What's In A Name? The story of Jessica. By Emily Monroy My latest essay in The Multiracial Activist ( www.multiracial.com) shows a picture of me holding a large calico cat. This is Jessica, the youngest (but biggest) of my five cats. Though I originally named her after Jessica Lange, curiosity drove me to find out more about the name. The word "Jessica" was coined by none other than William Shakespeare. It is believed he got this name from the Biblical "Iscah," the sister-in-law of Abraham's brother Nahor. Iscah in Hebrew means "Yahweh beholds" (Yahweh is a Hebrew term for God; its anglicized form is Jehovah, as in the Jehovah's Witnesses). Iscah is sometimes considered a feminine version of the name Jesse, the father of David. In Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice Jessica is the daughter of Jewish moneylender Shylock. While Shylock tries to shield her from the surrounding Christian society - he forbids her to attend a masked ball, for example - she ends up eloping with an Italian man, Lorenzo, and converting to Christianity, making off with a good chunk of her daddy's money and jewelry in the process. Shylock is distraught on learning of this. "My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!" he exclaims. Here one can see critics' point that The Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic, as Shylock's reaction implies that his money is as important to him as his child. Even Jessica's conversion and marriage to a Gentile can be understood as a form of anti-Semitism: Shylock's powerlessness to prevent both events seems to symbolize the triumph of Christianity over Judaism and of Christians over Jews. To add insult to injury, we learn at the end of the play that upon his death Shylock's money will go to his daughter and her husband. _____________________________________________ The name has even begun to appear in some non-Anglo-Saxon countries. _____________________________________________ Since its beginnings as an invention of the Bard, Jessica has now become one of the top ten girls' names in the United States (along with, I'm proud to say, Emily). Famous Jessicas include actresses Jessica Lange and Jessica Tandy, singer Jessica Simpson, political activist Jessica Mitford, fictional characters Jessica Rabbit and Jessica Stein, and last but not least, one of the women mentioned in the song "Mambo Number Five" by Lou Bega. The name has even begun to appear in some non-Anglo-Saxon countries. For instance, one well-known Italian soccer player called his daughter Jessica. Some families in Italy, however, change the "j" to "g," as the letter "j" is rarely used in Italian and when it is generally has a "y" sound, as in "Jugoslavia." Alternative forms of Jessica in English are Jessianna (Jessica + Ann), Jessie, and Jessa. This website: Copyright © 2005 Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced without written permission from the publisher or the previous publisher of original republished materials.