Middle name for Aryan?

MrsOakenshield wherever did the OP say she was in Britain or Europe for that matter? I think she says she is in the East.

"..actively avoid the parents, and discourage any friendship, as the obvious inference is that they are Nazis."

Well, like duh, obviously!!

Some prejudiced and blinkered people around on this thread with no sense of other cultures or world history.

A really gorgeous name .....
Maybe many think so

With the most awful anti-Semitic connotations.

Back to the thread ....don't think you really need a middle name.

MrsOakenshield, you would avoid a child or suggest your children did so because of their name? A personal choice made by their parents who you don't know. I think that attitude is more worrying than any name someone could concoct for their child. A bit like that Katie Hopkins. I think Aryan in this context is fine, it's an old name with different cultural connotations. I have Jewish family and I see no offence, I also studied history at uni so I'm not ignorant of Hitler's awfulness. It simply has nothing to do with this little boy or family!

I have just read more of the OP's comments and see that she is Asian (though I don't know if her DP is) so some of my post is nonsense (I wouldn't think you were nazis, just idiots). However, it still remains the fact that here in Britain the name has very offensive historical (and not really that historical - there will still be plenty of people alive who remember of were affected by the Holocaust) connotations, and I think it would be very ignorant to forget that.

Aryan is actually a really gorgeous name... maybe stick in an extra 'a' at the beginning for future work emails etc

*Quite a lot actually, BOF.

According to the Office for National Statistics:

6 in 1998
9 in 1999
6 in 2000
11 in 2001
15 in 2002
26 in 2011
30 in 2012*

that it not a lot, in a population of 30 million people that is a microscopically tiny percentage.

You are not in an Asian country where the name does not have the connotations it has here in Europe. It is spectacularly offensive. I have just read this out in my office and everyone gasped in shock and then laughed at the sheer idiocy of thinking it's a good, or even acceptable, name for a child.

If there was a child at DD's nursery with this name I would actively avoid the parents, and discourage any friendship, as the obvious inference is that they are nazis and I would not want such people around my child.

My DS went to playgroup with an Indian boy called Aryan. Hs mum pronounced it AAr-ee-an. He was lovely but even though they and I are Asian, I did think hmmm...

Alis you are clutching at straws now. Arya is fine for a girl, but Aryan is taboo for a boy? White supremacists can be of any gender, I think.

"As an aside, comparing Josef/Joseph to Aryan to most European people is utterly pointless. The former being a historically common name."

Exactly. Just as Joseph is a historically common name in Europe, Aryan is historically common in South Asia as well.

It amazes me that there are other threads running alongside this where people are debating using Madeleine but posters are purportedly baffled as to why someone might find Aryan a terribly poor choice.

Btw, it is not just a European issue. You'll find plenty of neo-nazis in the US and Canada and other parts of the world who have embraced the name for their "organisations".

It's also worse remembering that it is the child who will have to live with this name so it's not just about the parents' freedom of choice.

Out of interest, for people who say there is nothing wrong with the name, do you consider any names to be off limits? Adolf, for example? I'm genuinely interested.

If you are set on the name, fine. People are just trying to flag up what is a very obvious issue in their eyes.

If you are of Indian/Pakistani heritage then it certainly could work as a name.

I don't think Aryan as a boys name has the same potential to cross cultures and not make people think of Nazi's in the same way Arya does.

As an aside, comparing Josef/Joseph to Aryan to most European people is utterly pointless. The former being a historically common name, the latter being the name given to a Nazi ideology. Same goes for Joesph and Adolf. Or indeed, Joseph and Myra.

I understand Aryan is a historically used name in your culture, I do.

So the first syllable rhymes with car?

Aryan Seth
Aryan Robin
Aryan Frankie
Aryan Marcus
Aryan Henry
Aryan Jasper

Op, I know you weren't asking for opinions on aryan, but I think pp's were merely trying to flag up something you might have missed fair enough if it's not of concern to you.

Personally I sit on the fence, but wouldn't name a child either Myra or Aryan, which are both perfectly lovely names with negative connotations. Esp with Aryan I'd bear in mind how the written name would look on Cv's/ job apps. Some people would unfortunately judge.

Each to their own.

Fwiw, I too like Jay

How is it pronounced?
That makes a difference to middle names

"As the OP said...the name was around long before Hitler, and will be around long after. "

Um, no. How many UK parents have used Myra since the sixties?

All these nay-sayers, just wondering, did any of you make an official complaint when Game of Thrones aired?

Transcend - "to go beyond". This was the context I was referring to Coffeeinbed, but thank you for trying to belittle me.

You are also driving this conversation away from what the Op originally asked. I think Op is happy with the first name Aryan, they've asked for suggestions of middle names, nothing more.

Actually, coffeeinbed, I think you are being offensive to parents of boys called Aryan. I only know one set of parents who have chosen this name, but they are intelligent, well educated and very respectful people.

As the OP said...the name was around long before Hitler, and will be around long after.

"We've reclaimed words like slut and queer. Why not this? If enough boys are named Aryans, I think it will slowly cleanse away the negative connotations. This does not mean I am disrespectful of the Holocaust or the horrific suffering of the Jews." Well said, Amrapaali, I was about to post the same.

I don't know how many people died in the bloodthirsty pogroms, I do know though that in the subsequent war more than 60 million lost their lives.

Also "smug"?
Of all things, really?

I don't know why I bother.
Horse, water...

coffeeinbed you are coming across as really smug. Judge away, but nothing changes the fact that Aryan is a name steeped in antiquity.

Just because a psychotic man with a funny moustache used that word for his bloodthirsty pogroms, doesn't mean the word should be banned.

We've reclaimed words like slut and queer. Why not this? If enough boys are named Aryans, I think it will slowly cleanse away the negative connotations. This does not mean I am disrespectful of the Holocaust or the horrific suffering of the Jews.

Aryan is a gorgeous Persian name. Would you consider Aerion? I knew an Albanian man with this name and thought it was beautiful.

I can see it does make a difference if the Aryan's non-white but as someone else said, you have to see them to know that!

To answer your question, Lotty, yes, I probably would think that the parents have Nazi leanings, at the very least, because otherwise I would have to assume they were completely innocent of any knowledge of its connotation, or indeed of respect for recent history, and that would be quite unbelievable.

As for whether it transcends anything, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you simply chose the wrong word.
I'm generous that way.

I also do tend to judge, unapologetically so, where anything to do with Nazis. Funny that.

Last random Aryan was supposed to be Aryan Elijah.