thread on how Jews use (and don't use) God's name!! a lot of non-Jews don't know much about this, so please use the info to be more respectful of your Jewish peers!

i'll start by saying that God has a lot of names in Judaism. there is one that is considered God's actual name as opposed to words that mean "god" or "lord". the name is comprised of 4 Hebrew letters, and it looks like this: (Hebrew reads from right to left)

if you're wondering how it's pronounced, though, you should know that we NEVER pronounce God's name out loud.
in the times of the temple, the high priest would say it in the holiest part of the temple (the Holy of Holies) on the holiest day of the year (Yom Kippur).

but since we don't have the temple anymore, it never gets spoken out loud (ever!!!).

the four letters (called the tetragrammaton) are transliterated into English with the letters Y, H, W, H. however, we never refer to God as YHWH (or YHVH), so please don't say that's the "name of God" in Judaism.

the tetragrammaton is written as God's in our holy books, such as prayer books and scrolls. it's less common to see it written on an ordinary piece of paper or document, though, because the name is never supposed to be erased or destroyed (this is why we bury holy books).

as an alternative for writing out the four letters, people write the Hebrew letter hey with an apostrophe, like this: ה׳ (i'll get back to how this in particular is sometimes pronounced)

since we don't pronounce the tetragrammaton, we usually use the word "Adonai". for example, all our blessings start with "baruch atah Adonai" (which means "blessed are you God") but the word Adonai isn't written out in Hebrew; the tetragrammaton is.

Adonai is also a word itself, though, and it's spelled like אדני. it appears like this in some prayers, but a lot less often than the tetragrammaton.

Adonai is still considered very holy, though. there's an idea that you're not supposed to waste a blessing, so you aren't supposed to start to say "baruch atah Adonai..." and not finish your blessing.

so, when Jews refer to God in more casual ways, we use Hashem, which is fine to say all the time. Hashem is written as השם in Hebrew and literally means "the name", which is kind of a reflection of how we're using it as a nickname of a nickname of God's name.

when people write ה׳, it's usually read out loud as Hashem, except for during prayers when we say Adonai. it's also acceptable to say Adonai in educational settings, like practicing prayers in which you WOULD pronounce Adonai.

if we're speaking in a casual way, though, and someone asks me how Jewish blessings start, I would probably say "baruch atah Hashem".

sometimes when the word Adonai appears in music (meaning God's name), people sing "Adomai" instead because it sounds almost the same and won't mess up the syllables or anything.

i also obviously have been writing God throughout this thread. when it comes to the English word "God", Jews have many different ways that they write it. some examples are: Gd, G-d, gd, g-d, I do God, and some do god.

the reason for taking out the "o" is another way of not fully saying the name out of respect (i do the capital G out of respect, and all of them are perfectly fine ways).

God has many other names besides the tetragrammaton, Adonai, and Hashem, and some of them also include the same kind of censoring as Adonai --> Adomai unless they're in prayer. an example is "elohim" or "eloheinu", which gets switched to "elokim" or "elokeinu" in casual speech.

here are some of the other names of God: el, el shaddai, makom, hakodosh baruch hu, Ado-shem (combining Adonai and Hashem, also a way of censoring it).

i hope this thread has been helpful!! not all of the information is 100% relevant and necessary for non-Jews to know and there definitely is a lot more, but i just wanted to give a full picture of the names of God (this also could have been informative for Jews).

some takeaways:
- don't write YHWH or YHVH; we don't call God that.
- writing "yahweh" and other things like it are also cringe
- the tetragrammaton in Hebrew is never written outside of holy texts and prayer books
- putting the tetragrammaton on jewelry and clothing is weird

- don't pronounce "yahweh" or anything like it out loud either
- Jehovah's witnesses are also using the same name, but the Y was just changed to J. this is kinda cringe from a Jewish perspective
- basically know that that name is super holy
- use Hashem as the default in Hebrew

thanks for reading!!!