# Is the name Malachi common in Israel?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 23, 2011, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758 "2011-08-23T10:09:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/1 "2011-08-23T10:09:01Z")
Just what the title says.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/2 "2011-08-23T10:13:10Z")
No.
The only Malachi I can think of is veteran radio newscaster Malachi Hizkiya. Other than him, I’ve never encountered anyone with that name.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/3 "2011-08-23T15:16:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> No.
>
> The only Malachi I can think of is veteran radio newscaster Malachi Hizkiya. Other than him, I’ve never encountered anyone with that name.
I remember
1. An American character actor named Malachi Throne (Robert Wagner’s boss on “It Takes a Thief”). I have no idea if he was Jewish.
2. Irish drunken raconteur Malachy McCourt (his brother wrote “Angela’s Ashes”). He definitely wasn’t Jewish.
Those are the only Malachis I’ve ever heard of.
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### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/4 "2011-08-23T15:51:08Z")
The reason I ask is because as with Malachy McCourt it seems to be popular in Irish catholic families and I wondered if it still was for Jewish folk. I imagine it’s popularity here comes from [St. Malachy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Malachy).
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/5 "2011-08-23T16:29:08Z")
Malachi is best known for the tithing instruction.
The New International Version (1984)
> [@](#):
>
> Malachi 3:8–12
>
> 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
>
> “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
>
> “In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/6 "2011-08-23T17:34:57Z")
My Israeli friends tell me that biblical names are only really popular with the very orthodox crowd, so probably not.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/7 "2011-08-23T18:11:40Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#):
>
> My Israeli friends tell me that biblical names are only really popular with the very orthodox crowd, so probably not.
How do you define a biblical name? Any name found in the bible? Only those names of actual prophets?
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/8 "2011-08-23T18:21:44Z")
It depends. The “normal” biblical names - David, Daniel, Amnon, Tamar, Barak, Avraham, Rachel, etc. - are still fairly popular. It’s the longer, more obscure names that are limited to those of a more religious background.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/9 "2011-08-23T18:42:36Z")
Aren’t Malachi and Malachy pronounced differently (kye and key, respectively)? And named after different people? One was a Jewish prophet, date uncertain, and the other is a 12th century Irish saint? Granted, the root is the same, but I imagine most people with the “Malachy” spelling are named after the latter.
Malachi was also the sidekick of the main bad guy in Children of the Corn.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/10 "2011-08-23T18:46:39Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> It depends. The “normal” biblical names - David, Daniel, Amnon, Tamar, Barak, Avraham, Rachel, etc. - are still fairly popular. It’s the longer, more obscure names that are limited to those of a more religious background.
Like. . . Eutychus??? (Eh, that’s New Testamament. It doesn’t count.)
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### Author:  [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/11 "2011-08-23T19:05:09Z")
It’s not used among Hebrew-naming Orthodox people in America, either, or at least I’ve never heard of one. A few of the minor prophet names get used - I’ve known guys named Yoel (aka Joel), Ovadia (Obadiah), Yonah (Jonah), Micha (Micah), and Nachum (Nahum).
In Hebrew, for what it’s worth, the ending is neither -kye nor -key, but involves a gutteral ‘ch’ like the one at the end of Bach. (It rhymes with ‘key,’ though.)
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### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/12 "2011-08-23T19:07:24Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Aren’t Malachi and Malachy pronounced differently (kye and key, respectively)?
AFAIK there are people with both variations but the second pronunciation, here in Ireland at least.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-name-malachi-common-in-israel/593758/13 "2011-08-23T20:01:17Z")
I’d say that obscure Biblical names are more common amongst “dati” Orthodox Jewish Israelis than amongst “charedi” ones. Charedi names tend to stick to recent relatives or well-known rabbis from within the last three centuries.
Then again, I (an American Orthodox Jew) named my own firstborn Mishael, so there are no doubt plenty of exceptions.