Hi Genners -

Someone phonetically spelled the Hebrew writing on a headstone as Rav Chuna
Laib ben Shemuel for my Hungarian grandfather. All this time I thought his
name was Lipot or Lajos or possibly Leopold. Can someone offer a suggestion
as to what Chuna might be?
Thanks.

Lois Levick
Bensalem, PA

In no particular order:

"Chuna" is most probably "Chuna".

"Lipot" is a Hungarian variant of Leopold, and not connected to "Lajos", which is
the Hungarian variant of Louis.

The "rav" was probably written as just a resh with an apostrophe or a dot over
it (usual form for a hebrew abbreviation), which should be read as "reb", the
equivalent of "mr". "rav" would be correct for a rabbi, but actual rabbis are
usually indicated with a more elaborate title ("moreinu v'rabeinu harav", etc.).

And most interestingly, there is no required connection between a secular name
and a Jewish name. In fact, many names in hungary were quite deliberately not
"corresponding" in any way. For example, in my own family, whether given names
were biblical or nationalistic (Eva, Simon, Geza, Tamas), their Jewish names were
wildly unrelated (Sarah, Yehoshiyahu, Moishe Yaakov, and Shlomo respectively).
This seems to be a fairly common practice in Hungary, although not universal, and
not limited to only Hungary. But it means that attempts at "translation" are
sometimes completely pointless.

...tom klein, toronto