Becoming Uri: on light, lineage, and choosing the story you live in

There’s an intimacy in choosing your own name. Most of us live under one given to us before we could speak. It becomes shorthand for who we are. When you begin a conversion journey and ask, “What will my Hebrew name be?” the question stops being bureaucratic. It becomes authorship.

Starting point: Rory Wilmer

Rory comes from the Gaelic Ruairí, meaning “red-haired king.” A fine, defiant name. I’m dark-haired and blue-eyed, more strategist than sovereign, but I’ve always liked the warmth and quiet confidence it carries.

Wilmer, my surname, comes from my father’s side — the Surrey line. I was born in Guildford; his people are from the surrounding towns and villages. The name reaches back to Old English or Germanic roots: Wilmar or Wilmǣr — wil(l) meaning “will” and mar meaning “famous.” In essence: “famous for resolve.” It has an industrious, deliberate tone, and that feels right.

My mother’s family, the Joynsons, bring a northern thread. They came from Congleton, Cheshire, farming on the slopes of The Cloud, and carried the Methodist streak that runs through much of the North. My grandfather, Rev William T. Joynson, served for decades as a Methodist minister in the Folkestone and Dover circuit in Kent. His father and grandfather had been croft farmers before him. So there’s faith and soil intertwined in that name: spiritual service layered over working land.

Now I’m back home on the Wirral, living in New Brighton, but travelling through Birkenhead often enough to notice the street signs: Willmer Road, two Ls, a name I don’t share but recognise. And somewhere in those local records sits Sir Henry Gordon Willmer, a Lord Justice of Appeal born here. None of them are my line, yet the echoes are hard to ignore.

For nearly twenty years before returning, I lived in Prague — a city steeped in Jewish history and mysticism. The Spanish Synagogue, the Jubilee, Rabbi Loew’s Old Town Synagogue, the legend of the Golem — all of it left a mark. The city’s layered faiths, its ghosts and scholars, its quiet resilience: they stayed with me. I made lifelong Jewish and Israeli friends there, learned the rhythm of Jewish life, the language of belonging. That time in Prague wasn’t incidental. It was a long apprenticeship in understanding why faith endures.

It was also where I met Jana, who is Jewish by heritage — not religious, but deeply shaped by that identity in quiet, enduring ways. We married in Prague, and our son Leon was born there. So when I speak about this path to conversion — this act of becoming — it isn’t theoretical. It’s personal. It’s the continuation of something real: a family built between worlds, a story that began in that old city of light and stone, and now carries forward in everything we do.

Over the years we’ve travelled often to Haifa, where Jana’s family live. Each visit to Israel has deepened the connection — every city, every town, every small village has left its mark. The people, the friendships, the generosity of spirit — all of it has stayed with me. In Haifa, the Baháʼí Gardens spill down Mount Carmel in perfect symmetry, overlooking a city where synagogues, mosques, and churches share the skyline. Israel, for all its complexity, remains a place where many faiths and many peoples coexist — a democracy that allows everyone to be who they are. That’s something rare, something worth preserving, worth being part of, worth protecting.

On one visit, out of simple curiosity, I walked alone to the Cave of Elijah, that ancient place set into the slope above the sea. To stand there, in the stillness of that mountain, and think of the centuries of faith, doubt, and wonder that have passed through it, was profoundly moving. Moments like that matter, no matter what you believe. For me, they’ve become part of the journey — the quiet shaping of who I’m becoming, and the light that Uri continues to show me.

So I began this process as Rory Wilmer, son of Wilmer from the South and Joynson from the North — a child of will and witness, of faith, light, and long journeys.

Translating a king

If Rory gestures toward colour and kingship, the obvious first stop was the Hebrew equivalents.

Admon (אַדְמוֹן) means “ruddy” or “red-haired.” On paper, it fits neatly. And red carries meaning here on Merseyside. It’s the colour of Liverpool — in football, in politics, in its sense of itself. But I’ve never really been a football man — not red, blue, or white — so the symbolism felt borrowed. It suits the city, not me.

Edom (אֱדוֹם), also “red,” belongs to Esau — a name of strength shadowed by rivalry.

Melech (מֶלֶךְ), “king,” sounded too blunt; David (דָּוִד), “beloved,” too crowded with history.

And then came Uri (אוּרִי) — “my light.”

The sound fell easily — two syllables like Rory, the same open warmth — but the meaning turned inward. Rory burns; Uri glows. One is heat, the other illumination.

The craftsman’s name

In the Torah, Uri is the father of Bezalel, the artisan chosen to build the Tabernacle — “filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge.” Uri’s legacy isn’t kingship but craftsmanship: turning light into structure.

That spoke directly to my work. Strategy, writing, brand design — they’re all forms of building things that help others see. Uri didn’t feel like an adopted word. It felt like a word that had been waiting for me.

From Wilmer to Avraham and Sarah

Every convert takes a Hebrew name that ends with ben Avraham v’Sarah (or bat for daughters) — “son of Abraham and Sarah.” It isn’t decorative. It’s the heart of the theology.

Abraham and Sarah were the first to answer a call into the unknown. They left their homeland, language, and lineage for a promise they couldn’t yet see. Conversion echoes that movement. You don’t inherit by blood; you inherit by decision.

So I remain Rory Wilmer in the civic world — English, rooted, the product of Surrey and Congleton, of resolve and faith. But in Jewish life — in prayer, learning, covenant — I’ll be אורי בן אברהם ושרָה (Uri ben Avraham v’Sarah). Two names, two stories, one person.

Will and light

When you see names as frameworks rather than labels, this pairing begins to make sense. Wilmer carries will and fame: the determination to act, to persist, to build something lasting. Uri carries light: understanding, craftsmanship, illumination.

Together they form a simple equation — will + light — persistence guided by clarity. It’s a compass I can live with.

The psychology of naming

What began as translation turned into an exercise in identity design. Names shape behaviour. They alter how we think, how others respond, how we move through the world. As Rory Sutherland would say, a name is a frame; change the frame and you change the context for every decision.

Choosing Uri doesn’t overwrite Rory. It reframes him. It binds together the Wilmer resolve and the Joynson faith, the southern steadiness and the northern conscience, the years in Prague and the homecoming to New Brighton. It’s the light added to the will — the story, finally, in alignment.

Uri ben Avraham v’Sarah

אורי בן אברהם ושרָה

“Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.”

Psalm 97 : 11

אוֹר זָרוּעַ לַצַּדִּיק וּלְיִשְׁרֵי־לֵב שִׂמְחָה.

Bloodline - Written by Rory Wilmer

Forty-seven years of roads behind,

Still walking home through time.

From Somerset rain to the Holy Land sun,

Footprints of my father, his journey begun.

Grandad prayed where the prophets stood,

Now I return — I understood.

Bloodline turns, the circle slow,

Love and faith — the seeds I sow.

Not for fashion, not for show,

Just the truth of what I know.

Hebrew letters on my tongue,

Old songs in a voice still young.

In the mirror I see my son —

River joined, two streams run.

The world’s gone cold, but my heart burns clear,

For my wife, my child — I’m still here.

Bloodline turns, the circle slow,

Love and faith — the seeds I sow.

Not for trend, but truth to show,

I am, at last, the soul I know.

Home… at last.