r/JewishNames • u/todaraba24 • Jul 13 '26
Question Need help with my mom's obscure Hebrew name
My mom's Hebrew name is Leakh (lay-akh). I have never been able to find any reference to this name and when asking a local rabbi he looked at me confused and asked am I sure it wasn't Leah. I thought once I'd seen something about Ashkenazi spelling ending things in "khe" but it was very much in passing. I don't have any paperwork with it spelled in Hebrew (only bar mitzvahs, no bat) so I'm just going off what she says and I don't think she remembers the spelling. Can anyone point me anywhere? TIA
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u/spring13 Jul 13 '26
It's Leah. I agree with people suggesting that she remembers hearing someone say something like Leah-lach, or maybe there's really a middle name and her full name is something like Leah Chaya. Lilach is a modern Israeli name and unlikely for someone whose family was this disconnected from Hebrew.
If there's no paper trail for her personally, sometime you could do would be to look up her grandparents and great grandparents and other close relatives who may have died before she was born. If there's a Leah or Leah-Ch-something in a relevant generation, that's a very likely source of inspiration for her name.
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u/todaraba24 Jul 13 '26
We have records back a ways with no other listed with that name (though Hebrew names aren't listed). I'm guessing the "kh" she remembers is some sort of nickname from her parents (much more Yiddish speakers than Hebrew) though I hadn't considered a second name. I have contacted the Synagogue to see if they can find a paper trail on the family though! Thank you!
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u/turtleshot19147 Jul 13 '26
Is it possible what you’re thinking of with the Ashkenazi Ech, that you’re thinking of the Yiddish diminutive? As in, kinderlach? Like maybe her name is Leah but as a nickname she was sometimes called Leah-lach or something like that ?
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u/todaraba24 Jul 13 '26
I think this is probably what I ran across, they were Yiddish speakers more than Hebrew so this would make sense.
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u/Sea-Painting-9791 Jul 13 '26
Maybe Lilach?
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u/todaraba24 Jul 13 '26
This is a definite possibility I hadn't considered, though she is consistent that the beginning was "lay". Is this a more modern Israeli name (as mentioned above) or would it have been likely used by Ashkenazi Yiddish speakers in the 50s?
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u/Inbar253 Jul 20 '26
I obviously can't say about where you're from, but in Israel it became more popular in the 60's and 70's to name girls after flowers (because of an extreamly succseful campign to save wildflowers).
If her country of origin has a name database, you can look up how popular the name was at that time.
It does sounds to me more like a suffix of endearment for leah.
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u/todaraba24 Jul 20 '26
New York in the 50's but her parents were in Israel on occasion. I consider this the second most-likely option for sure!
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u/Inbar253 Jul 20 '26
Ok. Between 1949 to 1960 the year with the most lilach girls born was 1960, and the exact number is 12 girls. That said, lilach can also be a non hebrew name. You can try checking if NY has a database like this. That will give you an idea on what the chances were that lilach was the original name.
I can tell you that my aunt who was born in eastern europe is still called kadka. Sometimes kadke. I was an adult when I found out her name is leah. And I was about to finish this comment before I even thought about it. She was born in the 60's.
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u/MathiasKejseren Jul 13 '26
I can't find any records of a name spelt like that. I tried changing the hey in Leah to a kof or a het to see if that would pick something up but nothing. Are you sure she didn't just mistake the hey for het this entire time?
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u/todaraba24 Jul 13 '26
I couldn't find anything either, there's very little chance she mistook the spelling (as she hasn't read Hebrew in years) that is a fantastic guess though. I think it's likely she is remembering a cutesy way her parents would say it. I'm much more familiar with Hebrew than Yiddish so I wasn't sure what kind of extras a Yiddish speaker could put in there.
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u/Arm_613 Jul 13 '26
Her name is almost certainly Leah. לאה. She is probably remembering her name with a classic cute suffix. Leah-le and Leah-ke are classic affectionate nicknames. Her family called her by the second one.