Anyone named David is Jewish? Is everyone who runs a market a rude SOB?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Mr. Rilch likes to patronize a market/cafe in our neighborhood. It’s a great place to go to get the necessities for a real Scorsese meal, as we call it: sausages, pasta, romano you shred yourself…

Ahem. Anyway, this evening, we had a dinner guest; a cow-orker of Mr. Rilch whose name is David. He lives not far from here, and he’s been to the same market…twice and twice only.

The market is run by an elderly couple from the former USSR, and they like to ask their customers what they’re going to do with what they buy, and what they’d like to see in there. Which is a good way to do business, I think: find out what sells and keep stocking it.

But I’m not sure this anecdote illustrates such a good way to do business. David is Irish and a bit Italian. The owners ask names a lot; another nice touch. Shortly after he’d given his name, the female owner asked if he kept kosher.

“No, why would I? I’m not Jewish.”

“Are you sure?” (Gee, yeah, lady, I don’t know how I thought I had a confirmation and not a bar mitzvah.)

“Course I’m sure. I’m Irish.”

“But your name’s David…Why would Irish parents name their kid David?..Jews always have a David in every family…Why did they name you David?”

It was one of those interrogations that you afterwards think you should have gotten out of earlier…but how could you know, at the start, that it would get like that? He just waited for them to wind down, paid for his stuff and never returned. (He has a way of being terrifying in his silence, according to Mr. Rilch.)

All this came up when he asked Mr. Rilch where he got the solid romano; should have mentioned that earlier, but couldn’t work it in.

Friend, who is also Irish, says, “You should have broken a bottle on the counter; that would prove your ancestry!” Mr. Rilch says, "I would’ve said, ‘Do you need to know my whole family history to sell me pepper salami?!’ I say, "You should have said, “My people are from Ireland; where are yours from, the Land of Rude?!”

Anyway, I guess this is asking for two HO’s: What would y’all have done in a similar situation? and Are they right about the name being common in Jewish culture?

2

There’s an episode of All in the Family where someone asks Archie if he’s Jewish, and of course he says “NO!!!” and then Meathead says, “Well, you might be–what are your parents’ names?” and Archie says, “Sarah and David.” And Meathead says, “Yah! Two Jewish names there.”

And the punchline is, “No, two names from the Bible, which has got nothing to do with Jews.”

3

Oh, and my brother is half Irish, quarter Italian, and quarter Gypsy (our father is a first generation American, and so is my mother’s mother) and his name is also David. He did, however, date a Jewish girl named Sarah.

4

No, not everyone named David is Jewish. But the majority of the ones I know are. I personally don’t think the woman was intentionally being rude. My name is Dominic. You wanna know how many times I have been asked if I were Italian or Catholic based only on my name? Obviously more that your friend David. Because when they do I know how to be polite and understand why they are asking. Usually they are trying to be friendly.

You have to look at where she came from. In her country, only the Jewish people would have named their kid David. People would not name their kid David unless they wanted him to be mistaken for Jewish left and right. The name is not immersed in their society among gentiles like it is here in America. I’m not saying that’s an excuse for the way that she acted, if there actually was a rude tone in her voice, but people sometimes act upon their own experience, which has been different than yours.

That is 100% why she thought the way she did.

But I did searches on all the famous people I knew that were named David and here you go.

David Arquette: 1-800-COLLECT guy - Jewish

David Bowie: Half-Jewish

David Copperfield: Magician, Jewish

David Duchovney: X-Files, Actor, Jewish

David Lee Roth: I wish they all could be Jewish Girls…:wink:

Alicia Silverstone: :D, Jewish

Gweneth Paltrow: Another :D, Jewish

Davids that I am not sure if they are Jewish or not:

David Hasselhoff

David Letterman

David Spade

David Cassidy

David Koresh

5

I’m pretty sure David Spade’s religion is obnoxious.

6

Ohhhhh. See, I didn’t know that. So that answers question 2.

As far as question 1, though: the way he told it, Wife Owner’s attitude was like, “How unusual”, but nothing rude. What offended him was Husband Owner attitude of “You must be Jewish and I’m going to pin you down and get you to admit it.” I’m sure manny people here have been in a situation where a complete stranger insists they know more about you than they do. Like the guy I met at a hotel bar* who had some carefully worked out theory about why I, or women in general, or women my age, I can’t remember, shouldn’t wear cosmetics. He actually wanted me to wipe it off right then and there. Poor sod; he could have gotten some.

*Long story. I went to a formal without a date; met another guy who was also of age and dateless, and we went to the hotel bar. Didn’t leave together, though.

7

In a related note, I have a cow-orker whose first name is “Carlos,” and doesn’t have a drop of Eye-talian blood in his body. His grandmother named his father “Carlos,” because she like the sound of it, who then gave it to his own son.

BTW, my first name is Benjamin. I was in a class at work with a Jewish cow-orker whom I had worked with, but she knew me only by my middle name. When the instructor was going down the roll and came to my name he called for “Benjamin,” at which point my cow-orker’s eyes lit up as she looked over at me and exclaimed “Benjamin!” As if to say, “Are you one of us, too?”

8

Trying to figure out what nationality someone in the US is from their given name is pretty neigh impossible 99% of the time. Especially for common names. I’m guessing you’re from NYC, but in California David is a really common white bread no crust name. Every class I was ever in from kindergarten to Grad school had a couple of David’s and Mark’s in each class.

When I read your post, I was kinda WTF, David is a Jewish name? Well, learn something new every day, in Russia maybe it is but in the US you gotta be kidding me – it could be anything.

9

I am transcendantly Irish – Roman Catholic by upbringing, agnostic and apathetic by bent. I also look about as Irish as you can get and still walk.

My given names are typically and traditionally Irish:

MICHAEL JOSEPH DANIEL

Three Old Testament winners.

10

It might true that many Jewish males are named David… but it’s not true that many Davids are Jewish. Jews are what, less than 5% of the U.S. population? And David is an extremely popular name.

Being from the USSR, though, as someone else said, she might not know about U.S. names and the popularity of David among the goyim.

11

My dad was Jewish, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the names that my parents gave me and my brother. I’m told that they didn’t want to go with the “popular” names, but stick to more traditional ones.

So I’m Rachel Elizabeth, and my brother is David Joseph. (Coincidentally, my brother is named after two of Mom’s uncles, and the third whose name I’ve forgotten just now has been teasing her ever since about being her “least favorite uncle.”)

Neither of us are Jewish. I’m a UU pantheist, and my brother is an atheist.

12

I’m Jewish, I have a last name that’s Arabic, and it can be misspelled to create a Christian sounding name. ooooh, fun times.

13

heh, it’s a nice name, they were rude people, big deal.

i’m Irish (born in Belfast), my mother is half-jewish with German/Irish/Portuguese/whatever in her family and she grew up in Zimbabwe. so no, i don’t look exactly whitebread.
people assume i’m anything from Italian to Native American (and i don’t just mean white people, i’ve been chatted up in greek and cantonese). the trick is, politely but firmly to say “no, i’m not, but thanks for the suggestion.” messes with their heads.
and FYI my grandfather’s name was Fritz, and his brothers were Erich and Rudolph. see, no David.

14

That’s funny. A few years ago, I was reading the private journals of James Boswell (Dr. Samuel Johnson’s biographer) and he mentioned his elder brother, David getting a job as a buyer for some mercantile company. The job required extended residence for the brother in Spain, and the company recommended that he choose another name to go by in that country, as the Spanish would naturally assume that anyone named David was Jewish and that would not be good for business. This stuck in my head because I could not quite get a grip on what to make of it. Was it a preconception showing the prejudice of the Anglo-Scottish company that was hiring David Boswell? Or was it really common in Spain in the late 18th century to make such an assumption? I had no standard to judge by, so I just tucked it away with all the other minute, unanswered but not so very important questions in my head.

 By the way, my eldest son is named David. And, no... the family is not Jewish.
15

I’m in California. The infamous Valley. Where you at?

16

My dad is David, and his family is Scottish and Methodist.

I’ve been mistaken for Jewish before, usually because I have dark kinda-curly hair and I often wear a pentacle (“Count the points!”) and I sometimes swear in Yiddish, which I learned from my mom, who was the only goy in an all-Jewish high school.

17

Non-Jewish Dave here. My ex-wife is Jewish. 1st time I met her dad, he asked “Why do you always date goys?” I responded " I’m a goy, she’s a goyrl, what’s the problem?" He never liked me much. hehe

18

I don’t quite know how to answer this, but I’ll describe a situation I faced just about every day when I was growing up.

Buffalo, New York is very Catholic, in the same way that Salt Lake City has a dominant LDS orientation, or Colorado Springs collectively thumps the Bible in fundamentalist churches. Buffalo is also very “ethnic” – the vast majority of the Anglo population is of Polish, Irish or Italian descent.

Now, try growing up in Buffalo with a last name that isn’t ethnically identifiable, the son of a Lutheran mom and a Jewish dad. If I told someone my last name, I’d hear “so, what are you?”, as if I was expected to describe my lineage to any stranger that asked. Oh … and when people would casually discuss the goings on at their church, and ask me about my priest or my parish as if it was just assumed I was Catholic … well, I felt the same way that the OP did in defending “David.” Yes, believe it or not, there are people in Buffalo who aren’t extremely devout Catholics, much less Catholic period; whose ethnicity wasn’t dominated by one the “Big Three.”

If it means anything, my name is “Dan,” but for some reason I get called “David” all the time. I don’t understand the confusion.

19

I never even met a Jewish person until I was about 20 years old. I know TONS of Davids, though.

“These are the Daves I know I know, these are the Daves I know… Some of them are Davids, but most of them are Daves… they all ha…” uh, sorry.

20

I had a Puerto Rican friend in college whose middle name was ‘Ivan’.