“Our Nomele” — Diminutive Names
It is common in Yiddish to add a diminutive suffix to a person’s name. This often gives the name an endearing quality, indicative of family and other close relationships.
The most common diminutive suffixes are:
–ל, –עלע, –קע, –עניו, –שי
Diminutive names are often used by parents, or any adult, when speaking about or to a child. They are also used by children among themselves.
As we see in the movie, Nomi’s grandparents call her “Nomele”. And Nomi expresses the same warm feelings by calling her grandmother באָבעניו or באָבעשי, and her grandfather זײדעניו or זיידעשי. (In this case the words באָבע and זײדע function as names.)
Meyerke’s name is itself an affectionate diminutive — when he grows up, he mostly likely will be known simply as “Meyer”, and only his older relatives and his childhood friends like Nomi and Perl will still call him “Meyerke”. However, perhaps a particularly close friend will address him as Meyerke or with another diminutive form of his name, such as Meyerl, Meyerkele, Meyrenyu, or Meyrush.
The diminutive forms of well-known names of Biblical origin sometimes end up sounding quite different from the original name and have often become names in their own right, without the connotations of childhood and affection. For example:
Yankev (Jacob) becomes “Yankl”, Bas-Sheve (Bathsheba) becomes “Bashe”, Mordkhe (Mordechai) becomes “Motl”, Refoyel (Raphael) becomes “Falik”, Nesanel (Nethaniel) becomes “Saneh”, and Yisroel (Israel) becomes “Srulik”.
In traditional Jewish society, a person’s “official name” was often considered more distinguished than its corresponding diminutive name, as we can learn from the saying:
ר' משה מעג און מאָשקע טאָר נישט.
Mister Moyshe may, but Moshke mustn’t.
Meaning: Societal rules are applied differently for a rich, respected head of a household (Mr. Moyshe) than they are for a person in the working class (Moshke).
In fact, a common combination was a diminutive name paired with one of the professions considered lesser or other designation of low social status, such as אַבֿרהמעלע מלמד (Avremele the Teacher) or מאָטקע גנבֿ (Motke the Thief).
On the other hand, there are a number of cases where a diminutive name indicates a spiritual intimacy with a highly respected person, for example, a Hasidic rebbe like Reb Mendele from Kotsk or Reb Dovidl Karliner. Perhaps the ultimate example of this is the diminutive form of God’s name: “Gotenyu”!
