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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Original poster

German and English boy's names

38 replies

Phobicmum · 26/10/2021 18:26

Hi all,

My son was born nearly a month ago and we still haven't chosen his name. It needs to work in both German and English which is the big stumbling block.

We like Otis, Raphael, Flynn, Magnus (Gus), Hugo and Jago but all of them I still have reservations about. Has anybody got any ideas of names that we might like that would work in both languages?

Hugo for example is a cocktail in Germany.
Magnus sounds a bit like "Ich mag Nüsse"...

Thanks

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Splashinginpuddles15 · 27/10/2021 20:39

My half German ds is Christopher. Christof would be a bit more Germanic , but his name has never caused any pronunciation problems .
I am a teacher and also know half German - Leo , Bastian , Felix , Joshua and Benjamin.

chesirecat99 · 27/10/2021 17:09

I like Leon but I think it's very popular and maybe not considered very classy can't think of a nice way to put it in Germany?

RuleOfCat · 27/10/2021 16:55

Hi PhobicMum, I know what you mean - and you've got your own weird associations but also the associations that Germans will make on hearing the name. Calling your son Julius (you-lee-us) or Maximilian or Theo makes it sound like he's from a -how can I put this - more educated and traditional background, while someone called Fabian has Green-voting parents and goes to a forest nursery, and an Ingo sounds like he's a 40-year-old unemployed Bild reader who drinks cheap beer in the morning. People don't think of Germany as being such a class based society, but it comes out really clearly in the names.

maddy68 · 27/10/2021 16:39

I love Hugo

ZoyaTheDestroyer · 27/10/2021 16:31

Albert
Eric / Erik

Dellit · 27/10/2021 16:20

Arlo?

Ellmau · 27/10/2021 16:16

Alexander
Ingo
Fulk
Karl
Alfred
Markus
Ludwig
Maximilian
Patrick

Original poster
Phobicmum · 27/10/2021 16:09

Thanks for the suggestions and the input! So helpful to hear from people who live in Germany/are German. I really like Henrik, Florian and Fabian but my partner vetoed all of them. I also really like Nico (even though that is very popular in Germany!)

I am massively overthinking every single option and the weird associations that I am making with each name, like the Ich mag Nüsse thing, are meaning I can't choose. I presume you forget these things once you have picked a name! So many people are asking daily what he is called. We really need to decide.

OP posts:
Miliao · 26/10/2021 23:24

@MrsSkylerWhite
It’s Latin, but also popular in Northern Europe (UK - most common in Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, etc)

bringbackfonzi · 26/10/2021 23:01

Fabian or Florian.

Blubells · 26/10/2021 22:57

James is Ya-mess

Todayissunny · 26/10/2021 20:36

James in German speaking switz where I am would be pronounced cha-mess.
Finn,.raphael, elias, Florian are nice.
Andreas, daniel and christian are a bit old fashioned.

MrsSkylerWhite · 26/10/2021 20:35

(Is it German, though?) Thought it was Icelandic?

MrsSkylerWhite · 26/10/2021 20:34

Magnus is fabulous!

Palavah · 26/10/2021 20:33

Maximillian
Kurt
Frederick/Friedrich
Alexander
Axel
Matthias
Christian
Torsten
Torben
Peter
Andreas
Florian
Timo
Thomas

yefferson · 26/10/2021 20:21

Carsten, Oskar, and Alexander would probably be my top three for being pronounced sufficiently similarly. A lot of the names suggested have different stress or sounds, like Thomas or Adam. Names starting with a J, like Jonas, or W, I'd avoid completely. Matthias and Tobias are also pronounced EE-as not EYE-as in German so I wouldn't use them if I wanted consistent pronunciation.

MolyHolyGuacamole · 26/10/2021 20:06

Axel

2typesofjungle · 26/10/2021 19:33

Felix

AvocadoOrange · 26/10/2021 19:31

Mattias
Jonas
Tobias
Max
Carl
Fred
Milo

Betsyboo87 · 26/10/2021 19:25

We needed a name that works in both languages too. I agree with others to avoid J. We probably would have gone for Jack in the UK but he would have been Yack here. I also know a James who gets called Yam-ez.

First names that come to mind are Leo, Oscar, Henry, Ben, Noah, Lucas

RuleOfCat · 26/10/2021 19:05

@Blubells

Some of the suggestions above are the analogue of Barry or Clive here in the UK - very uncool and unfashionable. For example Günther and Helmut!
Absolutely - I think Gunther and Helmut are best friends in a Verein together, and Dirk is a member too.

I said James would be pronounced as jah-mess and was using a semi-German transcription: it is actually said as Yah-mess. No joke.

RuleOfCat · 26/10/2021 19:01

@Snowisfallinghere

I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, it's quite an international area so there are plenty of kids from English speaking countries with English names like James or Milo, and they always get pronounced almost exactly the same way we do in English. So I wouldn't worry about German friends or relatives struggling with pronunciation, unless it's something really unusual.

Also, there are four kids in my son's class with variations of the name Nick... Nico, Nick, Nicolas, and Nicolay!

Hee hee, they can prounounce James specifically because you're in an international part of Switzerland. I can assure you that there are less, ahem, cosmopolitan parts of the German-speaking world that would say 'jah-mess'. I've heard it happen. We had to choose names that would work in both cultures too, and it's interesting that even names that seem to have similar pronunciation have fine distinctions - I can hear immediately if my DC are saying their names in German or English. On your list, Magnus and Hugo would work (but the latter as Hoogo not Hyoogo) and I was about to say that Flynn would be tricky for Germans to say (pronounced as Floon or Flunn), but have just looked at the most popular boys' names in Germany and Finn or Fynn is at place 4. Finn I know really well, I've just never seen it written as Fynn before. My personal faves would be Raphael and Sebastian (nn Basti). I also like Theo, but the German is said very differently to the English (Tay-o). Luca is very popular for boys right now. In fact, a lot of the most popular boy baby names aren't all that German (Luis comes in at place 2). Please don't take Gunther - it's a much older name. I'd expect a 65-year-old know-it-all to be called Gunther.
GrumpyPanda · 26/10/2021 18:58

German here. Raphael, Magnus and Hugo are all fine. Flynn is currently popular but strictly as an import rather than a name that works both ways iyswim. How about Felix? Or you could take a look at German baby names lists - just google "Jungennamen".

KirstenBlest · 26/10/2021 18:57

Tobias (Tobeeas)
Peter
Andreas
Martin
Stefan
Lukas

Blubells · 26/10/2021 18:54

Some of the suggestions above are the analogue of Barry or Clive here in the UK - very uncool and unfashionable. For example Günther and Helmut!

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