Can you have a Jewish name but you are not Jewish?

Answer 1

AnswerYes, people who are not Jewish can have a Jewish name. Those people usually have names like Miriam, which is Hebrew but is not distinct. If a person met a Miriam, they usually can't tell your religion, unlike coming across a female named Aviva, which is distinctly Jewish. AnswerCertainly you can have what people call a "Jewish name" without being Jewish. Many so-called Jewish names are simply names from The Bible. Christians use them, too. Parents sometimes name children after good friends or people who were important in their lives. In some cases Christian families name a child after a Jewish person, so a non-Jew uses a "jewish name."

Even with surnames, very few surnames used by Jews are exclusively used by Jews. For example, Cohen is a Jewish surname often implying a priestly status, yet there are Catholic Cohen families from Ireland who have never had Jewish ancestors. Finally there are families who had one or more ancestors who converted from Judaism to Christianity and continued to use a surname associated with Jews.