# Regarding the name Sarai (Meaning and Letters)



## celox

Aloha.

My name is David. My wife and I recently had a baby girl (YAY!) and named her Sarai. 

We are both planning to get tattoos of her name, or possibly the meaning of her name in Hebrew.

Before putting this on our bodies permanently we would like to be absolutely sure what we have is correct!

The name for Sarai in Hebrew that I found is שרי or שָׂרָי

I would like to know what is the most appropriate version of her name to become a tattoo on my skin. From what I've read the marks above or below the actual letters indicate vowel sounds, so the first (or second, if you're reading in Hebrew?) would be vowelless and the other would include vowels?

As I understand it the name Sarai means "my woman of high rank." If that is accurate, what is the translation into Hebrew? I think that it would mean more to me to have that than her actual name on my body. I really want to make sure I don't tattoo something inappropriate calling myself a high ranking woman.

I did find this thread when I searched for Sarai on the forums showthread.php?t=360820&highlight=sarai.

I apologize in advance for troubling you all with this but we love our daughter's name and the meaning and want to have it on our bodies. My aptitude for language is very high but Hebrew is incredibly unfamiliar to me.  
Thank you in advance for your help!


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## dinji

celox said:


> As I understand it the name Sarai means "my woman of high rank."


 
I would doubt this meaning much. That meaning would have to read 
שרתי =Saratí.
In Tiberian vocalisation שָׂרָי would also read Sara not Sarai because yod is mute after kamatz.

But may be there is a differing rabbinical tradition on how to read and interprete this name?


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## scriptum

dinji said:


> In Tiberian vocalisation שָׂרָי would also read Sara not Sarai


 
Hello everybody,

To the best of my knowledge,
1. The name in question is vocalized שָרַי , not שָרָי.
2. In modern Hebrew it is pronounced Saray.
3. It reads Sara not in the Tiberian, but in some of the European traditions, in accordance with the Septuagint version of the word.


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## jdotjdot89

Just to make sure those less familiar with Biblical tradition aren't confused: Biblically, שרי and שרה referred to the same woman, Abraham's wife.  She was originally called שרי (Sarai) and then God changed her name to שרה (Sarah).

With regard to שרי being pronounced "Sara", I don't know.  But it's very interesting.


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## celox

Thank you for the confirmation on the name Sarai.

So the meaning is debatable according to dinji. Can anyone else confirm or deny the meaning?

If it doesn't mean "my woman of high rank" then what does it mean?

I know my own name "David" means "Beloved" in Hebrew. I figured other names must have some meaning as well.


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## jdotjdot89

שרי is the male form of שרתי--either "sarai" my officers/men of high rank, or "sari" my officer/man of high rank.


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## scriptum

Come on, people. Sarra was a Babylonian, why should her name have a meaning in Hebrew?
In any case, in Hebrew the roots of the names Sara [שר"י] and Sarra [שר"ר] mean "power".


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## jdotjdot89

...fair enough.  That should have been glaringly obvious.


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## celox

scriptum said:


> Come on, people. Sarra was a Babylonian, why should her name have a meaning in Hebrew?
> In any case, in Hebrew the roots of the names Sara [שר"י] and Sarra [שר"ר] mean "power".



Thank you for your input. I do not mean to seem like an imbecile.

I did admit that Hebrew is not my forte. I know almost nothing about it and I am sure that if I could read and interpret Hebrew I would not have even had to ask these questions. Those are things I am good at but I don't have the years of devotion in me to pursue the language to the degree which is necessary to do this myself.

I am a complete novice. So everything mentioned in this thread makes little sense to me. That is why I am asking what seem to be "experts," relative to my level of proficiency in this language.

I am grateful for your responses. If more explanation were included I may be able to better comprehend what you are trying to point out to me.

As I now understand the word "שרי" means "Sarai", in masculine form? I don't understand that.

I also don't understand your reference to Sarai being Babylonian. Are you saying the name Sarai is Babylonian or the Hebrew version of a Babylonian name "Sarra"? Is that why there is no Hebrew meaning attributed to it?

I understood Sarai to have a perceived meaning such as the name "Sarah" has.


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## scriptum

Hi Celox,​ 
Sarra (the person named first Sarai, then Sarra) was a Babylonian, because, like Avraham her husband, she was born in Babylon. Her native language was Aramaic, and the name her parents gave her was probably an Aramaic one. In other languages it has no meaning at all.
Now since the name Saray was given to her by her parents, and then God changed it to "Sara" (or Sarra, according to another tradition), one may just suppose that Saray has the same meaning as Sara: "woman of power" (in Hebrew). But this is no more than a wild guess.​


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## berndf

scriptum said:


> ...like Avraham her husband, she was born in Babylon.


Somewhere in Mesopotamia. The location of the biblical _Ur Hasdim_ is contested.



> Her native language was Aramaic


Must have been Akkadian. Aramaic was the official language of the Assyrian empire a millennium later.


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## scriptum

berndf said:


> Must have been Akkadian. Aramaic was the official language of the Assyrian empire a millennium later.


I am not sure. Even if Aramaic was not the official language, it certainly existed?
In the Bible, Avraham is referred to as a "wandering Aramean". And the language his Mesopotamian relatives spoke was definitely Aramaic (cf. Genesis 31, 47).


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## berndf

scriptum said:


> I am not sure. Even if Aramaic was not the official language, it certainly existed?


You are right, we can't be sure! Only if Avraham had been a Babylonian we would have been reasonably sure he would have spoken Akkadian. There is no evidence of Aramaic being spoken in Aram before about 1300-1200BC. But no evidence to the contrary either.



> And the language his Mesopotamian relatives spoke was definitely Aramaic (cf. Genesis 31, 47).


By the time the Torah was written down, this was already ancient history. If the Torah lets Lavan utter a contemporary Aramaic expression this is prima facie only to be taken as an illustration that he spoke the language of his native region (Aram). After all if the Torah lets Adam or Noah speak Hebrew this is also not to be taken literally.
So, again, you are right, we can't be sure.


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