Names from Nature: Jewish Names Derived from Animals
Part of a series on names. See some previous entries in “Cataloging My Blogposts: An Organized Breakdown by Theme”, “Posts discussing the study of names (onomastics)”:
Names In Tanakh
From Jewish name - Wikipedia > section “Significance” (with adjustments. See there for citations):
[Joseph] Jacobs [in Studies In Biblical Archaeology (1894), pp. 94–100] gives eighty-four names (applied to 120 different persons) derived from animals and plants.
Leah is a word for cow, and Rachel for ewe (appropriate since both are considered matriarchs).
Orev ("raven") and Ze'ev ("wolf") were princes of the Midianites (although Ze'ev was also an appellation of Benjamin), and Calev ("the dog") was the founder of the chief Judean tribe.
Achbor ("mouse") and Shafan ("coney") also occur.
Jonah is the equivalent of "dove", Zipporah of "bird", and Devorah of "bee."
From Proto-Semitic *layʾ-at- ~ laʾay-at- (“cow”),
possibly from verbal root *l-ʾ-y "to be strong, mighty".
Cognate with Akkadian 𒀖 (lītum, “cow”)
and Arabic لَآة (laʔāh, “wild cow”).
“Some interpret the name Leah, based on the Arabic and Akkadian, to mean ‘cow’, (paralleling Rachel, whose name means 'ewe') or 'mistress', 'strong'. The folk explanation of the name Leah is 'weak', 'sick', 'tired', 'weary'."
Yiddish names
Male names
Wikipedia, ‘Jewish name’ (cited above):
Other Jewish names taken from animals include Ari (lion), Ariel means ("God is my lion"), Dov (bear), and Tzvi (gazelle).
Hebrew, with contemporary equivalent Yiddish names:
Ari (lion), Aryeh, Ariel - Leib
Dov (bear) - Ber
Tzvi (gazelle) - Hirsch
Female names
Yiddish, with Hebrew equivalent names:
Feiga, Feigl (bird) - Tziporah
Hinda, Hendel (female deer) - Tzivia