As any literate Jew knows, Yenta was the name of the matchmaker in Sholom Aleichem's stories, several of which were collected into what became the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Sholom Aleichem, taken from the common greeting that essentially means hello, was the pen name of Solomon Rabinovitz. Because Yenta was such a busybody, her name became synonymous with that characteristic. Perhaps because that characteristic is an advantage to a sachem (matchmaker), I often run across people who believe that Yenta means matchmaker.