Letters to the Editor
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For crying out loud!
With all the things going wrong in this world Obama and his wife are crying about some stupid middle name? He seriously has nothing of importance to say and the more time goes by the more you see it. Still the Press keeps the flames lit and have canonized him. We're in trouble if he wins or loses with all this hysteria. I seriously think there are going to be riots...and I'm not talking about race...I'm referring to his largest group of supporters the college students. :
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I guess you don't speak Hebrew
A blessing is a Bracha, ... not a hard k in any dialect. To bless is Baruch, not Barak. That's a chof sofit, not a kof.
Barak means lighting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barak
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Great article, Thank you
Great Great Article!!! Thank you very much for writing it.
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I Think That Tardo Name Is, Like, TOTALLLLY A Problem .
'Cause when I was ten I had this best friend named Megan and, like, can you say "twat stink for days?" And still now, when I even meet a Megan, even if she's nice I think "Ugh - biOTCH don't even talk to me." So I really get when people feel dissed by the Hussein guy cause he took all the money and stuff.
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Names
Thank you for this eloquent explanation of the origins of Barack Hussein Obama's name. I only wish that the bigots who think his name matter were smart enough to read your article, but my pessimistic prediction is that you are preaching to the choir.
By the way, I would add two items to your article: in Kenya, Barack may be more directly related to the Kiswahili word "baraka," also meaning blessed or blessing. Kiswahili (more commonly known as Swahili) itself is a combination of various African and Asian/mideastern languages, which evolved as a lingua franca over years of trading up and down the East African coast. There is no Swahili "tribe."
My second point is that of course, Abraham Lincoln's namesake Abraham is an important person in the Koran, the Christian Old Testament, and the Torah. He is considered by Jews and Christians to be the patriarch of their faith through his son Isaac, and considered by Muslims to be a prophet of Islam as well as the ancestor of Muhammad through Abraham's son Ishmael.
So ... what's in a name?
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@maureenodonnell
You're really getting wound up over this British royalty genealogy issue. What about the point of the article, which only contained a single sentence about the royal family? Are you calling the rest of the article erroneous, too? Do you think Obama should be ashamed of his middle name? What's your point?
I do find your detailed explanations interesting, since I find European history fascinating, but ... maybe you should start writing to genealogy sites instead!?!
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JUAN COLE RIGHT ON TARGET
Thank you, Juan. Your article is enlightening, educational and interesting, and all points covered absolutely true. It's time someone responded to the prejudicial, hate-saturated attacks on, not only Obama and his name, but on all things even smacking "Arab," "Hussein,"....when is this country going to wake up and embrace all people. Obama's white heritage is not mentioned by those hate mongers; and he is not Arab, but Arican on his paternal side. He is not Muslim, but Christian. So, should that make him a better man? Maybe to the hate mongers...to me, he is our only hope to bring back my country, the USA, to me and to the world. Thanks again.
Good luck, Barack. We salute you.
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Kahawa, it's only now that I've seen your post and I'll try to explain.
No, I do not think that Barack Obama should be ashamed of his middle name as he did not choose any of his names. There are many embarrassing middle names and the only reason it might be embarrassing to Obama is in the current political context. I know a man in his sixties who once told me that his second name is Mary and that it was on his birth certificate which annoyed him considerably. The reason for this second name was that his mother was a devout Catholic and, apparently, this was in thanksgiving to Holy Mary for the safe delivery of the baby and his mother's continued good health. To make matters worse for him in adulthood, he is not religious. We have to forgive our parents for a lot but we should also remember that childbirth could, in the past, be more perilous than it has been in the last 50 years, because of medical advances. Obama should have confronted the matter of his middle name long before now. My own middle name is quite OK but my brother's is one he hates and it's a family secret.
Juan Cole is absolutely wrong in stating that the British royal family is "forthright" about tracing its origins back to Andalusia. In the first place, I don't believe it because the current (note:current) royal family is Hanoverian with no Plantaganet, Tudor or Stuart blood and the British royal family ruled the whole of my country until l922 (Northern Ireland is still under the British Crown). We do know quite a lot about the British monarchy. Well, if Juan Cole flies a kite like this, which can easily be pulled down to earth, why should I believe anything else he's written in his article? I know nothing about Jewish and Arab names, except that Omar Sharif was an actor, was born in Egypt and was an excellent player of bridge (the card-game). I have some idea of the Rubyiat of Omar Khayam (translated by Edward Fitzgerald, I think. Look, I write off the top of my head, although I had to check on Edward 1V when Juan Cole responded but a writer in Salon (such as Mr. Cole) is presumed to have done his research. Others, with a knowlege of Muslim and Jewish names, have also responded to him and claimed that his statements were incorrect. The point I was making, Kahawa, is that if I come across a glaring error of fact (not opinion) in anything I read, I tend to dismiss the author's other conclusions as an example of lazy journalism or an attempt to make "a silk purse out of a sow's ear" as too many journalists do when they present faction/fiction as fact. If you are an American you will understand that King George 111 had a huge impact on what became the United States of America and any Irish person interested in history knows about the fractious relationship between our islands. In general, I like the English a lot, particularly their wry sense of humour and their language/literature. I'm Irish, I'm sure of my identity, and hating others for battles long ago (the Battle of the Boyne, particularly) has no attraction for me.