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In Hebrew, writing "chaya" with all its letters would result in spelling God's name "ya". Is this okay?

How should it be spelled? With a ' instead of the hay? With a ' between the yud and the hay? Any other ways?

Moreover, if it can be written fully, does it take the status of sheimos?

I first saw the custom to seperate the yud and the hay at chabad, but to me it seems weird due to the large number of other places I feel like I've seen yud and hay together with no issue.

andrewmh20
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    What about Yehudah, Ovadiah, Yehoshua, Yehoram? – Noach MiFrankfurt Dec 10 '14 at 04:11
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    I have heard of the custom (Chabad IIRC) to separate the yud and the hey with an apostrophe or a hyphen – Epicentre Dec 10 '14 at 05:00
  • @Epicentre interesting, because I ask having seen the custom at chabad. – andrewmh20 Dec 10 '14 at 05:07
  • related: see here for a responsum from Rabbi Shlomo Aviner about writing and pronouncing the name Beit El. @NoachmiFrankfurt he mentions the names that you mention too – Jewels Dec 10 '14 at 11:06
  • I thought we had this question already (about another name like Chaya), but cannot now find it. – msh210 Dec 10 '14 at 17:13
  • @msh210 if you find it, do link to it. I'm curious what answers it's gotten. – Seth J Dec 10 '14 at 17:23
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    @andrewmh20, FWIW (not much, probably), my non-Chabad rabbi wrote my name, which contains a Yud and Hey combination, with an apostrophe in place of the Hey in his inscription of a book he gave me on behalf of the Shul at my Bar Mitzvah a million years ago. – Seth J Dec 10 '14 at 17:24
  • related: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/33584/sort-of-writing-the-name-of-god?rq=1 – Charles Koppelman Dec 10 '14 at 22:09
  • ...as Noach starts to point out, most Biblical Jewish names have a component that is one of the Names of G-d... just as the names of members of the other regional countries(Moab/Assyria/Babylon/etc) had names of their gods as components. – Gary Dec 12 '14 at 04:57
  • Related: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/13271. – Fred Dec 20 '15 at 23:56
  • Within the set of names that could rationally be split into two meaningful words (one of them being a divine name), some subset of those names may very well carry some holy status (see P'sachim 117a, "דאמר רב ידידי-ה נחלק לשנים לפיכך ידיד חול י-ה קודש"). – Fred Dec 21 '15 at 10:57

2 Answers2

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Excerpt from this

The use of words and names like “Shmuel,” “Yeshaya,” and “Daniel” are permitted, even though two of their letters represent Hashem’s name, since the intended use is for a person’s name, not Hashem’s name. The word “Bethel” can be written, as well as Beth-El in two words. Since it is the name of a city, it does not matter how it is spelled.

See footnote (5) there. It is not linked, and they include a somewhat blurry photocopy, so I couldn't quite decipher what it says. Others are welcome to edit my answer to include it.

Note: The article is in English, so they transliterated the names. My understanding of the above quote is that they are saying that it's permissible to write the whole name in Hebrew letters without truncating or separating the letters, b/c it's not considered shaimos.

Related - There is no "Shaimos" involved in saying the name as is. My Rav relayed a story that on a date, the boy asks the girl her name, and she answers, "Bat-kah". He responds, "Nice to meet you. My name is "Kelikahu" ". It is ridiculous, no?

DanF
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    Footnote 5 in its entirety says עי' מבשנה הלכות ח"ו סי' קפ"ד – Yishai Dec 10 '14 at 19:06
  • Another example of this sort of thing is at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/29089/hyphenating-the-word-hashem – Avrohom Yitzchok Dec 10 '14 at 19:19
  • For some different opinions on the name of that city, see http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/13271. – Fred Dec 20 '15 at 23:57
  • I still would like to know--can you write Chaya or not? If you do--does the paper have to be put in sheymos? – SAH Dec 24 '15 at 05:00
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    @SAH FWIW, My Hebrew name is דניאל. In elementary school and high school, I used to write it דניא-ל since I thought I couldn't write God's name. A rebbi told me that it was unnecessary as I am not mentioning God's name as part of my name, and it has no "holiness" other than, of course, the "holiness" that my name identifies my being, which applies to every Jew. Logically, then, I would assume that if there is no holiness in the name, it is not "shaimos", and you can dispose of a paper that has such a name. I stopped counting how many test papers that had my name were torn up! – DanF Dec 24 '15 at 15:51
  • @SAH I'm puzzled as to why you are asking this question and why you put a bounty on this. I have bolded part of my previous answer, which states that it is not considered shaimos, thus, you are allowed to dispose of a paper that just has this name. Please read the linked article so that you can get the context and can confirm that I didn't misinterpret. If there is still something missing that doesn't answer your question, please specify what it is. – DanF Dec 24 '15 at 16:18
  • @DanF Yes, you're right. I guess I missed "Yeshaya." You get the bounty then! – SAH Dec 27 '15 at 14:11
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Old thread, but I add that I have heard (forgive me for not remembering wherefrom) that when you are writing a personal name or a word that is not supposed to be a reference to Hashem's name, it is muttar to write it even if it contains letters relating to Hashem's name because the word and intention are not to refer to Hashem's name.

My Rav writes his name containing א-ל withOUT any break. Rav Ovadia Yosef signs his name containing י-ה withOUT any break between those letters either. Signature of Rav Ovadia Yosef:

Yerushalmi
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