I knew a fella once by the name of John Kennedy Shapiro. 
And of course in the not too distant future everyone will be named Dylan or Montana, regardless of race, creed, or color.
The Bernie Goldsmith I know is NOT Jewish. Really. I’m not kidding.
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Yeah . . . I think I realized that with the definitely Jewish Christopher.
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I think we have a winner (plus I could call him “Chris,” same as the original character)
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Not so; I know two Jewish Johns. But what would the H have to do with it?
Thanks to all.
Well I have now been trying to post this reply for a couple of hours with no luck, so I’ll add to it.
For those who suggested “Adoph”–I considered it. But no.
MsRobyn, the Phil Smith I know is Jewish, too!
Here are 1219 possibilities from the Census Bureau.
You could choose most of those between 1101-1123, e.g.
ERASMO
STANTON
LONNY
LEN
IKE
MILAN
LINO
JAROB
HERB
ANDREAS
WALTON
RHETT
PALMER
JUDE
DOUGLASS
CORDELL
OSWALDO
ELLSWORTH
VIRGILIO
TONEY
NATHANAEL
DEL
BRITT
Personally, I 'd go with Erasmo.
I am personally acquainted with two Jewish families in Decatur who have named their children Jared, Jenna, Taliesin, Channing, and Ophelia.
What are the chances that two families in one city would give all five kids the same name??
Exapno:
You’ve got to be kidding about Len, Herb, and Nathanael, right?
Christian is the way to go. Whoever said it wasn’t very common has been living on Mars for the last century.
Why these in particular? Although I think Stanton does sound suitably whitebread . . .
(But not Erasmo!)
Spike
I’ve known a Jewish (although not observant) Christopher, although I’m not sure if I’ve ever met a Jewish Christian. I know two Orthodox Jewish Marys, both of Persian descent.
I think it’s futile. Christian is a possibility, but I’m sure there are Jewish Christians out there. (I tried to think of a less confusing way of saying that, but it’s impossible. Try it.) I’ve known Orthodox Jews named Ashley, Dara, Jana, Chelsea, Hayley, Mia, obvious Muslim names like Selim and Jahan (although no Mohammeds), Brian, Kenny, Charles, James, Olga, Kevin, Burt, Nicole, etc., and that’s when it’s popular among Orthodox Jews to give Hebrew names. (I don’t have an English name at all, just Gila.) Among groups without such social pressure, pretty much anything goes. Perhaps a stereotypically African-American name? All that’s coming to mind at the moment is women’s names, like LaTia or Ashanti, but I’m sure you could come up with a good male equivalent if that’s not too outside the Judeo-Christian real for you.
Somewhere up there someone asked what the H in John had to do with it - Jon tends to be a nickname for Jonathan, a popular Jewish name. (I know several (Orthodox) Jons; a more public example would be Jon Stewart.) Even though I think John is just a Latin-y adaptation of Yonatan (the Hebrew name that Jonathan is the English cognate of), it’s got more of a “Christian” association, and so some Jews avoid it. I know of one man whose mother gave him the English name Jay, even though his Hebrew name is Yonatan, because she was worried that Jonathan would be shortened to Johnny, which was “not a nice name for a Jewish boy.” (This was in the fifties, FWIW.)
JR?
The situation you describe is relatively… well, impossible. You can’t say there’s no single Jew in the world with a given name, because names have spread beyond the realm of culture. Christopher works fine.
However, any Irish name would work as well…
say Sean, Patrick, Douglas, something like that.
Dennis.
Anybody ever meet a Jewish Dennis?
Kyle
Zebulon. Jeddidiah. The first thing the audience will think of is backwoods moonshiners, or possibly early settlers in some old `Wagons West’ movie.
But, really, there’s no good way to tell anymore. Time was, it was the religion of a few bands of Hebraic peoples in the Middle East. Now, any Tom, Ali, or Chang can be Jewish.
Why don’t you go pick up a bible from one of those crazy f***s hanging out on all the university campuses, flip through it, and see what name your finger lands on?
Would it be possible to include a last name for the guy? That way you could really drive the point home.
Yeah, actually I think he’s gonna be Christopher (or maybe Christian) St. Vincent . . . that oughta do it . . .
Reaver: I don’t think that will work: The Bible, New and Old Testamnets, was written in the same region Jewish people lived. Any name there could just as easily be Jewish as Christian. Even Jesus was a Jew, after all. As were all of his early followers until they decided to worship him.
I think that by limiting us to Judeo-Christian names will prove to be a fatal constraint: There’s never been a huge gap between Christians and Jews, even when Jewish people were ghettoized physically and culturally. Do you think the Jews killed during the pogroms or the Holocaust looked or were named any differently from their persecutors?
There’s more of a difference between Muslims and Christians because Muslims tend to be Arabic and speak the Arabic language, and some Muslims change their names to conform to Arabic naming conventions once adopting the faith. But even that isn’t a certainty. The next Joe Smith you meet could be on his way to a mosque just as easily as he’s on his way to a church, cathedral, or synagogue. (As a secondary note, I’ve often heard it said by knowledgable people that Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims in the world. I don’t know Indonesian naming conventions, but I’d imagine them to be strikingly different from both Arabic and European styles.)
So my point is this: There’s no way to do this absolutely cleanly. None. Not if you set it now, not if you set it two hundred years ago. Stereotypes can be played upon (using an Eastern European name usually does the trick), but you don’t have anything more.
You could name your character Notjewish Smith.
Naw … Notjewish sounds more like a girl’s name.
Name the character Herod. Can’t imagine too many Jews with that name.
As for the Irish names - I know a Jewish Seamus Magill. But then, he’s not Irish, his Scottish. But you can’t assume Irish aren’t Jewish - Dublin has had Jewish mayors off and on for the last century and a half.
Bit of a hijack, but I believe “Chad” is an Anglo-Saxon name. One of the earliest examples of a person named Chad was S. Chad of Mercia, one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.