Xavier or Tristan

[maddogsandenglishmen]

We had finally settled on the name Xavier, or so I thought. Then DH out of the blue suggested Tristan. At first I said no but it is growing on me and now I can't decided again!

For background, the name has to work in English, German AND Spanish, which makes it a little tricky.

Opinions please!

Xavier as long as it's with a long 'a' sound at the beginning... 'zay-vee-er'

I like both but prefer Tristan.

Prefer the short a pronounciation of Xavier.

I agree with fortyplus!

Thanks for the thoughts! Like tossing a coin, it's helping me to know which way I want it to go (currently Tristan!)

If we chose Xavier it would be short a, probably shortened to Xavi like the Spanish footballer.

like Xavier with a short a and love Tristan :o

Xavier 100 x better than Tristan IMO. Tristan sounds a bit wet.

Tristan is too close to 'triste' (sad) imo.

I think Tristan is a bit wet too.

don't like xavier at all. its a bit faddy and try hard.

love tristan though.

As a name that has to work in three languages, Xaviwe works pretty well, and is more manly than Tristan.

fortyplus - Xavier is pronounced "cksaviay"

good grief, I don't think I can even say...cksaviay

Sebastian?

Zavier is a fantastic name.

Bonsoir - It can be pronounced Either Ecks-Zay-vee-er or Zay-vee-er.

Bonsoir - that's the French pronounciation. The English version is zay-vee-er

Well you have all convinced me that there would be pronounciation issues with Xavier!! The other possibility would be the Spanish Javier, but I guess that would have similar problems outside of Spain.

Ilovemydog - funnily enough I was discussing the name Sebastian with dh last night. I have loved the name Sebastian all my life, but my mum has ruined it for me a bit because she hates it.

Tristan is winning at the moment

Don't like the meaning of Tristan - from the Latin tristis = sad/sorrowful .

Xavier is cool, and I'd pronounce it Ksa-vee-eh (if that makes sense ).

I suggest you call him whatever you want to and let the different language speakers learn how to pronounce it! Just make sure it's not a rude word or something in any of the other languages and go for it.

Don't like Tristan, possibly due to the 'triste' bit.

Xavier is nice. I'd pronounce the X like in xylophone, so xa-vier.

I prefer Xavier with the Javier (Spanish language) pronounciation (like Ha-vee-air). I don't even know those other pronunciations listed here.
DS2 is Tristan btw, get people calling him Justin/Christian/all sorts .... his teacher couldn't even spell it right!

And, actually, Xavier doesn't work in 3 languages because they all have such distinctive ways of pronouncing it it's almost like 3 different names.