Take โChargaffโ (like the biochemist) - classic Brody pentheronym (in the male sense, it seems impossible to distinguish the prefixes)
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So what does this name mean? What's the root and what's the suffix? (if that's even how it works).
aug 27, 2025, 2:42 am โข 0 0 โข view
Ah, there's an extra (classic Brody region) twist - it's a Hebrew acronym first! ืืชื ืจ' ื"ื/ืื? The original name was voiced finally; I haven't found clues for what his father-in-law G.B. (G.V.?)'s full name was - but the ubiquity of this template makes it clear.
aug 27, 2025, 2:45 am โข 1 0 โข view
Nice! So โson-in-law[*] of R[abbi] G.V.โ (for some sense of V[โ ]) [*] or โbridegroomโ, although in this context it's basically the same thing, which I guess explains how the word for one took on the meaning of the other [โ ] but couldn't it be ืค which is even closer to the F of Chargaff?
aug 27, 2025, 3:04 am โข 0 0 โข view
(Oops, you already answered โ .)
aug 27, 2025, 3:06 am โข 0 0 โข view
1) yes, son-in-law is the meaning in this construct (similarly ืืื means both bride and daughter-in-law) 2) my preference for interpreting it as ึพื"ื is because the oldest records referring to this family never use -f.
aug 27, 2025, 3:23 am โข 0 0 โข view
Oh, and I'm forgetting my own conclusion from last time - based on common abbreviations of the time, ึพื"ื is most likely and abbreviation for the single name Gavriel
aug 27, 2025, 3:24 am โข 1 0 โข view
Still โRabbi Gavrielโ though? It seems overly familiar as a way to refer to a rabbi, but maybe not in an age before surnames have been fully established.
aug 27, 2025, 3:34 am โข 0 0 โข view
No, in abridged form this would be a suitable reference to any Gavriel from moderately respectable to short of the leading rabbi of his time
aug 27, 2025, 3:49 am โข 1 0 โข view
Any Gavriel, so this is more โRebโ than necessarily โRabbiโ?
aug 27, 2025, 4:27 am โข 0 0 โข view
Just a touch over โRebโ, when you account for the fact that there's usually some identifying purpose in these monikers - Gavriel must have been moderately important for his son-in-law to be called something in reference to him, instead of his hometown/profession/etc
aug 27, 2025, 4:46 am โข 1 0 โข view
Actually, I forgot - since the earliest form alternates with โChargabโ, it's definitely ืืชื ืจ' ื"ื, which reduces the ambiguity a bit
aug 27, 2025, 2:48 am โข 0 0 โข view
(yes, his ancestors lived in Brody first)
aug 27, 2025, 2:32 am โข 1 0 โข view