and envy by never calling the dearest of their children (especially, the firstborn son) by the real name. In their quest to protect a child, parents would even revert to such drastic measures as giving it a very unattractive nickname, such as Garboua (the one who is clad in rags), which has later become a family name. Contrary to Ashkenazim, the Mizrahim applied the rulings of Talmud Shabbat 134, which provides that a child be called after a living relative. This led to the creation of another Mizrahi particularity, where a child could be named Sarah bat Sarah, or Abraham ben Abraham, which as per Ashkenazi customs, would only have been applied to a ger (gerim being convertites to Judaism, and thus, deemed having become bnai brith, that is to say children of the Covenant, holding the status of children of the Patriarch Abraham and the Matriarch Sarah). Name giving also served as a social welfare tool, whereby poor parents sought to secure the support of a benefactor for their child, by naming him after a wealthy relative or employer, who would show his acceptance to look after the welfare of the child by presenting it with a first set of clothing, and later on support him with marriage expenses and the like. The Mizrahim also reverted to this measure, as a means to strengthening the family ties between a married woman and her blood relatives, whereby a newly born child would be named after the elder of the mother's family, or one of its notables, and thus, retain his material benevolence, as well as underline the husband's expressed will to align himself to his spouse's family and gain their goodwill, or at least not to estrange his wife from her roots. A peculiarity of the Arabic onomatology is the kunyah, the by-name given to a father after the birth of his son, by which he is named after the latter (Abou, Abo, or Abu followed by the name of his son). It may be added here that Abu al-Walid is a kunyah or by-name for Jonah. Abu also forms family names, as in the case of Abudarham, or Aboab. Here it has to be noted, that the word Abou was sometimes used in the sense of "owner", especially when it was followed by an object that was of importance to the manner in which the surrounding community perceived the