Talk:Eli (name)

My suspicion is that there is no "standalone name Eli (אלי) meaning 'my God'". I think that the name אלי originates as a common hypocoristic of a number of name beginning in Eli-, and is now commonly given in Israel, but it is still a short form, just as "Bill" may be given as an official name but still originates as a short form of "William". Otoh, Eli (עֵלִי) is an actual Biblical name. Now, most people of Jewish background called Eli will be called אלי, to be understood as a short name, and most people with a WASPish background called Eli will be called עֵלִי as a "Christian (Biblical) name". But I think since אלי is now such a common name in Israel, there is a tendency to transliterate even WASPish Elis as אלי in Modern Hebrew, as in Eli Whitney = "אלי ויטני". It's difficult to tell because it would need research and this "article" isn't big on references. Wikipedia has the unfortunate tendency to use "given name" articles as a dumping ground for what could easily be done algorithmically, via All pages with titles beginning with Eli. I would prefer getting rid of the random list of "people called Eli" and focussing on researching the history and development of the various cases instead. --dab (𒁳) 10:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems that the American practice to abbreviate names in Eli- as "Eli" originates with Elihu Yale, although it isn't clear if this Elihu was called "Eli" during his lifetime or only posthumously. The first person named "Eli" (Jewish אלי, as opposed to "Protestant" עֵלִי) for whom I cannot find a longer birth name is Eli Wallach, born 1915. This is a film star, and it would be quite usual for him (a) to have used a short form of his name and (b) to have initiated a fashion of given names. The second person called Eli (אלי) I can find is Eli Amir, born 1937 in Baghdad. The Arabic spelling of his name he would have used during childhood is ايلى Īlī. --dab (𒁳) 08:14, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Two separate lists of "Hebrew Elis": the peak of uselessness & disorienting the user
The previous talk page contributor,, separates according to the Hebrew spelling, I quote: "Jewish אלי, as opposed to "Protestant" עֵלִי". Which is self-cotradictory: two HEBREW spellings makes it two JEWISH meanings - whatever might be Protestant about it can only be secondary. What is though more essential is that he fails to distinguish between the two apparently different meanings associated with the two spellings. Which leads to the main issue with the article: it massively disorients the user by separating Hebrew Eli from Hebrew Eli (?!) according to unexplained criteria. The list of names is split into two: "Hebrew given name" and "Hebrew name אלי or names of which that is a short form". Please explain, it makes no sense to anyone. As it is now, you get a list of mainly English-speaking non-Jews with a few Jews, and a mainly-Israeli second list. How does the word with an aiyn differ in meaning from that with an aleph? That's the semantic approach, and it MUST be elaborated in the lead or in a top-positioned paragraph. But I don't think that is in any way relevant to the name list: I can bet that practically all editors who add names to it don't know where 'their' Eli belongs to etymologycally, as most Elis themselves won't know, unless they are Israelis (or a few non-Hebrew-speakers who have seen their name spelled in Hebrew, with someone to explain the meaning to them.) So the two separated lists are BOUND to become full of erroneous additions, a second reason which makes them unpractical (beside of that that it's confusing to 99.99% of the users), and thus useless.

Please consider and rewrite. Thanks and cheers, Arminden (talk) 09:46, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I have overlooked already existing explanations. I will add an even sharper distinction to make it better visible even to sleepy users like me :) However, the problem with the two lists stays the same. Arminden (talk) 09:59, 7 July 2019 (UTC)