Correct spelling of Yiddish/Jewish names

[Yehudaa]

Rav Moshe says it's with one Yud, but I believe that it would be with two yuds if you are trying to write the chasidish pronunciation.

I know a Leib who signed as a witness on a kesuba with two yuds, and Rabbi Forscheimer asked him if his name is "Lyb" (Chassidish pronunciation). He said, no, so Rabbi Forscheimer told him to spell it with one yud.

Leib is spelled with one yid, whether chasidish or litvish. I am chasidish & the name Leib is a very popular name from my grandparents all the way up the chain & they all spelled it with one yid.

+1. My middle name is Leib, I've spelled it with two yuds my whole life but have been told that it's wrong.

Before my wedding, I asked R' Shlomo Miller whether I should use one or two yuds on my kesubah. He said that his father's name was Leib and he had always spelled it with two yuds, but at R' Shlomo's wedding Rav Moshe was mesader kiddushin and insisted on using one yud.  When R' Shlomo's father protested and said that he spelled it with two, R' Moshe's response was "it's a ta'us" and that was it.

[ckmk47]

Another note that I guess is debatable but to my knowledge other than the name Chaim (double yid).. All of these are correctly spelled with one yid..

Sheindel
Kreindel
Beila
Feiga

etc etc.. I have seen on a gravestone Feiga spelled Pei, yid, yid, gimmel, hei. The biggest permanent amiratzus I ever saw

I was taught that the Yiddish way to write the 'chirik' sound is 1 yud.  And for a 'taeirei' you use 2 yuds. 
So the names listed above, that are all pronounced as a long A, should all be written with 2 yuds. 

Rav Moshe says it's with one Yud, but I believe that it would be with two yuds if you are trying to write the chasidish pronunciation.

I know a Leib who signed as a witness on a kesuba with two yuds, and Rabbi Forscheimer asked him if his name is "Lyb" (Chassidish pronunciation). He said, no, so Rabbi Forscheimer told him to spell it with one yud.

I've been told numerous times that these names are with 1 yud. Such as  when given names for davening, or my daughter in law's kesubah. 
But I disagree.  Unless I was taught wrong.  But my husband went to a different yeshiva than I, and agrees with my premise.

[elazarmn]

Wow! Great stuff. Thanks for sharing!

[ExGingi]

I was taught that the Yiddish way to write the 'chirik' sound is 1 yud.  And for a 'taeirei' you use 2 yuds. 
So the names listed above, that are all pronounced as a long A, should all be written with 2 yuds. 

Not sure who told you that, and while that might be how people do it, halachically in places where two yuds are pronounced like a tzeire (long A) it should be spelled with one yud.

See https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=8545&st=&pgnum=129

[Chapshnell]

I was taught that the Yiddish way to write the 'chirik' sound is 1 yud.  And for a 'taeirei' you use 2 yuds. 
So the names listed above, that are all pronounced as a long A, should all be written with 2 yuds. 
I've been told numerous times that these names are with 1 yud. Such as  when given names for davening, or my daughter in law's kesubah. 
But I disagree.  Unless I was taught wrong.  But my husband went to a different yeshiva than I, and agrees with my premise.

Look in the Sanzer Ruv sefer on names. 
These names come with one yid. Its oilim-goilim, monkey see monkey do. Sorry!

[etech0]

That might be the yiddish way to spell those names, but on a kesuba it may need to be the Hebrew way. Source: related to a Leib who spelled it with two yuds until his wedding when the mesader kedushin told him to switch to one.

[Chapshnell]

That might be the yiddish way to spell those names, but on a kesuba it may need to be the Hebrew way. Source: related to a Leib who spelled it with two yuds until his wedding when the mesader kedushin told him to switch to one.

not sure what you are saying, there is only one way to correctly spell a name 

[etech0]

not sure what you are saying, there is only one way to correctly spell a name 

Maybe according to yiddish language rules, the "ei" sound is spelled with two yuds (not specifically in reference to names, but to any word in yiddish), but the correct (Hebrew) way to spell the name is with one yud.

Kesubos do not feature yiddish spellings same as they do not feature english spellings of names

[Chapshnell]

Names that I have seen get tricky, again everything can be researched in the Sanzer ruvs sefer on names..

Pesil (does it come with a yid or not)
Fradil (does it come with an alef or a yid <third letter>)
Perel (does it come with a yid or not)
Etel (does it come with a yid or not)

etc etc can get very tricky

[Chapshnell]

Maybe according to yiddish language rules, the "ei" sound is spelled with two yuds (not specifically in reference to names, but to any word in yiddish), but the correct (Hebrew) way to spell the name is with one yud.

Kesubos do not feature yiddish spellings same as they do not feature english spellings of names

makes no dif how its pronounced in yiddish/chasidish. There is one way to write a name. Its with one yid other than chaim

[gozalim]

love the yid!

[etech0]

makes no dif how its pronounced in yiddish/chasidish. There is one way to write a name. Its with one yid other than chaim

Right.
And in response to this:

I was taught that the Yiddish way to write the 'chirik' sound is 1 yud.  And for a 'taeirei' you use 2 yuds

I would say that that's the way to spell yiddish words, but it doesn't apply to the name spelling discussion

[etech0]

love the yid!

need to love all of them!

[hockyfan]

Thank you all for the responses! Just to bring this back on topic a bit - she was actually born here in NY, but her parents came from either Belarus or Russia - unfortunately don't have more details than that. Hope that is helpful on tracing down some details on the name, thank you again - please keep the ideas coming!

[Chapshnell]

Right.
And in response to this:I would say that that's the way to spell yiddish words, but it doesn't apply to the name spelling discussion

correct in general, but not when it comes to names.. for example tzeitung is with 2 yids, freitug is with 2 yids etc I get it. But not with names

[pbf]

the spelling that people write on gravestones is an embarrassment. Permanently written ignorance. Drives me nuts lol (its my pet peeve to accurately spell hebrew written names) 

As a general rule, Tanach names that end with "eh" are with a "Hei" and Yiddish names end with an "Alef".

Example:

Devorah
Moshe
Sarah
Rivka
Yehuda
Chana
Chava
Shloime

The only one that ends with an Alef is Ezra (because he was born chutz la'eretz to my knowledge?)

Yiddish Names example:

Blima
Yita
Roiza
Feiga
Mushka
Beila

--

Another note that I guess is debatable but to my knowledge other than the name Chaim (double yid).. All of these are correctly spelled with one yid..

Sheindel
Kreindel
Beila
Feiga

etc etc.. I have seen on a gravestone Feiga spelled Pei, yid, yid, gimmel, hei. The biggest permanent amiratzus I ever saw

Pardon my ignorance, but what makes one spelling more correct than another? Aside for names that are actually written in Tanach, why can't you spell it as you wish, like you would with an English name?

[etech0]

correct in general, but not when it comes to names.. for example tzeitung is with 2 yids, freitug is with 2 yids etc I get it. But not with names

right. because names need to be spelled in the hebrew language, not in the yiddish language.
You don't write "Leib" or "Chaim" on a kesuba, you write ליב or חיים

[ExGingi]

Thank you all for the responses! Just to bring this back on topic a bit - she was actually born here in NY, but her parents came from either Belarus or Russia - unfortunately don't have more details than that. Hope that is helpful on tracing down some details on the name, thank you again - please keep the ideas coming!

Do you have more information about the specific location? With borders that changed throughout the years and different regions having more of a Ukrainian pronunciation and some more of a Litvish pronunciation, things can change. However, with this specific name, the two yud discussion seems irrelevant, so it's more of a question whether it would be spelled with a צ at the beginning or a טש, as well as whether there would be a yud just before the final aleph.

I brought you just one sefer, there are definitely other seforim that discuss rules as well as specifics of names, as these are very important for gittin.

If you have time and want to look around a little, you might do some searching at https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Belarus/ (or some of their other databases)

For example, you might find:


or


and use that as a starting point.

You can also find some US gravestones such as: http://data.jewishgen.org/imagedata/jowbr/USA-02269/MSC46.jpg but I'm not sure if I'd use that as a source.

Based on what I've seen so far, I would guess that the correct spelling is ציזא, however, since you're probably not looking for the spelling to put on a critical document such as a Get, I'm not sure if further research is justified.

As far as the etymology of the name, I am totally clueless. Some seforim do have that.

[Yonah]

Love how this has taken a tangent.

IIRC, there is an element in Gittin where they want to remove all ambiguity (since it is a divorce document) and so they add additional nicknames and the phrase - 'וכול שם שיש לו

I personally find this element of correcting the spelling of names interesting. Two examples:

- I was raised in the US, and spell my last name - וואלף - but all my Israeli relatives have dropped the Aleph - which is fine with me, but what I found odd was that whenever I filled out any hebrew form, even when I spelled my name myself in hebrew - they corrected it to drop the Aleph - which annoyed the crap out of me. If we can have Wolf, Wolff, Wolfe, Woolf, etc, in the English world why can't וואלף and וולף  coexist in Hebrew?

- My dad was Menachem Mendel. We were not chabad chassidim, and he spelled Mendel without an Ayin. He was once asked to be a witness to the Kesubah at a Chabad wedding. He wrote his name on the Kesubah - and chaos ensued. The rabbonim in the room spent 30 minutes arguing if the kesubah was valid because of my dad's 'incorrect spelling of his name.

[ExGingi]

Love how this has taken a tangent.

IIRC, there is an element in Gittin where they want to remove all ambiguity (since it is a divorce document) and so they add additional nicknames and the phrase - 'וכול שם שיש לו

I personally find this element of correcting the spelling of names interesting. Two examples:

- I was raised in the US, and spell my last name - וואלף - but all my Israeli relatives have dropped the Aleph - which is fine with me, but what I found odd was that whenever I filled out any hebrew form, even when I spelled my name myself in hebrew - they corrected it to drop the Aleph - which annoyed the crap out of me. If we can have Wolf, Wolff, Wolfe, Woolf, etc, in the English world why can't וואלף and וולף  coexist in Hebrew?

- My dad was Menachem Mendel. We were not chabad chassidim, and he spelled Mendel without an Ayin. He was once asked to be a witness to the Kesubah at a Chabad wedding. He wrote his name on the Kesubah - and chaos ensued. The rabbonim in the room spent 30 minutes arguing if the kesubah was valid because of my dad's 'incorrect spelling of his name.

Mendel is a Yiddish name, and should probably be spelled with an Ayin. There are some that spell it with a yud after the Dalet (Vizhnitz) and some that spell it without (Chabad and Lithuanian)

Don't ever bother with clueless Israelis that have no idea how to spell or pronounce anything properly.