Children’s names

We like the following names: Kfir, Ari, Layish, David. What do you recommend?

Dear …!

First of all, I wish you a whole lot of mazal tov, may you merit to bring him up to Torah, Chuppah (a wedding canopy) and good deeds!

I’ll write some rules for choosing children’s names based on sources for you.

1. It says in the midrashim, that in the olden days there was a spirit of divine inspiration that helped parents give their child a name according to his future life and to life’s ultimate goal. But we don’t have that gift now, so we name our children after our ancestors.

This means that nowadays we don’t fully understand meanings of names and that we don’t know how to pick a name that will fit this baby’s character and his future qualities. Therefore, we just have to remember our roots and choose names that were used throughout past generations. These names have proved their ability to bring up great people with holy souls. They connect a person’s soul to its roots in previous generations.

2. A soul has an advantage when it’s called after a holy person of previous generations, or after one of the founders of the family who was a kosher Jew, or after one of the zaddikim mentioned in weekly Torah portion.
3. Since the times of king David, the name David is very common among the Jewish people, and that’s true of all Jewish communities. There were great people with this name throughout all generations.
4. The name Arye (meaning “a lion”) started being used by Ashkenazim a few centuries ago. When infant mortality was very high, the kabbalists of that time came up with this advice – to name babies after wild animals. They picked the names Arye (lion), Dov (bear), Zvi (deer), Zeev (wolf) and others. This helped children survive, and since then there very many great people who were called Arye. For example, Rabbi Arye Leib Ginsburg, who is known by the name of his great work Shaagas Arye. Or Rabbi Arye Leib Heller, the author of the famous work Kzos a-Choshen. In the previous generation there was the well-known zaddik Rabbi Arye Levin.
5. The names Kfir, Layish, Lavi are synonymous with the name Arye, but they’re new names and I wouldn’t suggest using them.
6. If there is a name that you feel a special connection to, it’s a good thing to find a holy man that had that name and to name the baby after him.

May you have much joy, and may you merit Heavenly assistance to find a right and fitting name for the baby.

Midrash Rabba (Bereshit, 37:7)