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Jewish Life & Celebrations

Baby Naming

A Baby Naming Ceremony

Rabbi Judith Seid
Rabbi Seid describes a ceremony to recognize a child's individuality and also his or her place in the Jewish community. Rabbi Seid is the author of We Rejoice in Our Heritage: Home Rituals for Secular and Humanistic Jews, and God-Optional Judaism: Alternatives for Cultural Jews who Love Their History, Heritage, and Community. Rabbi Seid is also the cultural leader at Tri-Valley Cultural Jews in Pleasanton, California. Visit Rabbi Seid at www.SecularJewishWeddings.com
Judith Seid, God-Optional Judaism, Citadel Press, 2001, pp143-151.

A naming ceremony is an opportunity to introduce the child to her or his community, and the community to the child. It is a chance to express the support and responsibilities of the community toward the child. It is an occasion for celebrating both the child and the people or qualities the child is named for. It is a time for dedications and benedictions.

If you want your ceremony to resemble a bris, you will want to perform certain rituals. While the baby is usually held by a parent, you may want to honor friends or family members as is done at a bris, by asking them to carry the baby, hold it at certain points in the ceremony, or read parts of the ceremony. You will also want to place a drop of wine in the baby’s mouth, as is done at a bris.

Other children in the family can also be involved in the ceremony. A small child can carry the glass of wine from person to person or present the baby with a flower or toy. An older child can read a special benediction or even help to hold the baby.

Start with someone welcoming the guests and introducing the idea of a naming. You can explain that naming a child recognizes his or her individuality. Jews give the child her or his own name, but we also give her or him a Hebrew name. In this way we recognize the child’s individuality but also her or his place in the Jewish community. Then you can say something about your love for the child. In her introduction to naming her own child, one mother spoke movingly about how improbable it may seem that a parent can love a second child as much as the first.

You might also like to explain why the ceremony includes the guests. You can ask people for their support in helping the parents teach the child to be a good member of society. You can ask them to share their wisdom with you so that you can guide your child to reach his or her full potential and to come to an understanding of his or her place in the world and in the Jewish community. If the child has a non-Jewish parent, you can add, “while honoring the heritages of both parents.” You can also provide the guests with a program including a group reading.

After the naming, you can drink from a glass of wine, saying, “We rejoice in our heritage, which has given us the cup of wine as a symbol of our rejoicing.”

Ashreinu b’yerushateynu shemasrah lanu kos pri hagafen l’mo’adim u’l’simcha ki samachnu b’chageynu.

Or

This cup is the vessel of our hopes. It is filled with the new wine of a life just begun. The sweetness of its taste is the joy (baby’s name) has brought.

Put a drop of wine in the baby’s mouth and drink some yourself. You can pass the cup around, or ask a child to do so. Invite the guests to tell their hopes for the baby’s future as they sip from the cup. Or ask people to read things you have written or collected from books of essays or poetry. The traditional Jewish blessing is, “May you go forth into a life of learning, love, and good deeds, Torah, chuppah oon g’milus chesed.”

Len Cherlin, the leader of a Secular Humanistic Jewish group on Long Island, wrote, “May your name endure with honor as long as the rivers run to the sea, as long as the sun casts the shadow of the mountains over the slopes, and heaven shows the fire of the stars.”

End with a poem or other reading from secular or religious sources, or a secular shehecheyahu like this one:

We rejoice in our heritage that has given us the indomitable spirit that has preserved our people and sustained us and brought us forward to celebrate this joyous occasion.

Ashreinu b’yerushateynu ha-ko’ach she’hecheyanu v’kimanu v’higiyanu lazman ha’zeh.



How you choose your child’s Jewish name depends on your family traditions and your own personal preferences. A Jewish name includes the name of your father, or of both parents. This is done by including bat (daughter of) or ben (son of) along with the Jewish name of your father or parents. If one parent is not Jewish, this can have an unexpectedly funny sound but this can help everyone to understand that when Jews and non-Jews form families together, everyone gets to be part of both cultures.

Does it have to be Hebrew? Certainly not. Hebrew is just one of the many languages Jews have spoken throughout history and is only one of at least six languages spoken only by Jews. You can give your child an Aramaic name, a Ladino name, or a Yiddish name.

Whatever name you choose and however you choose to bestow it, a Jewish name helps to welcome a child into the community and provides a Jewish identification for him or her throughout his or her life. It is the name by which she or he is called up as Bat or Bar Mitzvah, it is the name on the ketubah (marriage certificate), and it is the name under which she or he will be buried. And it is the name that will be carried by future children who will be named for him or her.

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