Repost XVI: Naming the Baby

One topic that mohels sometimes get involved in is helping the new parents come up with a name for the baby. This happens most often with people who are not in the Orthodox community, who might be looking to choose a name they like (they just need help with options and the meanings of names), or who might be looking to match an English name they've chosen to a Hebrew name, either in its meaning, in how it sounds, or by finding a name that has a same-sounding first consonant or vowel. 

Many people name a child after a deceased relative (Ashkenazic community) or a living relative (Sefardic community). Others pick other criteria, especially if they feel the deceased have been adequately memorialized in the larger family. 

Who gets to choose the baby's name? The baby's parents. 

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2015/06/when-naming-your-baby.html

Why do we name the baby at the bris?

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2010/07/why-we-name-baby-at-bris.html

What happens if the baby's bris needs to be delayed for health reasons, or because he needs to have reconstructive surgery to fix an anatomical condition that he was born with, which should not be touched by a mohel, but should be fixed by a surgeon? CAN HE BE NAMED BEFORE HIS BRIS

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2018/05/naming-baby-before-his-bris.html

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2019/12/naming-baby-when-his-bris-is-to-be.html

Incidentally, if you are going to name him because his bris is postponed (or not going to happen), here is a Mi Sheberach for you to use when naming your baby before his bris:

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2024/01/naming-baby-before-bris-mi-sheberach.html

And here is advice for how to communicate to your family what is happening and why you are naming your baby in this fashion

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2015/06/when-there-is-no-bris.html

And finally, while less to do with naming, here is a link that was in the previous "Repost" about how the bris changes a bit when the father is not present. In the following link we address how to name the baby if the father is not Jewish or if there is "no father" at all, because the woman became pregnant using IVF and a donor sperm. 

http://www.mohelinsouthflorida.com/2018/10/name-given-to-baby-when-father-is-not.html