Quote Originally Posted by CoffeeCup View Post
There was an old or even ancient superstition in Russia about bears (of course we do obsessed with bears ): it is a bad omen to call a bear by "his name". Here "his name" stands for the word "bear" (медведь). If you will "call" the bear i.e. pronounce the word "bear" the bear can think that you are calling him and come to you. As a result there are only few possibilities: you can became the bear's breakfast, lunch or dinner. So there is a tradition to use nicknames for bears instead of the word "bear". There are plenty of them: Михайло Потапыч, Топтыгин, Косолапый etc. There is no any other animal in Russia which has so many nicknames.
Actually, "медведь" is not a real name of this beast. It is also a nickname, the real name is lost in time.

This kind of superstitions was very widespread everywhere.


Quote Originally Posted by CoffeeCup View Post
Maybe using "G-d" is somewhat similar to this. People don't call the "God" without an extremely need.
No, AFAIK this is specifically Judaic tradition and it is related to Kabbalah somewhat. It was assumed that the essence of holy texts (Torah) are not to be understood by the human mind, and people should follow the instructions literally. So Torah says "Don't mention in vain the name of God". OK, but it says nothing about mentioning in vain some substitutes. Everything that is not prohibited, is allowed. A kind of pettifoggery, if you ask me.