Hello,

I am researching my great-grandmother Sarah and her sisters (surname will
be omitted for now since this inquiry concerns only her given name). They
were >from either >from Jaslo, Poland, or Minsk, Belarus and were born in
the late 1870s / early 1880s.

I know that Sarah's sisters' names in this country were Mary and Ida. I am
pretty sure that she only had two sisters, although I'm not certain.

My question concerns Yiddish *equivalents* of these names. I recently
found a picture (which belonged to Sarah) on which there is Yiddish on the
back. Translated, it is addressed to *Mera* and is >from *Dina.* Do these
Yiddish names in any way match up to the English names of Sarah, Ida, or
Mary? If so, which ones?

I thought that *Mera* might be Sarah since they sound similar, and also
since my great-grandmother Sarah was the one who possessed the photo. But
then again, *Mera* also sounds similar to Mary. *Dina* appears to have
some of the same letters as Ida, although I don't know if that has any
significance or is simply a coincidence.

I suspect that the Yiddish names belong to two of the three sisters, but
I'm not sure which ones. Is there any way to be sure, or at least form a
likely guess? I'm not currently aware of any documents online that detail
name changes >from Yiddish to English.

Thanks for any help in solving this mystery.
Alex

MODERATOR NOTE: Useful information on this topic can be found at the
Jewishgen Given Names Database at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/GivenNames/