because by fate even the gods are cast down

The everyone-is-Jewish AU meta no one asked for but I wanted to tell. This story occurred to me on a long road trip, so while I had a basic mental image of what I wanted all the sections to be, I really didn’t feel like painstaking typing out prose on my phone. Instead, I put far too much thought into the important topic: what would all the primarch’s Hebrew names be? (Spoiler alert: the number one guiding principle used was “sounds vaguely phonetically similar to their English name,” which I am pretty sure is how most Jewish parents who gave their kid a name that wasn’t already of Hebrew origin do it.)

I. Aryeh ben Canaan: So the first name was easy, Ari, because call Lion Lion. One can only assume his name sounds less stupid in his IC Calibanite language than it does in English anyway. Some book, I think Descent of Angels explains that “el’Jonson” is an extremely generic foundlings’ name, meaning something like “of the forest.” I should give him something very generic too, I thought. Ben Canaan, of the land. Then I had to shove some knuckles in my mouth to keep quiet because I could not stop laughing uncontrollably for quite some time afterward. I haven’t read Leon Uris since I was in middle school half a lifetime ago, but apparently I still remember it perfectly to find that accidental reference hilarious. I switched around the English form Ari for the Hebrew Aryeh so I could feel better about myself.

III. Moshe ben Chaim: It’s mentioned offhandedly somewhere in Angel Exterminatus that Fulgrim’s name is, IC, a reference to some Chemosian water-bringer god, because he was drawn from a spring of water. Oh, I translated, Moses. Chaim, life, I considered appropriate with his phoenix theme and what I had planned for his section and could work as a Hebrew name for Coryn, his adopted father.

IV. Eben ben Avi: Eben, it means rock. My original outline was a note to find an acceptable boy’s name that meant rock once I was back on proper internet. Ben Avi means something along the lines of “son of his father.” A number of the names end up being a little heavy-handed for the stories I ended up writing, because I decided on the former first and only later actually wrote the latter down from the single phrase outlines I had.

V. Joshua ben Boaz: I decided to do a Battle of Jericho theme for Jaghatai, and whatever they both start with a J. Does Jaghatai’s adopted father even have a canon name? I do not know, do not care, and have never gotten around to reading either of the heresy-era White Scars books that might have told me. Anyway, I stared at baby name websites for awhile, then ended up with a Google search for “Hebrew name for horse.” Boaz, means swift, Ruth’s husband. Sure, fine.

VI. Zev ben Tomer: Zev, means wolf. This particular story came about for totally OOC reasons, because I initially had no idea what I wanted to write about for Russ. He was one of the ones whose origin story and Legion philosophy and whatnot did not directly lend itself to any common Jewish legend I could easily think of–their Viking theme is already so strong, raised by wolves stories aren’t really a big Jewish thing that I know of. I decided to write about Russ and Lion interacting because of the inside joke that my Hebrew name is Aryeh ben Zev. My father, a raging Mitnagdim who hates the Hassidim, is well represented in this fic.

VII. Yitzhak ben Enoch: Dorn as Isaac to his grandfather’s Abraham is main conceit of that section, hence the references to this being an unexpected child of his old age and laughter and such. I decided against naming his grandfather Abraham as well, because that’s just too much, considered Methuselah, then went with Enoch, who did not die but walked with God and was no more.

VIII. Jeremiah ben Layla: My notes read “the ox yoke prophet.” I was pretty sure that was Jeremiah, but I wanted to double-check the internet that I had the right one, because I get which prophet was which mixed up all the time. What a melodramatic, doom-preaching little shit. That was what first came to mind when thinking about Konrad Curze. Layla means night, see previous comment, but it is also a viable, hypothetical woman’s name. I’m not sure what Sevatar’s Hebrew name is, but I’m sure it’s something embarrassing and he hates it.

IX. Samson ben Malachi: Samson was the reference that came to mind for Sanguinius: living the high life, betrayed by someone he loved, the association with blind rage and pyrrhic victory. Malachi is from the same root as malachim, translated through Greek as angelos, angels.

X. Yisrael ben Barzillai: Ferrus was one it took me a long time to decide what I wanted. I considered Nimrod (a name in use in the Israeli, though not American, community), I considered Judah (particularly a Judah Maccabee reference). Israel, he who wrestles with God, finally occurred to me and I decided to go with a theme of “wrestling the leviathan.” Ferrus is canonically known to have been raised by rocks, but I went with Barzillai, meaning iron, because I had to throw in something. I suppose I could have switched him and Perturabo but whatever. Barzillai also happens to be the last name of a colleague of mine from work, so I found that mildly amusing to use.

XII. Aaron ben Shiphrah: I’d already used Moses for Fulgrim, but freeing the slaves and Exodus was clearly going to be the Angron narrative, so Aaron fit as well as being phonetically similar to his name. I considered a reference to Harriet Tubman for his matronymic but couldn’t think of a good way to put it, so ended up just going with Shiphrah, one of the midwives with Egypt. He would approve of her, I thought.

XIII. Reuben ben Tamar: Reuben sounds vaguely phonetically similar to Roboute and seems like the sort of Hebrew name parents would give a kid they’d named Robert in English. Also, I’m sure there are some fitting biblical comparisons to make, with Reuben being Jacob’s eldest son but being considered kind of a nonentity despite this and certainly not being the favorite, being accused of taking over rights that should only belong to his father, etc. Tamar seemed like a Hebrew name for someone named Tarasha, and there was a woman who got shit done. I also strongly considered Esther, for the narrative of a Jewish queen married to a non-Jewish king who speaks for her people.

XIV. Mordechai ben Meron: I decided quite a while ago while writing homeworld swap that Mordechai sounded like a phonetically appropriate name for Mortarion and continued with it. It also has a sense of being a stranger in a strange land. Meron is a reference to the mountain, because he came down from the highest mountain where the necromancers lived. Since his narrative is more about converting to Judaism a bit later in life, ben Avraham Avinu would have also worked.

XV. Meir ben Maimon: For Magnus, ben Maimon was a Maimonides reference, and also works well enough as a potential name for Amon, his tutor. His first name, I flipped through various lists of famous ancient rabbis and scholars and Meir was a common enough name that wasn’t a specific biblical reference or too obvious reference to any particular sage, so I shrugged and went with that.

XVI. Joseph ben Adam: Joseph was the obvious reference for Horus: the favorite son of a father with many sons, the one set above the others, the one resented for it by his brothers. I’ve thought to myself about the story of Jacob and his sons before, in the context of really the Emperor should have known better, did he have his head under a rock? For the Emperor himself, I thought to myself, What is the most generic, non-specific name I can think of? Ah yes, that sure is a dude, that sure is the all-father.

XVII. Elior ben Pinchas: For Lorgar, I knew I was going to go with some random name referencing gold or light or something of the sort. I chose this particular version because having ‘or’ as the first syllable rather than the second sounded too much like what I’d already gone with for Corax. For some reason, having Kor Phaeron’s name be Pinchas struck me as hilarious, but I have no idea why my subconscious thinks this. Whatever, it’s an appropriate enough name, a hard-liner high priest.

XVIII. Solomon ben Tuval: For Vulkan, I knew I wanted to make references to Ethiopian Jews and to non-Ashkenazi Jewish traditions. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about Jewish practices or culture that aren’t American Ashkenazi or Israeli, so this isn’t actually reflected in the fic. Tuval is a reference to Tuval-cain, brother of Naamah, forger of instruments of bronze and iron.

XIX. Orev ben David: My original notes say “stupid bird name.” I would then check if “raven” had a translation that was an acceptable Hebrew male first name, discover it did, and use that. It’s mentioned in Deliverance Lost that the surname Corax has messianic implications and meanings on his home planet, so I made the classic Hebrew messianic reference. Some part of me looks at it and thinks that’s just not classy, but 40k has never been classy.

XX. Benyamin and Ephraim ben Bityah: For Alpharius and Omegon, I went with Benjamin, Jacob’s youngest son, and Ephraim, Joseph’s younger son whose tribe is often substituted for a “tribe of Joseph” in later lists. I have this whole WIP about them being raised Jewish, not specific to this AU/fic, and how those lessons of hiding, sneaking, being careful, keeping secrets shaped them, though actually I’m really not an Alpha Legion fan and how they carry out any of those things when they appear in canon pisses me off. Bityah is the name of Moses’s adopted mother, who found a baby in the river and decided to raise it. She’s a main character in that WIP, as well as being repeatedly referenced in the homeworld swap story of mine with Mortarion, and I headcanon her as being an ex-intelligence special forces agent on dishonorable discharge from the Imperial Army after the Unification Wars.