Posted on 04/24/2006 2:56:24 PM PDT by Paddlefish
Suri, the name chosen by Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for their newborn daughter, is raising more than its share of interest in Israel. It means "get out of here" in the local language, Hebrew.
News of the naming puzzled even those Israelis who thought they had seen it all after pop diva Madonna turned the ancient Jewish mystical tradition Kabbalah into a faith for the famous.
"I really don't know what they were thinking when they chose this name. It's a term that denotes expulsion, like 'Get out of here'," said Gideon Goldenberg, a linguistics professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "It's pretty blunt."
Yaron London, a cultural commentator for Israel's Channel 10 television, had this rhetorical question for Suri's proud parents: "Why didn't you just go back to your ancestors' language, and call the kid 'Scram Cruise'?"
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.com ...
I am always amazed at the brilliant humor of Freepers.
But I have to tell you about what Shepherd Smith said when he announced the baby's birth.
He said (paraphrase), "The baby is named Suri. That means rose in Persian, princess in Hebrew, and to folks from Oklahhoma it meams a four wheeled pleasure vehicle..."
We have some suri alpacas - they're quite lovely. But I hope this does not become a popular name for kids.
I'd almost prefer "Apple".
BLACKADDER Name?
BALDRICK Baldrick.
BLACKADDER First name?
BALDRICK Not sure.
BLACKADDER You must have some idea.
BALDRICK Well, it might be Sod Off.
BLACKADDER (irritated) What?
BALDRICK When I used to play in the gutter I used to say to the other snipes 'Hello, my name's Baldrick' and they used to say 'Yes, we know, Sod Off Baldrick'.
BLACKADDER Right
I don't know the Hebrew spelling but in the KJV it's rendered Sarai. This was Sarah's name befor G-d changed it. Obviously Tom and Katie's thetans are still confused by the movies Xenu showed them.
I not sure what Goldenberg is talking about. He may be referring to the Hebrew word Soor, meaning to turn away or get away which would be Soori in the feminine imperative voice. I guess it's fair to say they are fairly phonetically similar.
His point is silly because many words or names in one language can have ridiculous unintended meanings in another language. Doug (short for Douglas) is very similar to the Hebrew word that sounds exactly the same and means fish. Goldenberg would supposedly say: Ha! what did you call your kid fish for?
I read, write and speak Hebrew pretty well. Suri is an odd choice all around, though not in the context of the oddball who picked it. Either way, as a later poster noted from a fairly good phonetic rendering in KJV, Sarai would be the original name of Abraham's wife. Her name was later changed to Sara (or Sarah) by the addition of a letter (hey) to signify her closeness to G-d and her G-dliness.
Suri would be how Hasidic Jews would pronounce a diminutive or affectionate form of the name Sara, given their unique Eastern European inflection. So who knows, maybe Cruise is channeling Hasidim.
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