Dear group,

I have a Polish female relative whose first name I know as "Lilka".

Would anyone know what name Lilka might be a diminutive of?

I have searched the JewishGen and SIG archives and also the Polish Given
Names Database but cannot find any entries.

Thanks

Alan Glixman
Sydney, Australia

Researching:
BROKMAN in Poland; EJDELSZTEJN in Poland; GLIKSMAN in Poland
(Lodz, Pabianice & Warsaw); CHAZAN in Poland; HEYMANN (GEJMAN)
in Poland (Praszka & Lodz) & Germany (Regensburg); HONIGSTOCK in Poland
(Krosno); KAFTAL in Poland (Lodz); LICHTENSTEIN in Poland & Germany;
MIRTENBAUM in Poland & Canada; ZYLBERSZTEJN in Poland

Alan Glixman of Australia posted as follows:

"I have a Polish female relative whose first name I know as "Lilka".

Would anyone know what name Lilka might be a diminutive of?"

The Yiddish diminutive name Lilke derives >from the German secular name
Lili. The German name Lili was adopted by a number of Jews in Germany as
the name they used in contacts with non-Jewish Germans. This is one of
about 500 such names used by German Jews during the 19th century. The name
Lili was accepted by the German rabbis as a name to be used as a legal
secular kinui for any Hebrew name that a woman might have had. So for a
woman with the Hebrew name Leya, and using the German secular name Lili,
the name would have appeared in a Get as follows: Leya hamechuna Lili.

These German names were popular among Jews and spread rapidly during the
19th century to Poland and Hungary, and were used there also. The Polish
and Hungarian Jews substituted some local secular names for the German
names in a few cases.

These German, Polish, and Hungarian secular names can be found in the
JewishGen Given Names Data Bases web site at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/GivenNames/search.htm .

Prof. G. L. Esterson, Ra'anana, Israel

Dear group,

I have a Polish female relative whose first name I know as "Lilka".

Would anyone know what name Lilka might be a diminutive of?

In Polish, it could be a diminutive of Lilia, Liliana - as for Jewish
given names, there's no direct match, perhaps of Lea of Liba.

Regards,

G. Gembala