What Direction To Go In?

General Name Discussion
1

My husband and I have just been talking about starting a family in the next year or so, so being the name lover and Type A person that I am I have begun to think about what direction to go in.

We are Modern Orthodox and live in [name_m]Israel[/name_m], and names in our circle tend to be either 1. Biblical names (except for ones only the ultra orthodox would use…I tend to favor ones that are also used by secular people although that is not the case for some names on my list) 2. nature names 3. religious names/names used by religious people that aren’t biblical.

Biblical names I like:

Yehonatan
[name_m]Naftali[/name_m]
Yaacov
[name_m]Yishai[/name_m]
[name_m]Boaz[/name_m]
[name_m]Ezra[/name_m]
Yitzcak
[name_m]Ido[/name_m]

[name_f]Noa[/name_f]

Nature names I like:
[name_m]Oren[/name_m]
Ophek
[name_m]Gilad[/name_m]
[name_u]Ori[/name_u]
[name_u]Aviv[/name_u]
[name_u]Lior[/name_u]

Maayan

Names that don’t really fit in either category that I like:
[name_m]Saadya[/name_m]
[name_m]Amit[/name_m]
[name_m]Roi[/name_m]
[name_m]Noam[/name_m]
[name_m]Nehorai[/name_m]
[name_m]Osher[/name_m]
[name_m]Shai[/name_m]

Hallel
[name_f]Shira[/name_f]

If I had chosen to stay in the US (I’m originally American, husband was born in [name_m]Israel[/name_m]) I think I would just mix from all of them, because they would all just sound Hebrew to those outside our community, but here because nearly ALL names are Hebrew, I feel like I have more pressure to have a “sib set theme”. My husband thinks we should just pick names we like, but even him and his siblings match ([name_u]Ariel[/name_u], [name_f]Tamar[/name_f], [name_u]Yael[/name_u]…[name_u]Ariel[/name_u] is Biblical but not a name, they are religious but not SUPER religious and would fit on a secular person and sound nice together)

What do you think?

2

This is just a small idea I had, but I hope it helps:
Why don’t you try to find names honoring both of your heritages? You could choose Hebrew fn’s and American mn’s, or the other way around. I think this could also work as a “theme”.
Apart from that only you know wether you prefer nature names or biblical names.

3

We are going to do hebrew first names and middle names, but middle names are going to be named after deceased relatives (we are ashkenazi so this is our custom).

and people in america might not know but in [name_m]Israel[/name_m] they definitely will. Think about American siblings named: [name_m]Asher[/name_m], [name_u]Brooke[/name_u], and [name_f]Daisy[/name_f], and [name_m]Ezra[/name_m]. It’s pretty obvious which 2 are biblical and which 2 are nature names.

We live in israel.