Established Non-Jewish Names
In Gittin 11a, we hear of especially non-Jewish names, which if appearing on a get would not invalidate it, because it is so evidently not Jewish.
הֵיכִי דָּמֵי שֵׁמוֹת מוּבְהָקִין? אָמַר רַב פָּפָּא, כְּגוֹן: הוֹרְמִיז, וַאֲבוּדַיָּנָא, בַּר שִׁיבְתַּאי, וּבַר קִידְרֵי, וּבָאטִי, וּנְקִים אוּנָּא.
The Gemara clarifies: What are the circumstances of unambiguous gentile names? Rav Pappa said: This is referring to names such as Hurmiz, and Abbudina, bar Shibbetai, and bar Kidri, and Bati, and Nakim Una.
These are Persian names that Rav Pappa would be familiar with. So too presumably the Talmudic Narrator. However, I’d imagine that scribes across the Jewish world might not know these particular names.
Rashi explains these as names of gentile judges:
הורמיז ואבודינא בר שיבתאי ובר קידרי בטי ונקים אונא - כולם שמות דייני עובדי כוכבים הם:
(I wonder if Abu-dayana influenced it being specifically judge names. Or whether it is because it is a document arising from arkaot nochrim, non-Jewish courts.)
Tosafot note that Rabbenu Tam argues that the first name should be HormiN, with a nun sofit, rather than a zayin as the last letter. They write:
הורמין - בנו"ן גר"ת דלא מסקי ישראל הכי דהורמין הוא שם שטן ושד אבל הורמיז בזיי"ן הוא לשבח בפ' אחד דיני ממונות (סנהדרין דף לט.) מפלגא דידך ולעיל דהורמיז ולתחת דהורמין הראשון בזיי"ן והשני בנו"ן ורש"י גריס תרוייהו בזיי"ן אלא שבשני גריס דאהורמיז. ואיפרא הורמיז (ב"ב דף ח.) מפרש ר"ת חן מאת המקום דאיפרא לשון חן כמו אפריון נמטייה כו' (ב"מ דף קיט. ושם) ולא כרש"י דפירש בפרק שני דנדה (דף כ:) דיופי של שדים היו לה:
This is based on etymology of the name. HormiN is the name of a satan and demon. Another gemara (Sanhedrin 39a) has HormiZ as a positive name, and HormiN as a negative name.
We have this in our printed texts of Sanhedrin as:
א"ל ההוא אמגושא לאמימר מפלגך לעילאי דהורמיז מפלגך לתתאי דאהורמיז א"ל א"כ היכי שביק ליה אהורמיז להורמיז לעבורי מיא בארעיה
The Gemara relates: A certain magus said to Ameimar: From your midpoint and up is in the domain of Hurmiz, the god of good, who created the significant and important parts of the body, and from your midpoint and down is in the domain of Ahurmiz, the god of bad. Ameimar said to him: If so, how does Ahurmiz allow Hurmiz to urinate in his territory? A person drinks with his mouth, which is in his upper half, and urinates from below.
and see how Tosafot explains what Rashi has. But Tosafot have the Zayin / Nun switchoff. These letters, after all, are orthographically similar.
What do we have in our texts and manuscripts of Gittin? Vilna, as above, has HormiZ. Venice, perhaps surprisingly, bows out by omitting the last letter, using an apostrophe instead:
Munich 95 and Vatican 140 have HormiN unambiguously.
Others unambiguously have a Zayin, such as Firkowitz 187 and Vatican 127.
By the way, Vatican 127 also has Rashi, so we can check our girsa of Rashi, e.g. that it says גויים and not עובדי כוכבים.
Some manuscripts have ambiguities. So, for instance, we have Oxford 368, it is hard to make out past the yud, if there is something obliterated.
So too, Vatican 130, at Hachi Garsinan, they are unsure if that last letter is a zayin or a nun.
Back to that Tosafot, referring to Sanhedrin, and the positive Hormiz and the negative Ahurmiz, which they have instead as the positive Hormiz and the negative Hormin.
Rav Steinsaltz brings in the etymology of Hormiz. Namely in the section HaChayim, he writes:
גם במקומות שבהם היו ליהודים שמות בשפות לעז כשמות הגויים, מכל מקום היו שמות שיהודים לא השתמשו בהם כלל. ומשום כך הנושא שם כזה הוא במובהק ובבירור אינו יהודי. בדרך כלל היו השמות הללו שמות שהתייחסו לעבודה זרה, או לדברים הקשורים בה. ובמקומות ובזמנים שהיתה משמעות השם ברורה, לא נקראו יהודים בשמות כאלה. השמות הנזכרים כאן הם מקצתם פרסיים ומקצתם בבליים, ואין משמעות כולם ברורה. הורמיז הוא שמו של האליל הפרסי Aura-mazdaבר שיבתאי" הוא שם המתייחס לכוכב (שהוא גם עבודה זרה) שבתאי (בניגוד לשם שבתי המתייחס לשבת). "באטי" הוא שמו של דג טמא, ומשתמשים בו כדוגמה של דגים טמאים בכלל.
Thus, Hormiz, or Ahormiz, is made up of the Persian idolatrous deity Aura (or Ahura) Mazda. To expand, from Wikipedia, this is the Zoroastrian creator deity. Ahura means “Lord” and Mazda means “Wisdom”.
(So I assume the following would NOT be an accurate depiction.
)
I think Tosafot is correct in the girsa in Sanhedrin with the final nun indicating the negative force, but incorrect locally in Gittin, as I’ll explain.
In Gittin, I think the reason that Hormiz (or Ahurmiz) would not be a good Jewish name is not because it is the negative force, the Satan, the demon. Rather, it is because it is the name of a deity. The shemot muvhakin, evident gentile names, are not names of evil people, who are naming after Satan. These are upstanding members of gentile society, who would frequent the established secular court system as credible witnesses.
I think this cuts to a basic question. And I apologize in advance for my fumbling and lack of knowledge. The Persians originally were polytheistic, though Ahura Mazda led the pantheon. Zoroaster recast it as monotheistic, and the existence of other gods was a mistake, with the other gods being emanations. “One could still pray to a figure such as Anahita for help in conception but would do so in the knowledge that this was not an actual goddess but simply an aspect of Ahura Mazda.”
When this occurs, do we say that Ahura Mazda has become a synonym for Hashem? Even if in the monotheistic religion, the god may have other attributes than the middot of Hakadosh Baruch Hu? What makes for a different God? Given that there is a Satan figure with power that opposes God, is that enough to make it a religion not monotheistic? (Similar to Catholicism…) What if (not the case here), there was a religion with a single God who was creator, who had form, was an evil octopus alien, demanded child sacrifice, and whose attributes were that he liked chaos and chocolate ice cream, who did not give the Torah, but his chosen were the third-born of every family in North America?
Regardless, given that this was the name of the God of a different monotheistic religion, Persian Jews would not have adopted this as their name or part of their name.
What about the final nun for the bad? Yes, in Zoroastrianism, opposing Ahura Mazda was Ahreman (thus the initial aleph that Rashi has, but the final nun that Tosafot has). Angra Mainyu, or Ahreman, was the Principle of Evil, Chaos, and Discord. For Zoroaster, this was one of the emanations. Elsewhere, he was a devil figure, as Tosafot note.
Thus:
The spirit of discord, Angra Mainyu (also known as Ahriman) led the legions of dark spirits known as the daevas. His sole purpose was to disrupt the order established by Ahura Mazda and he would destroy whatever beauty Ahura Mazda had created – as in the cases cited above. His origin in Early Iranian Religion is never given but later work by the Orientalist Martin Haug (l. 1827-1876 CE) describes him as the “destructive emanations” from Ahura Mazda's creative act. In the same way that other deities became “emanations”, so was Angra Mainyu only this spirit was the excess dross of creation which became sentient and malevolent toward the creation. In the later religious belief system of Zorvanism, Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda are twin brothers born of the god Akarana Zorvan (“Infinite Time”) and are equal in power.
The magus in Sanhedrin who spoke to Ameimar was presumably a follower of Zurvanism. Amemar lived about 400 CE. And to quote Wikipedia about Zurvanism, “The principal evidence for Zurvanite doctrine occurs in the polemical Christian tracts of Armenian and Syriac writers of the Sassanid period (224–651 CE)”
Despite this, we can perhaps understand how Hurmiz and Ahurmiz, both with zayins, could come about. Really, it was scribal error of final nun to a dalet. But what could make these variant readings acceptable?
Well, consider the following about the variations in Hurmiz’s name itself. Again, I claim no expertise, and am ashamedly simply quoting Wikipedia on Ahura Mazda. Though they get it from Boyce, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 1.
The name was rendered as Ahuramazda (Old Persian) during the Achaemenid era, Hormazd during the Parthian era, and Ohrmazd was used during the Sassanian era.
The transition from Parthian to Sassanian was about the time of first-generation Amora Shmuel. So both Hormazd, without the leading aleph, and Ohrmazd, with a leading aleph, are competing and valid spellings and pronunciations. Perhaps that allowed the version with the leading aleph and final zayin to be the alternate deity.