To lay out how to write a get when one or the other party has two names, AH in se’if twelve first points out the multiple ways to have two: the person’s parents gave him/her two names at birth, the person has one name with a common nickname (AH gives many examples; one is his own, Michel for Yechi’el, the connection for which he will explain later). Third, when people were gravely ill, custom dictated adding a name (I think to fool/circumvent the Angel of Death, as it were, Ezra might be slated to leave this world, but not Ezra Rachamim).
Or, some people have one name in one context, another in another. This may be where different people call the person a different name (in the family, he’s Didi, outside he’s Chanoch), or s/he has different names in different cities (in Jerusalem, she’s Rivka; when doing business in Alabama, she’s Mabel), and the get is going from one to the other (he’s on business when she wants her get).
AH says the Gemara only considered these latter two options when it spoke of having two names. In Talmudic times, no one was given two names, there weren’t even so many nicknames, and changing a name because of illness meant changing, not adding to it, as with name changes in Scripture (he notes that after the angel changes Ya’akov’s name, he is either Yisra’el or Ya’akov, never both together).
How To Write the Get to Cover All Names
In se’if thirteen, AH gives us two versions of a get. Rambam’s referred to each party, and then said, “and also whatever other name or nickname, this man, woman, or either of their fathers’ had.” Behag and Rif’s get only spoke of other names, and only for the divorcing spouses, not their fathers, what AH says is the tradition in Ashkenaz.
The addition of a catchall term has its source in Gittin 34a, where a Mishnah tells us R. Gamliel ordained writing וכל שום שיש לו, any name s/he has. It is a chashash, so no need to extend it to the fathers’ names, Behag and Rif apparently thought, especially since we don’t require fathers’ names in a get. Rosh added that in his Ashkenaz, the get would also say and whatever chanicha, because non-Jews often came up with a name close to a Jew’s name, but not official enough to be included in the word de-mitkerei (who is also called). AH thinks the phrase ve-khol shum, any name, covers it.
[My father, a”h, believed in giving his children only Jewish names—from Scripture, actually, but that’s a different discussion. Rosh here gives his idea a boost, saying the Anglicized version of Jewish names don’t count enough to be considered names.]
In se’if twenty, AH concludes we should include all well-known names, and also add ve-khol shum she-yesh lo, because of Rabban Gamliel’s ordinance, and to cover any names we might not know. Se’if twenty-one gives us Rabbenu Tam’s leniency, his willingness to make do after the fact with a get with just one main name and the phrase “all other names.” To bolster his claim, he raised the sad specter of someone who converted to another religion; we wouldn’t include his/her “new” name.
SA seems to follow Rabbenu Tam as the strategy of choice, although AH in se’if 23 thought SA accepted either option, write all the names or just one name with ve-khol shum. Rema required writing all the names we know, calling each one de-mitkerei, who is called, and ruled we should rewrite the get if written any other way.
Sending a Get Where the Names Change
Starting with se’if twenty-four, AH deals with how to phrase a get where one or both spouses have one name where the get is being written, another where it is being sent. Gittin 34b says that if a man divorces a wife in Judea with his name in Judea, and a wife in the north of Israel (Galil) with the name he uses in Galil, each get must have both names. AH in se’if twenty-five explains that the main name should be the one used where the get will be delivered, with the other name introduced with the word de-mitkerei, who is also called. If those writing the document did not know of his other name in the other place, the get will still be valid, because it’s all they know, and se’if twenty-six expects the authorities in the place of reception to understand that, because men do not divorce other men’s wives. Still, we should write it correctly if we can.
If the name s/he uses in the place the get will be delivered is also this person’s more commonly used name, Tur required it to be explicit in the get, or the document does not work, the woman is still married, with all the rights, privileges, and consequences thereof.
Although in se’if thirty (I am trying to skip all but what seems to me most illuminating, because of the length of the siman), AH says Rosh and Tur seem to allow even just the lesser known name, bedi’avad, if the get was already given, if
