Thoughts on Cohen?

[fluentinsarcasm]

Really grown on me, what do you think?

precisely- it's an archetypal jewish surname to the extent that vile bigots will pick 'Cohens' out of the phone book to phone them up and abuse them
I'm not Jewish and didn't realise that the name had this significance (and some of my best friends are jewish I'm vaguely interested in Judaism) so I will grant that this is specialist knowledge somewhat.
But it IS a jewish surname so I would be pitying baby Cohen and thinking his parents were ignorant and/or stupid.

Agent I don't even know of any Jewish boys called Cohen. It's just not used as a first name that I know of. If you weren't a member of the Cohen tribe then it would be not a great name to give a child and if you were a member of it, there'd not be much point. It might be a bit like Kate and William calling George, Prince Prince.

And that aside, I'd not want to have a name so uniquely identifying as being Jewish. And I say that as a Jew who is proud to be Jewish. But I along with the rest of my family have lived with both overt and subtle prejudice over the years, either because of our name or our appearance. Or both. Life would have probably been simpler had I been called Victoria Thomas or something and not have a typically Jewish appearance.

Sorry if I wasn't clear there disastrous - I've never heard of it as a first name either, whether for Jewish or non-Jewish boys. I can certainly understand why its use would seem odd and even disrespectful.

Agent you were very clear. I was agreeing but clumsily trying to point out that you'd not even find it being given to Jewish boys as a first name as that would also seem odd. Arghh. Still not explaining myself very well. Anyhow I was basically trying to agree with you :).

And sorry your Leonard idea was vetoed. I think it's so cool and as well as Leonard Cohen there's also Leonard Nimmo (Spock) . I'd hope that if you insisted your DS was Leonard rather than Len or Lenny, then hopefully it wouldn't get shortened.

Weren't they both Jewish?

Yes, surprisingly enough, Leonard COHEN was indeed Jewish

disastrous, no worries, I know what you mean

And I hadn't thought of Leonard Nimoy either! Both brilliant men!

Why the pa ?

Why the pa ?

I'm assuming the was because it's not surprising that Leonard Jewish Surname was Jewish!

Not surprising, a fair assumption, but a conclusion nonetheless.

Would you say 'well, duhhhh stupid' to someone you don't know in real life?

Leonard used to be quite an all-round popular name I think.

A boy with the first name Cohen or Coen would make my eyebrows raise for three seconds, but that's it.

[GRIN] You just couldn't make it up!

After detailed explanations about the history of the name, the one with the witty comments about Warlock and Mother Superior asks if Leonard COHEN was Jewish.

Priceless.

Well, I don't know about the roots of the surname 'Nimoy'.

Fancy a baby Nimoy?

I assumed Leonard Cohen was Jewish. Whether he was practicing or not I have no idea. I knew that Leonard Nimoy was because I read his autobiography.

I think this thread is just an excuse for a goady piss take and I'm just not in the mood to play today as we are waiting for news of people who were on the top floor of grenfell.

And DH just reminded me that Leonard Cohen was a Buddhist monk.

Of course Leonard Cohen was Jewish!

Why is it any different to calling your child Kaiser, or King, Queen, princess?

It's something closer to Priest, loki

I haven't read all the replies, but in case no one else has mentioned it your son could experience problems if visiting an Arab country. I remember reading about a girl/woman, Christian name Sharon, who was detained by suspicious guards in somewhere like Palestine who thought she may be connected with Ariel Sharon the Israeli soldier and politician. Please don't do it, and no, I'm not Jewish. Not Coen either unless you want to doom him to a life of tiresome explanations. Sorry if someone has already said all this.

They have tried to Nelson... but the OP is of the don't give a fuck persuasion...

Terrible choice if you ask me. I'm not going to repeat what everybody else said but I think giving someone a surname as a first name is not that classy. As a Jew I don't mind that much but I would definitely raise my eyebrows. If you want a biblical name there are plenty of those, even random Hebrew words are beautiful names!!

My DS has a lovely friend called Cohen. I had no idea it was such a controversial choice.

I'm Jewish and I don't think OP should use it. But I'm also getting the message that she doesn't care what I think.

Person not from an ethnic minority in "I don't care about cultural appropriation" shocker

YY^^

Funnily enough, I don't think anyone was worried about you op, when they mentioned cultural appropriation .