To use a 'foreign' name for DC?

[TrueBlu]

There has been some debate in recent months about names you can/can't use on baby names.

So my question is, is it ur to use a name when you have no connection to its country of origin. Would you be appropriating the culture it came from?

Also, when is it 'okay' to Anglicise names?

E.g. I could use Connor instead of Conchobhar, or Neve instead of Niamh, but not Zanthe instead of Xanthe or Eefa instead of Aoife.

Surely it is also like calling your child Rose, Willow, Summer or Skye.

why would you call a poor girl Abishag??

she won't thank you for that pretentious nonsense in a few years time.

No I don't think so as naming people after seasons, flowers, trees and places is well established as a concept (though I think that the season and places ones are a bit naff, personally.)

Naming them after types of entertainment/party is not....unless you know little "Opera, Festival, Movie, Barney (short for Barn Dance), Hoedown and Ball"?

I wouldn't bat an eyelid at people using names not from their own culture. No problem. Call your child what you like.

But I personally think anglicising can sometimes (often) spoil the beauty of a name. So for example, Seersha isn't half as lovely to me as Saoirse, which isn't just a name - its a real Irish word, meaning liberty/freedom.

I also think its generally good to have some knowledge of the meaning and connotations of a 'foreign' name before you use it, too.

Saoirse is fairly popular these days, but it started out not so long ago as a highly Republican name. Great if you're family are all raving Sinn Fein-ers like mine, but if you come from a Queen and country-loving protestant English family, it might be slightly out of keeping with your heritage .

My DC have foreign names (DH is North African) and even though we picked the simplest phonetic spellings people still get them wrong on occasion. As for DH's surname, when transliterated from Arabic resembles an Italian name so constantly gets mispronounced to the point that we had to persuade DS2 that the school was wrong and DH was right about the sound of the name.

I would think twice about a foreign name if your DC are going to spend half their life spelling out their name or correcting pronunciation unless you have a cultural reason for choosing it.

I wouldn't use a name from a culture neither dh nor I have any connection to. All the people I know who have such a name hate introducing themselves ("no, I am not Italian, mum liked the opera", "nope, not French, mum thought it sophisticated").

I loved the name Estrella when pregnant with my youngest DC. We are not Spanish. I just thought, 'oh, how lovely, it means Star, its so pretty etc etc'.

Until a Spanish friend told me its the name of the most popular beer in Spain

The Beckhams made that boo-boo, too, didn't they? Cruz is a girls name in Spain....

There are some that are completely tied to a particular culture (Abdul and Mohammed for example) and would perhaps seem odd on a child that looks wrong for that culture

Nope, those are Muslim names and Muslims come in all colours. You can find Mohammeds from Bosnia to Botswana and everywhere in between.

Back to the OP, I'd be tempted to give the usual ease of pronunciation advice, expect that I have a very simple, phonetic name that's not especially viewed as foreign and people still get it wrong.

I don't want to name/draw out an argument, but one or two of the "exotic" foreign names mentioned earlier are also far from exotic in their original contexts - the equivalent of John - so the whole Ooh, lovely exotic name! thing only flies outside of that country. Which seems a minor point, but somehow the idea that the entire population of Italy/Russia/Timbuktu might be sniggering behind my back at my exotic choice, puts me off.

Ultimately this is one of those very personal things - to me it is absurd to choose a name wholly removed from one's own country/family context, for others, not so much. I had a white, Jewish friend growing up whose mum decided on a very traditional, rather nice Zulu name - it was just plain odd. People's reactions were odd. I expect she may have also been the first white person in 90s South Africa to be discriminated against because of her name, which her mum really should've seen coming.

MattDillonsPants No, none of those. At least those are alternative spellings of the same name. My dd's name only has one 'correct' spelling* but people get it wrong all the time.

*Apparently the most common incorrect spelling does appear on official statistics idiot parents

I knew an Italian called Patrick, his brother had an English name, can't remember what is was now.

His mother had loved the names even though no connection to the countries. I thought it was quite cool that she'd chosen names she loved rather than ones that were 'appropriate for her culture'.

those are Muslim names and Muslims come in all colours. You can find Mohammeds from Bosnia to Botswana and everywhere in between.

Since when does colour = culture?

I wonder how many pale blond, blue eyed catholic Mohammeds there are.

Yeah Jessie I know, half thought they might have been going for some kind of 'authentic' version of Kayleigh perhaps. But not with the nickname they went for!

Just think about the child having to spell their name out every time he gives his name, or having them mispronounced every time someone new calls the register.

Name your child whatever you like

Im non-British so don't have a British name, wouldn't bother me if British children had my name

Im at people suggesting don't use a foreign name as it'll be hard to spell and pronounce. In 2016, really?! That reminds me of people who go abroad to a country regularly but closedmindedly and steadfastly refuse to even try to learn or pronounce any words/names in the language of that country.

You know what you do? The same as you do when you come across anybody with an unfamiliar name, you learn to pronounce and spell it. I live in England, I don't find that English people tend to faff with my name, if they mispronounce or mis-spell I correct them and then its fine. No major disaster, Im not offended and neither are they

In the scheme of life this is just no biggie

True, Patrick is ultimately Latin in origin, so an Italian using it is actually quite appropriate!

My name is Nyika (and that's so humungously outing it's ridiculous). We have no links to the Malawi-Zambian border except that my dad grew up in South Africa and I have some horrible white Rhodesian ancestors along the line. However, it is my name and I just laugh off the weird lack of connection. I think if you wanted to call a child Mohammed and you weren't muslim that might not go down too well, but other than that I think it's fine!

I don't know, variety is the spice of life and all that. Then again, it depends how pretentious the name is and that's entirely subjective isn't it? I do know a white, blond haired blued eyed woman called "Krishna" (her mum was a hippy). It was strange at first but it just suits her iykwim. I also know a "Cristal" and yes she is named after the brand of champagne. I'm silently judgemental about that one...

AlleyCat, are you Irish? It may well come down to differences in pronunciation in provinces, but in Munster, Niamh is a 2 syllable word.

For me, the pronunciation of 'Sorcha' is also not 'sir-ka'. It has 3 syllables, and is more like sur-a-kha. The sounds of the first syllable is broader than 'sir', and the last syllable is a softer sound than 'ka'.

Yes Squiggle I am Irish also from Munster. My mother's father was from a Kerry Gaeltacht but she went to school in a gaelscoil and studied Irish in Dublin so that might influence our dialects. Niamh with one syllable round our way only my Cork friends have 2. Sorcha probably is more sor than sir but not far off sir and there probably is a half syllable between sir and ka but definitely not a full syllable.

In the UK most people are used to Irish names so that isn't a concern

This is an interesting turn of phrase. Northern Ireland is a constituent part of the UK. These are names from the indigenous language of Northern Ireland used by people native there long before subsequent immigration and migration of peoples to these islands from mainland Europe. People in the UK are not just 'used' to these names. There are probably the oldest native names originating from any part of the UK. Along with the other Celtic Languages.

"A friend, whose husband is Turkish, gave her son a Turkish first name against my advice. I worry that he will be subject to anti immigrant discrimination when he is older. Even if it isn't overt you can imagine an HR manager going through his c.v.and making all sorts of assumptions based on the name. I hope my worries are unfounded."

This is actually a good point. A friend of mine with a "vaguely foreign sounding" (but not actually foreign) name is planning to switch to her middle name because she is worried about prejudice against Eastern Europeans, for job interviews and so on.

Soup - If you didn't mean colour, or physical appearance, how else could an Islamic name like Mohammed seem "odd on a child that looks wrong for that culture?

I'm with pontypines on this one.

Mohammed is a Muslim name that transcends all cultures. There are many fair skinned and blue eyed Bosnian Mohammeds. No, not catholic since it's not a catholic name.

All that you can assume about someone called Mohammed is that one of the parents had a link to Islam but you have no idea of his cultural background apart from that.