Today’s name, reyka, fool, is biblical, but it appears only in the New Testament. It seems by the biblical text that it was a very derogatory name because Jesus warns people not to say it:
“But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be in danger of the council”
There is a little mistake in the text regarding the way the word was pronounced. It isn’t now and wasn’t then ‘Raca’ as it is transliterated in the text, but ‘reyka.’ The name comes from the noun ‘reyk’ (or ‘rek’) which means ‘empty.’ The connection is clear; it is a reference to a person who is empty of either wisdom, manners, respect, etc.
‘Reyka’ must have had a greater derogatory meaning during Jesus time, and perhaps it is another sign of the moral deterioration of our times that a word like this sounds much softer today than it sounded then. From the top of your head, you surely can think of at least a dozen names that are worse than ‘Reyka.’ Due to its softness and its being archaic, ‘reyka,’ ‘good-for-nothing’ person, is not used any more in modern Hebrew
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