include Aaron, Amnon,24 Azariah, Benjamin, Caleb,25 Chiyya, David [11, 121], Elijah [10, 12], Ephraim, Evyatar, Ezekiel [123], Ezra, Isaiah, Israel, Jacob [126], Jeremiah, Joel, Jonah [18], Joseph [13, 136], Judah, Levi, Machir, Madai [14], Mali (probably Emanuel),26 Meir, Meiuchas, Menachem, Menashe [11], Mordechai, Moses [9, 10, 12, 14], Natan, Nuriel, Ribai [17], Shemaria, Sheshna, Solomon, Uriel, Yafeh Mazal [16], Zadok, and the poets Zebadiah and Menachem Corizzi.27 Greek and Latin names held by male Jews include Anatolius [124], Basil [134], Justus [124], Daudatus, Domnolus [125], Julius [81], Leon [121, 131], Silanus [123], Tophilo (Theophilos), Theophylact, and Ulsherago.28 Many of the Hebrew names have Greek equivalents: Jehoshaphat (or Shephatiah) corresponds to Theokritos and Shemaria to Theophylact.29
For the late Middle Ages, from the thirteenth to the first half of the fifteenth century, documents, diatribes, poetic acrostics, and epitaphs (only from Trani) show that many of the earlier Hebrew names were still popular. Additional ones include Adoniyah [149] (meaning “Lord”), Isaac, Menashe, Snya (?), Moses de Meli (a surname), and Tanhum [150].30 These are supplemented by such new assimilated names as Astruc, Gaudinus, James, Rubi(n), Sabatino Russo (the first name comes from “shabbat”), Sabinus, Sanban, Ubene, and even one Cristio Maumet, documented in Lecce in 1447.31 It is interesting to note that it was a lapsed Jew with the secular name Manoforte (or Manuforte), derived from a nickname, who persuaded King Charles I of Anjou to confiscate the Talmud and Jewish liturgical books in 1270.32
In sum, Italy had a stock of Hebrew names that were not common elsewhere: the aforementioned –el names, plus Ahima‘az, Amnon, Yehoshaphat, Natan, Shephatiah, Zadok. The latter are all names of early prophets or men associated with the Davidic line.33 Amnon, for instance, was David’s oldest son and apparent heir—until he raped his half sister Tamar and was killed by her brother Absalom. Unlike the Ashkenazim, who originated in Italy, southern Italian Jews did not hesitate to use names that had negative connotations elsewhere.
Because Jewish women did not require a shem ha-kodesh they had unlimited onomastic possibilities. Early female names in the region are Hebrew or Greek in origin: Cassia, Erpidia [132], Esther [133],Hannah [81],Leah [16], Naomi (?), Susanna, Yocheved [17], and Zipporah [17]; later female names include Stella