This is more a question of perception than actual fact–I guess. I’m looking for a male name (for a character in a novel) that most people, upon hearing it, would absolutely know the character was not Jewish. But it needs to be in the Judeo-Christian realm, i.e., not “Mohammed.”
I originally named him Christopher and then, wouldn’t you know, I met a guy named Christopher who’s Jewish.
It’s a very small moment in the novel and the context is thus: the protagonist is worried about having ham for dinner for her husband’s old friend, because she thinks he’s Jewish because she thinks he looks Jewish and he’s from a metropolis on the east coast. Her husband uses this opportunity to say, rather snidely, “A name like ________ and you thought he was Jewish? What were you thinking?”
I may have to do it with the last name.