Moses Maimonides, citing the Talmud, suggests changing one’s name as a way of repenting for sin. It is a measure also traditionally taken by the gravely ill. Benjamin Corn, an oncologist who works in Israel, estimates that some 15 percent of his patients change their names. He writes:
For some, their name change manifests Maimonides’ cryptic, if not mystical, remark [that, after a name change, one ceases to be] the same person who committed previous (sinful) actions. Another explanation goes like this: as Scripture equates disease (and even death) with punishment for transgressions, if the afflicted changes his name, then he is no longer that person and therefore cannot be the object of God’s retribution. Yet, even among my religious patients—some even conduct a formal name-change ceremony in the hospital chapel—only a minority maintains such a fundamentalist view. What’s more, at our cancer center, I’ve observed that name changes are undertaken by equal percentages of religious and secular patients; there must be another reason.
When I first became aware of this name-changing phenomenon, I concluded that it must be a sign of desperate fear. But I have come to appreciate that while the ritual may, on occasion, be motivated by fear, it is actually far more often a statement about hope—a hope to find a better day and to affirm faith in the human ability to re-invent oneself in the face of hardship. As a result, name change, it now seems to me, is less about a new name and more about the opportunity for change.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/193522/when-facing-your-own-mortality-whats-in-a-name