International boys names

Damien

How about Stefan? it works in all European countries. Max works in most places too.

Morris.

Hi there, I had similar criteria naming dd.

On the biblical front when I was looking at boys names too I did find it a bit impossible to dismiss things for being too biblical so I ended up looking into the meaning a bit more. I ended up thinking that a saints name might be ok as opposed to one of the disciples. This may sound crazy but it was how I got round it.

Am expecting again and Gregory is still my first choice for a boy even though I wonder if it's too biblical but on the other hand, my children will go to school in Europe where they celebrate saints days. I decided I didn't want dd missing out and gave her possibly the most biblical name of them all as her middle name partly because I want her to be able to celebrate a name day with her friends! I wonder if that's a consideration op if other members of the family celebrate saints days?

I also like Hugo and Bruno. I like Theo too but wouldn't use it because of its meaning.

I offer you my son's name - Cosmo (English mother and Italian father)

Orlando definitely isn't too Italian. Its 576th in the last British stats (so about mid table) Orlando Bloom does make it more acceptable to British ears. Plus I've seen it tipped on a lot of baby name prediction sites for becoming a bit more popular (though I doubt it will become massive).

Federico is much more Italian, but not to the point that its alien to British ears. Especially with the nickname Rico which wouldn't be too Italian.

As I said before I think you are lucky with the trend being set to be -o endings as that makes pretty much anything Italian ending in -o much more accepted anyway.

What about saints and popes, are they out too?

Many apologies for repeating myself, but Luca (=Luke) is a name that appears in the Bible, which the OP does not want. Ditto Raphael, Timo (=Timothy), Titus and Darius. Nico (if short for Nicodemus, though it's not likely to be (!!)) , also.

I like a bit of a challenge!

Well the trend in the UK is currently short names ending in -o so that really works in your favour.

Some suggestions (I know some have been mentioned before).

Aldo
Anthony
Bruno
Cornelius
Darius
Elmo
Enzo
Enrico
Fabian
Felix
Federico
Leo
Leonardo
Lorenzo
Linus
Luca
Orlando
Nico
Riccardo
Rocco
Roman
Romeo
Raphael
Timo
Titus
Toni
Vito
Walter

I think anything with a racing car association you'd probably get away with too.

I think you have created a problem for yourselves by your long list of exclusions.

Anders is a lovely name

Andre
Luca
Sven
Anders
Georgio
Pierre
Alphonso
Conrad
Stephen
Nicholas
Erik
Henrik
Amadeus
Wolfgang

DD has a friend called Letizia which is on your girls list - she has a brother called Frederick.

Obviously whatever you call them, however international, will be pronounced subtly (or massively) differently by speakers of each language - we picked proper international names for our older twoyet they still sound ddifferent in English and German, and the DC themselves automatically pronouncetheir own names differently depending which llanguage they are speaking, even when talking to each other. That's why we gave up on bothering whether names are international and ended up giving DC3 an English name which is easy for Germans to pronounce...

Gregor / gregor?

Squoosh - very interesting. I looked it up. Archangel Raphael is mentioned in the Book of Tobit. In the 16th cent, many Protestants believed that the Book of Tobit was not part of the Bible. However, Roman Catholic theologians disagreed, and said that it was. Am not sure what today's scholars think, from either tradition.

Cosmo! Best name ever.

Raphael is the name of one of the archangels but I have a feeling he isn’t actually named in the bible. I think just Michael and Gabriel are named. Catholicism probably named Raphael at a later date.

In the 2 parallel classes to my 3 year old's (all mixed 3-6 yos) there are a

Raphael x 2
Korbinian
Philip
Sebastian
Max (not sure if it's short for anything as don't have a class list for parallel class)

Korbinian and Raphael are actually both pretty common around here - there's a Korbinian in the year between my older 2, and a smaller toddler one in the neighbourhood and it's a name you often hear out and about - same goes for Raphael, which I think is Italian in origin and not biblical?

Very interesting to hear of names from schools in other countries. Sorry to be a bore, but the OP did say she wanted to avoid Bible names, and Andreas, Daniel, Lucas (all spellings), Johann, Paul, Ben, Philip, Simon, Jonas, Markus, David, Thomas, Noah are all from the Bible. Felix appears in the Bible too, but not as a main character.

I'm not pointing this out because I'm religious, just because I'm interested in word and name origins ....

It was an auto correct fail Bluestocking - I corrected it in the post straight after.

They actually refuse to register ridiculous names in general, and sometimes parents have to prove unusual choices are genuine names by producing evidence of existing individuals with the name.

Nikon?! Is his brother Kodak? Are Germans as sharply divided about "unique" names as the British or is there more of a live and let live attitude?