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Help[Opinions] Re: Can someone tell me why this is offensive to Jewish people?
in reply to a message by SJayne
This type of thing is less about hurting the feelings of individual people and more about your abstracter relationship with other cultures. I just think it's kind of gross to use a set of sounds that is cute and meaningless in your language, knowing it holds a sacred meaning that you don't understand in another (ancient, religious) culture. Encountering gentiles named Cohen always makes me want to roll my eyes totally out of my head. I guess people are free to do what they want or whatever, but it's harder to embody the idea of ignorance in a name than giving your child a name that literally is used as the title of a specific priestline in another culture.
But, like, Minerva is one of my favorite names, and there were people who worshiped Minerva, and I'll never be one of them, so! I'm probably just being uptight.
The word derives from a Semitic root common, at minimum, to the Central Semitic languages; the cognate Arabic word كاهن kāhin means "soothsayer, augur, or priest".
That's pretty neat.
But, like, Minerva is one of my favorite names, and there were people who worshiped Minerva, and I'll never be one of them, so! I'm probably just being uptight.
The word derives from a Semitic root common, at minimum, to the Central Semitic languages; the cognate Arabic word كاهن kāhin means "soothsayer, augur, or priest".
That's pretty neat.
This message was edited 10/31/2013, 11:01 PM
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There seems to be quite a bit more leeway with things from classical Greece and Rome. In terms of neo-poagan worship, those two cultures are considered "open" - anyone is free to explore them, and the same seems to go for names. Maybe because those cultures gradually faded out of use rather than being forcibly persecuted and destroyed the way others were (like Native American culture was)?
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