An Israeli's Toughest Negotiation

Picking a baby name that satisfies two Jewish grandmothers makes Camp David look like a picnic.

He has no idea what was negotiated on his behalf.

Ten months ago, our second son was born. That meant it was time for one of the toughest negotiations of Israeli family life: picking a name.

My mother is Ashkenazi, born in Queens. In her view, you name a child after every relative who has passed away, and if you can fit four of them into two names, you have done well. My mother-in-law is a secular Israeli, and she considers this practice borderline abusive. “You are hanging the dead on a newborn,” she says. “You are loading a soul with weight it never asked for.”

I did what I always do. I went for the middle ground.

The plan was simple: We would pick a name that could plausibly be passed off to my in-laws as one that just sounded nice, while retaining subtle significance for my own mother. The baby would not bear the name of any dead person, but there would be a connection.

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So, what did we pick?