Moshe & Nechama

... that's Hebrew for "Mark & Nichole". It is pronounced "Mosh-ay and Netch-uh-mah". Sounds pretty, doesn't it? I thought so. 

I took the liberty of translating our names into Hebrew while I was working on a fun little project for my students this past Wednesday. It was a pretty fun project and we spent a good hour discussing Hebrew names and although they are still a bit confused that Jesus' name is really Yeshua which in the Hebrew form of Joshua and no one ever called him Jesus... they thought it was pretty darn cool and I proved that PSR can be awesome. LOL 

Anyways, back to my point. Moshe is the Hebrew name that most resembles Mark and means "savior". It also just so happens to be how Moses' name was pronounced. THAT was a fun fact to find out! So, not only is Jesus a Hebrew Yeshua and an English Jesus, Mark is a Hebrew Moshe and an English Moses. Kind of a fun twist, isn't it? Or maybe I'm just weird by thinking so. Nechama is the Hebrew name that most resembles Nichole and means "soothing". I don't think there are any biblical figures I share that name with, but it was a pretty and popular name for baby girls at the time of Jesus, or Yeshua, or Joshua... whatever you want to call Him!... and I found several Hebrew documents that listed Nichole as it's most resembled English form of Nechama.

Basically, I discovered that I really love a lot of Hebrew names. Since Mark and I have discussed giving our children traditional Gaelic middle names, we may perhaps have to pair it up with a few good Hebrew first names... haha! Here's some fun Hebrew-Gaelic combinations I came up with just for kicks:

Meira Aibreann 

(pronounced Meh-ay-rah Ab-rawn)

Abel Ciarain

(pronounced A-bul Keer-ahn)

I've always had a fascination with names from different cultures, but no worries dear family and friends... I promise I won't go all Hebrew on you all; you won't need a pronunciation to read the birth announcements! We actually have a few rather simple first names already on the list!

There are a few ways to find out what your own Hebrew name would have been way back when in the year 6 AD. You could go to www.my-hebrew-name.com, type in your name, and see what pops up on the site... or, you could do what I did and actually research through meanings and historical documentations. It took me about an hour to get both Mark's and my Hebrew names (I know, I'm completely ridiculous!), but if you are in it just for kicks and not for accuracy then my-hebrew-name is pretty fun.

You're probably all thinking "This chick is cracked" right about now. ha ha Well, Mark thought it was cool...