Changing Our Names in Repentance and Illness

Few things feel more fixed than a person’s name. Yet Jewish tradition treats a name as more than an identifier. It can reflect destiny, character, reputation, and the possibility of becoming someone new.

The Talmud records the following declaration from Rav Yitzchak: “A person’s sentence is torn up on account of four types of action: giving charity, crying out in prayer, changing one’s name, and changing one’s deeds for the better” (Rosh Hashanah 16a). Three of these – charity, prayer, and repentance – are familiar pillars of teshuva, immortalized in U’netaneh Tokef. Changing one’s name, shinui ha-shem, is more puzzling. What could a new name have to do with tearing up a divine decree? Divine judgment is not like crossing a border with a forged passport.

Strikingly, Chazal cite Sarah’s change of name from Sarai as proof. Parallel Midrashim note that she bore a child only after the change (Pesikta Rabbati, Hosafa Aleph Piska Daled). On this basis, Rabbi Yaakov Etlinger argues that changing a name may alter one’s mazal, or fortune, but it has nothing to do with atonement. Sarah’s barrenness, after all, was not the result of sin.

This may explain why shinui ha-shem does not appear in U’netaneh Tokef. Rabbi Shmuel Yaffe Ashkenazi observes that it is also absent from the parallel Yerushalmi. He therefore suggests that shinui ha-shem applies only to those whose suffering is not rooted in wrongdoing. For the rest of us, a new name cannot substitute for a changed life.

An alternative interpretation asserts that a name change is not an end in itself, but a means of inspiring repentance. The Rambam presents the new name as a declaration of transformed identity. “I am another person, and not the same person who committed those deeds” (Teshuva 2:4). The Maharsha emphasizes a related but subtly different psychological process. Just as exile from one’s home humbles the heart, a disruption in one’s familiar identity can break through complacency and awaken a person to change (Chidushei Agaddot, Rosh Hashanah 16b).

For the Rambam, a new name affirms a decision already made. For the Maharsha, the shift in identity humbles the person and prompts that decision. Yet both reject the notion that a new name magically erases a divine decree. Its power lies in forcing a person to confront the distance between who he has been and who he must now become.

Occasionally, people change their names as part of becoming religiously observant. Some adopt their Hebrew birth name in place of a legal English name, while many converts do something similar. Yet Rabbi Moshe ben Yekutiel of fifteenth century Rome noted that changing one’s name every Yom Kippur would be plainly impractical (Sefer HaTadir, 254). Imagine the chaos for contracts, gittin, and other legal documents. He therefore suggests that the true meaning of shinui ha-shem is not a literal change of name at all, but a change of reputation, transforming the way one is known and perceived in the community. That kind of change cannot be declared; it must be earned through honest self-examination and a genuine change in conduct.

There is, however, one setting in which the custom developed in the hope of changing a person’s fate. That setting is grave illness. This follows the logic of the tradition surrounding Sarah, in which a new name may alter a person’s mazal. The idea is that a divine decree was attached to the person under a particular name. By receiving a new name, the person symbolically prays for a different identity to which the former decree may no longer apply.

The earliest detailed description of the custom appears in Rabbeinu Yerucham, who attributes it to an enactment of the Geonim. Ten men gather around a gravely ill patient, one of them holding a Torah scroll, and formally confer upon him a new name. They then pray that he be regarded as an entirely different person, a new creation, like a newborn child, so that any heavenly decree attached to his former identity might no longer apply. The custom appears in mystical Ashkenazic sources as well, and spread, to varying degrees, throughout the Jewish world (Sefer Chassidim 245).

Different practices emerged for choosing the new name. Mahari Bruna cautions against selecting it randomly by opening a Torah, since the first name encountered might be unsuitable (Shu”t Mahari Bruna §101). Many preferred names evoking life and healing, such as Chaim.

If the patient recovered, the new name could become permanent, with implications for the writing of gittin and other legal documents (Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 129:18). Some authorities added that when the patient had not known of the change, he or she could later reject the new name. If the patient died within thirty days of the change, or never recovered, many decisors ruled that the new name should not appear on the gravestone.

Authorities even permitted the ritual to be performed on Shabbat for a dangerously ill patient. Although supplications are ordinarily restricted on Shabbat, saving a life overrides those limitations (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 288:10). Many poskim nevertheless cautioned against changing a person’s name once recovery was no longer realistically possible. At that point, the ritual could resemble a tefillat shav, a prayer in vain that Chazal prohibited because it would depend upon a miracle. A changed name, like prayer itself, is not an act of magic, and it should never be treated as though it mechanically compels a different outcome.

The earlier custom was to replace the original name entirely. Over time, however, the more common practice became to add a new first name while retaining the old one (Shu”t Maharam Brisk 2:7). A new name might change a person’s mazal, but abandoning the old name could also sever the patient from the merits attached to the original identity. Adding a name sought to preserve those merits while drawing additional blessing from the new one.

Some authorities therefore questioned the practice altogether. Many cite the Chassidic master Rabbi Chaim Tyrer of Czernowitz, who argued that a person’s name is not merely a label, but the spiritual channel through which the soul receives its vitality (Be’er Mayim Chaim, Bereishit 2:17). Changing the name of a sick person might remove the very source of strength sustaining the patient, unless the decision is made by someone possessing near ruach ha-kodesh, or extraordinary spiritual insight. The Chida, Rabbi Chaim David Azulai, likewise entrusted such changes only to exceptional religious figures (Sansan LeYair, section 7).

Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld reportedly avoided the practice and warned that a misguided name change could itself endanger the patient. This is especially notable because the name Yosef was apparently added to his own name by his teacher, the Maharil Diskin, after he became seriously ill in his thirties (Torat Chaim, Bikur Cholim, 171). Given these sentiments, many assert that a name should be changed only after careful consultation with a leading halachic authority (Be-Mareh Ha-Bazak 4:16).

Whatever one’s perspective on this fascinating minhag, the deeper teaching of shinui ha-shem as teshuva should not be lost. Through teshuva, a person can change the name by which he or she is known. We are all creating a name through the habits we repeat, the relationships we shape, and the deeds for which others know us. Teshuva is the power to refuse the name our past has given us and to begin earning another.

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization dedicated to helping Jews navigate aging and end-of-life care through halacha and Jewish wisdom.