I apologize for writing that the name above, according
to Gorr, is *gentile* woman. I certainly did not mean
to offend. It should read *gentle*. However, my notes
say *gentile*, which would be an odd typo, although I
certainly am not the best typist!I will check the book
when I can, in a week or so.

Sorry--
Joan Rosen
jgrosen@...
Elkins Park (outside Philadelphia), PA, USA

"Joan Rosen" <jgrosen@...> wrote

I apologize for writing that the name above, according > to Gorr, is *gentile*
woman. I certainly did not mean to offend.

I have found a discussion in http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v45/mj_v45i21.html
where someone has asked why someone would given their daughter the name Gentile.
It is pointed out by one poster there that in French, for instance, gentil means
"nice, delicate" and that this is the precise equivalent of Yiddish "eidel."

The English equivalent is, indeed, gentile (pronounced genteel) - mainly
applied to a woman. So it doesn't seem to me that Joan's typing was incorrect.
It doesn't have anything to do with the word gentile.

Answers.com says that Yentl comes via Italian >from Latin gentilis - of the
same clan - which is presumably also the root for a gentile meaning non-Jew.
gentile (pron hen-teele) in modern Spanish means people.

Nick Landau
London, UK

COHNREICH (Anklam, Germany Krajenka, Poland) ATLAS (Wielkie Oczy (near
Lvov/Lemberg), Poland) WEITZMAN (Cracow), WECHSLER(Schwabach, Germany),
THALHEIMER (Mainbernheim, Germany), KOHN/WEISSKOPF (Wallerstein and
Kleinerdlingen,Germany), LANDAU (only adopted on leaving Russia/Belarus or later)
/FREDKIN (?)(Gomel, Mogilev, Chernigov, Russia/Belarus)

I have checked the book by Rabbi Gorr and the name Eidel is derived >from
the Teutonic Adela (Yiddish: Eidela) which means of "noble birth." To quote
the book "Yiddish derives >from High Medieval German, itself a derivative of
the older Teutonic, so both are of one origin. >from the meaning of noble
birth to the meaning of 'gentle' there is no distance."

Joseph Hirschfield
Portage, MI USA
HIRSCHFELD, HIRSZFELD, LINDENBAUM, BUXBAUM, BUCHSBAUM- Skwarzawa, Sielec
Bienkow, Gliniany, Kamionka Strumilowa, GALICIA
MINOWICKI, MINOWITZKI, TOBIASZ-Brest Litovsk, Wysokae, Suwalki BELARUS