Names out of your ethnicity

[Trinaluce]

Just a question of curiosity here: are there any names you love but would never use as they're out of your ethnicity? I know a little boy called Suraj and my colleague is called Mojisola - both of which I think are gorgeous but would never use as I feel they're perhaps too grounded in each person's background.

Anyone else got any names they like in this vein?

I know exactly what you mean. I wanted DS to be called Tico but xp thought it sounded daft Spanish and we're not.

Suraj seemed lovely when I first saw it written in school, but when said quickly in a London playground, it sounds very like 'sewage'!

Heh heh! No, this is very definitely Su-rahhhhj, and I just think it sounds lovely

Anjula, Naveen, Amrit, Parvati, Dinesh, Lakshmi, Rani... Amaya... Solomon.

I am so damn white. :P

Shrada. I love it.

I love Scottish and Irish names but they just do not go with Italian surnames/ appearances.

Zandile

When I was a teenager I knew a Traveller boy called, the way he said it, Jewan. It's only when he wrote it that I realised his name was actually Juan!

Clelia - Italian
Seamus - Irish for James
Fabienne, Marie-Thérese - French

I am none of the above!

I love the name Zvipozvashe but i have no Zimbabwean heritage so it just never seemed right for my children.

Beasknees I wouldn't even know where to BEGIN pronouncing that

Have always loved Laurent for a boy.

It really sounds best when French people say it anyway.

There was a white girl in my school called Darinda, which I think sounds Indian. Given I was at school quite some years ago, that was pretty progressive for the time.

The zv is almost a shhv sound - i think i like it almost as much for it's impossible spelling

Anjali and Soraya... Love them both!!

Love the name Angharad, but sadly not Welsh.

Mandy - I teach a boy whose name is Juwan. Sounds too much like "Joanne" in the accent they have, poor kid.

I also teach a Tenicia and a Tamika (same class) who are both white, though Tamika told her head of year that she is "supposed to be black". Not at all sure what she means.

Ludmila is my favourite girls name ever. And Darius for a boy.

Llewellyn and Cerrys are fantastic but they seem so out of place unless you're Welsh and I'm not.

Oh and Aveni for a boy. It was the first name of a Fijian soldier my husband served with. Gorgeous name.

I have always loved the names Fatima and Soraya. I couldn't use them, because we are not Muslim. I like them though, always have done.

I love Noor and Jael, but we are neither Arabs nor Jews and both would sound bizarre with our surname.

Alejandro and Matteo (nn Teo) . Sigh...

Another "so damn white" one here, helen.

Yes, lots.

Trouble is, when I mention them (most of them are Italian) Italian friends fall on the floor laughing and tell me that the youngest person left with that sort of name is a 106 yr old nun in closed orders......

I suppose like someone not from an anglo-saxon naming culture telling us how pretty Doris and Mildred sound to them.

Omar is the most beautiful-sounding name in the world, and I sometimes wish I wasn't white so I could have named my son Omar!

I also adore Sikh names such as Kulwinder, Gurinder, Simran, Inderjit and Amarjit. They roll off the tongue beautifully. I also love that Sikh names are unisex.

Gianni, Giovani and Giuseppe were on my boys list and Gianelle and Gigi were on the girls list.