The word indeed means "life" or "to live". It was the custom to add the word
after the name of a loved person, when writing down genealogical data or as
an endearing form when addressing a loved person or at the beginning of a
letter, especially when addressing one's children, also in the form "kind
[child] leben." In this context it meant "dear as life" or "loved as life."
The expression was used in Yiddish as well, all over Eastern Europe.
Best wishes,
Yocheved
Yocheved Klausner
Beer Sheva
yklaus@...

From: Lewis F. Lester, Sunday, December 13, 2009
Recently translated hand-written notes about family births, visits & deaths
(late 1800s & early 1900s) in fancy German script >from my old family Siddur
followed each child's name by the word "leben" ...The very kind person
who translated this >from ViewMate is not Jewish and was himself puzzled by
the seeming out-of-context occurrence of this word. Any ideas?