Jewish girl's name from twelfth century Jerusalem - help please!

My characters also have Jewish names.
I've found that the bible is a good source for Jewish names.
One of my favorites is Tziporrah.
I found a large list of Jewish names when I searched "Jewish female names" on Google. What time period their from I don't know though.
What other historical tidbits are you interested in knowing?

Here's the section on Jewish names from the Academy of St. Gabriel, which is a group that researches medieval and Renaissance names. The article that is closest to what you want is probably Jewish Names in Ottoman Court Records (16th Century Jerusalem), which has feminine given names. Now, it's four centuries later than what you're looking for, but a lot of the names given are biblical ones: Rachel, Sarah, Mary/Miriam, Hannah, Esther, etc. (The spelling may vary from what I've given here.) So, you could probably give your character a biblical name and that would be fine, since it's not like those names are new inventions. The rest of the women's names are names from the culture around them, which you should be careful in picking.

There's also Jewish Women's Names in an Arab Context: Names from the Geniza of Cairo, which covers the 11th to 13th century, but it's Cairo, not Jerusalem. You might find this interesting though:

So, maybe you want to look at names used by people who weren't Jewish in the same area?

“Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.” -- Geoffrey Chaucer

“There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.” -- Geoffrey Chaucer

Wow! Great replies, thank you!

I shall look at the sources you suggest.

Re - any other info; if anyone knows anything about Jewish society in Jerusalem from this time. My MC's mum is getting her own story told here and she wasn't even meant to exist. *sigh* Nano!!!

Thanks again.

Don't forget that many Jewish names, then and now, are Hellenized in our culture. You will have to decide for yourself whether naming a woman after the wife of the Patriarch Isaac, for example, should be Hebrew ( Rivkah, as she would be called in her community/family) or "converted" to a form more common in the surrounding culture (Rebeccah).

Depending on what part of the 12th century she lived in, she might have fled from Crusader massacres of Jews, or might have returned to the Islamic society in Jerusalem after Saladin re-conquered it late in the 12th century. Under Muslim law, many Jewish women chose to be known by Muslim-sounding names (although it must be remembered that since the Torah and the Quran share many stories, many female names are common to both cultures). One such is Miryam or Maryam, the name of Moses' sister. She is considered a blessed woman in both cultures.

Forget writing what you know. Write what you imagine.