My Hebrew names

Before learning the true (ultimately Greek) etymology of Tychonievich, I had assumed for a long time that it derived from a native Russian/Ukrainian word meaning “calm, peaceful” — plus, of course, the patronymic “son of” suffix. When I was involved with the Esperanto movement, I used the name Trankfilo, punningly respelling the word for “peaceful, tranquil” so as to end with the word for “son.” Years later, when I drove past Ben Salem Wayside (in Virginia, near the college where my sisters were studying), I saw in that (Hebrew for “son of peace”) another translation of my name.

Bensalem, it turns out, is also the name of the titular utopia in The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon.

Ben Salem was a translation of what (I thought at the time) my name meant. The other way of giving yourself a Hebrew name was pioneered by the great Magician who, having been baptized Alphonse-Louis, saw a reasonably close phonetic match in the Hebrew names Eliphaz and Levi. In a 2021 post, I applied the same procedure to my own first and last names and arrived at the Hebrew words Olam and Tikkun.

Tikkun olam is an established term in Judaism. It literally means “repairing the world.”

Bill has recently proposed that to make restitution for my alleged past-life sin of “breaking the world,” I am expected to repair the world by somehow bringing back Atlantis.