Many of us look at our childhood names with warm emotions

After my last column about “Home,” readers reached out to ask, “Who is Ahava Ehrenpreis, and when did she live in Detroit or Oak Park?” Just between us, the “me” who grew up in Detroit had different first and last names from the adult woman who today writes books and articles and lives in Brooklyn. Back then, I was Chavi Sperka.

How did that happen? Well, my maternal grandmother was Rivka, and my paternal grandmother was Leeba Chava. Why my father (Rabbi Joshua Sperka z”l), turned Leeba into its modern Hebrew variation remains a mystery, but I believe that his joy at the creation of the State of Israel motivated him to name me Ahava Rivka. (Please, no letters from Ivrit experts who question why my name isn’t Ahuva! I really don’t know, but my sister assures me that she was present at the naming and Ahava is my name.) But when I first entered Bais Yaakov, my “cool, modern, Hebrew name” morphed into my babbi’s more traditional, “Chava.”

Names… a simple, straightforward topic. A child is born to parents from the One Above. They give the child a particular first name — based on whatever reasoning (familial, literary, historical, Biblical, or random) — and their family name. It seems so uncomplicated. Well… it ain’t necessarily so.