wdyt of

[pythianlegume7.livejournal.com]

Ishmael

too "Call me Ishmael"?

Comments

[snowowl.livejournal.com]

Way too Hebrew for my personal tastes. (I know Gentiles use Hebrew names to some extent, but they've been Hellenized/Latinized/Anglicized to a great extent; e.g. David is really supposed to be pronounced "thah - weeth.") But to each their own -- in any case I'm sure most people wouldn't associate the book with the name, especially in twenty years!

[freezemyazaleas.livejournal.com]

No, David is not supposed to be pronounced like that in Hebrew; where did you get that from? It's dah-VEED, which isn't too different from the Anglicized version. There is no "th" or "w" sound in Hebrew. I'm a fluent speaker, trust me.

[snowowl.livejournal.com]

Tell that to my Hebrew professor at university, then!

[th3-unicorn.livejournal.com]

maybe professor has a lisp?

[kitchen-poet.livejournal.com]

I'm with freezemyazaleas. Both the rabbi's sons named David I've met were Dah-VEEDs.

[crossingthesea.livejournal.com]

I third on the Dah-veed. Neither of those other sounds exist in Hebrew, professor or no.

[pythianlegume7.livejournal.com]

Well...I am actually Jewish, not a gentile. But I feel like that would actually make it weirder for me to use Ishmael (not that thats a huge possility to begin with).

But...my brother's Hebrew name is David and he definitely pronounces it Dah-veed. However neither of us do speak Hebrew so I wouldn't know what the proper pronunciation is anyway!

But are you saying that people won't associate Ishmael with Moby Dick in 20 years? I'm pretty sure that book will still be prevelent in 20 years...

[snowowl.livejournal.com]

Oh okay, I didn't realize you were Jewish! Most people aren't Jewish (obviously) and it strikes me as slightly odd that a non-Jew would want to name their kid after someone else's ethnicity -- it just seems kind of weird to me, maybe because the people who are most prone to it seem to care very little about the culture they're taking it from and do it to be hip. Not everyone is that way, but I guess that's where I get my aversion to stuff like that.

I'm going by what my uni professor taught us in the semester I took Hebrew, but maybe there are different dialects of Hebrew or he was just totally off his rocker, I have no idea! He made a big point about the differences in class, though.

I've never read Moby Dick, and was associating the name with a popular modern novel called Ishmael...it's being used as required reading material for freshmen in colleges across the U.S. and is a big thing right now. Oops. :P

[th3-unicorn.livejournal.com]

too much lisp, for me (because of the Ish sound)
Ismael (EEZ-mah-el) is ok.

[kitchen-poet.livejournal.com]

Actually, I like Ishmael because it is so Melville-esque. Although, if I were to meet a real life Ishmael I would suppose his parents were Jewish and/or from Nantucket or had historical ties to Massachusetts.

Can you tell Ismael is a guilty pleasure of mine? I'm saving Ishmael, Ichabod, and Ulysses for cats. :)

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

No, too "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOUR PARENTS THINKING!?"

[laminy.livejournal.com]

Very too "Call me Ishmael." And other than that, I just don't like it.

[arbus.livejournal.com]

too "Call me Ishmael"?

yup.

[alexandria-skye.livejournal.com]

"call me ishmael" is what i think of, just because of a hokey high school marching band show i saw based off of moby dick. they had quotes voiced over at the beginning of the movements... "a whale! a whale!" lol. it's a nice name though!

[idrinkacidrain.livejournal.com]

Don't call me Ishmael!

http://goldcreek.act.edu.au/yara/pages/reviews/australian_old/r_dont_call_me_ishmael.htm

[idrinkacidrain.livejournal.com]

But, I do like it. Not enough to name my kid Ishmael, but it's a fine name and you have the background.

Regarding pronounciation, ISH-mayl and EEZ-mah-el, the latter is slightly more attractive.

Ishmael

[crossingthesea.livejournal.com]

Well in Arabic it's more like Ismail, which gets rid of the lisp issue. Same for the Spanish with Ismael. I like it fine, but prefer Isaiah if you are going for that kind of name. Ishmael is fun to say though. Sounds like a mantra or prayer.

I see no issue with it being "too Jewish" or however someone phrased it above. It's not like you ever see Ishmaels walking around. It's quite a rare name.