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Rachel: the name and the Matriarch
In the process of reading The Lost: a Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn, I ran across the name Ruchele. Mendelsohn had a great aunt and a cousin by that name. The great aunt went by the short name, Ray which was a clue to me that perhaps I was looking at a variant of my own name, Rachel.
Being a baby name book collector , I'm familiar with a number of variants of my name, although, generally speaking, mostly these types of books merely list alternate spellings (RACHEAL, RACHAEL) and a few nicknames like "Shelly." Here is a more comprehensive list:
RACHEL - English
RACHEL/RACHELLE - French variant, pronounced "Rah-shell"
RAQUEL - Spanish variant, pronounced "Rah-kell"
RAHEL - Hungarian
RAHIL - Russian variant, pronounced "Rah-heel"
RAAHEEL/RAHEELA/RAHIL/RAHILA - Arabic
RAKEL - Scandinavian
RACHELE - Italian
RUCHEL/RUCHELE/RUCHALY - Yiddish variant, pronounced "Rukh-el"; the diminutive is ROCHL
Although they look like variants of Rachel, ROCHELLE and RAISEL/REIZEL/REISEL aren't. The former is French for "little rock," and the latter is Yiddish for "little rose."
The Hebrew Rachel (רָחֵל) is three consonants long: "R," "Kh," and "L." All of the above names, even including ROCHELLE, but excluding RAIZEL which clearly doesn't fit, retain these sound elements. I've always been curious about how names migrate and change from culture to culture - how does JOHN become IVAN, for example. I can only assume that as R-Kh-L migrated with Jews and then Christians, that kh sound which many languages can't accomodate well was changed into a ch or an sh or a k sound. Personally I like the softer sounding RACHEL or RACHELLE much better than RAKEL or R-Kh-L, but that's a matter of taste and cultural conditioning.
When I lived in Russia, I found that my name didn't translate all that well. It was hard for Russians to say. When I tried to explain to them that is was the English version of their own RAHIL, thinking, well, that Rachel is sort of a famous name, a Biblical name, a multicultural name, I got blank stares or looks of distaste. I've since learned, from some forgotten source, that the Russian RAHIL is a Jewish name with a sticky intransitive quality, a name found only among Jews, a Jewish name like we in America would think of ABRAHAM or SARAH as Jewish names, although I don't think the same stigma or the same stickiness exists here. The key check woman at the school I worked, after hearing my explanation, told me flat out, "I'll call you Raisa." And that was that for her.
RACHEL is also an almost impossible name for Japanese people to say as it has both an R and an L, which are easily swapped one for the other in Japanese. It was a real effort on the part of Hiroko, my Japanese friend and roommate in college, to say "Rachel" and not "Lay-cher." When I first introduced myself, she rolled her eyes as if to ask the heavens why, Why her?
In the Bible Rachel was an important figure, at least genealogically. She was Laban's daughter, Rebekah's niece, and Jacob's love. Jacob saw her and immediately fell in love with her. He worked seven years for her hand, after which Laban cheated him and put Leah, Rachel's sister in the bundle of scarves he was marrying. Too late, post consummation (and I have always wondered, just how drunk did Jacob have to have been not to have noticed the difference) he realized the truth. He then worked seven more years for Rachel. Unfortunately, their life together was rocky since she had to share him with her much more fertile sister. Children, were after all, the way a woman proved her worthiness, and God's approval, to her husband and society. Eventually she bore Joseph, who would go on to save both his entire family and Egyptians from a great famine, and Benjamin, whose birth ended her life. She is buried outside of Bethlehem. She is referenced again in Jeremiah 31:15: "Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." This is interpreted as her sorrow at the Babylonian Exile and a plea to God to end it. A Midrash from the book of Lamentation says that she pointed out to God that she'd endured a rival in her house (Leah) as a result of her (perhaps personally unwise) choice to not expose Leah to shame when Laban made his infamous wife swap. Surely, Rachel argued, God could endure and forgive a few powerless, inanimate rivals (the idols the Israelites persisted in worshipping) if she could coexist with such an intimate rival for so long. God saw her tears and promised to end eventually the Israelites' exile.
This little Midrash is the first I've heard of Rachel having any real power or nobility. Her bit parts in Genesis tend to emphasize 1) her physical beauty, 2) her sorrow and anger over her infertility, 3) her short-term problem solving in giving her handmaid to Jacob to impregnate, and 4) the manipulative passive-aggressive behavior she engages in with Leah. Basically their's is the first grand-scale dysfunctional family, and all of Jacob's children and wives suffer because of his polygamy.
I've always felt I could have picked a better namesake. Perhaps Deborah, the stong and wise judge, or Judith, the brave deliverer, or Abigail, the peacemaker. They made their mark. Rachel waited around for her nights with Jacob and hoped eventually to best her sister in the fertility game.
Of course, I'm fairly certain none of these Hebraic drama was at the forefront of my parents' baby naming process. I'm told I was named for the Hayley Mills character in The Trouble with Angels , a naughty snip of a girl with a twinkle in her eye. Although, having consulted the link there, this turns out to be incorrect. Rachel was, apparently, the sidekick, and not the main event.
Still, I've always liked my name. Unlike its first bearer, it's strong and straightforward. It has history and presence. It resists cutesifying. The shortened "Rach," I've never cared for, but otherwise, I'm happy.