What do you ladies think about my name choices?

[gardenpixies32]

I am Greek and my partner is British, I want our DC to have a name that reflects it's Greek heritage yet is not going to be way out there which will result in a tears in the playground. Wish my parents had thought of this!

I can only think of one boys name...George!

Girls names...Georgia, Georgina, Sophia, Effie, Amelia. These are popular names for girls in Greece.

What do you ladies think. Any more boys suggestions?

I like Effie, would it be short for something else or just Effie? Fine either way.

I always associate Gods/Goddesses with Greek names, although some of these may be roman [thicko emoticon]

Athena
Ariadne
Hera
Persephone
Thalia

The only boy Greek person I know is Stav(ros).

I love Sophie for a girl.

George is nice, have you considered one of the variants on Chris? Christopher, Christos, just Chris, etc? Jason, Alexander, Theo (and long versions thereof) and Philip are also Greek.

I love the name Effie - I lived in Greece for a couple of years and would have loved to use it for a daughter (have two boys though!)

Sorry not very helpful! George is a great name - Thomas, Nicholas, Theo - these all have Greek equivalents I think??

Alexander

Eleanor

I don't like the Greek Gods/Goddesses thing and not many Greeks are named after them nowadays.

I like Effie too but the Greek version is not to my liking...Eletheria

Thanks for other boys names Winkly.

I like xanthe, ianthe, iolanthe & iris.

I know a Greek alexis. Alex for short?

I love Sophia, but may be biased as it was my greek grannies' name

Love Milo for a boy

Went to school with a Greek bot called Andreas, which I think is a lovely name.

Also, this may be a bit out there - but there was a Greek women in the weekend paper called Aphrodite!

I like Georgia.

How about Zoe? meaning 'life'
also I went to school with a Greek girl "Thalia' meaning flourishing.

As for boys; Nicholas, Andreas?.....
Good luck choosing.

I went to school with a Christos. He was the cousin of a very famous 80's/90's pop-star

My favourite cookbook author, Tessa Kiros, has a Greek-Cypriot background and her children are called Yasmine and Cassia, which I always thought were lovely names

Oooh...those are beautiful names, TSC.

I know an Alexi. His brother is Joe ...... not sure where that comes from!

what about Evgenia or Evangelia as a full name, with Effie as a nickname?

Alexi(s), Alexandros, Angelos, Andreas, Lukas or Zacharias for a boy? (not sure why that came out alphabetically lol)

Anna is always fab for a girl too.

Hector or Theo for a boy?

oilopolis - I like Evgenia but I don't think it is transferable enough between English and Greek. Evangelia is lovely but my friend's little one is Eva, too similar.

Thanks for the input everyone. I still only really like George though. I hope he will look like a George.

Iliana is lovely.

Hello Gardenpixies ! Have you seen my thread on the name Orfeas? Whilst that name doesn't fit the bill in terms of English equivalents, it has great suggestions for other Greek names from everyone else. Have a look and see if it helps!

Alexander/Alexandros is on our shortlist. I can think of many names which exist in both Greek and English. Here goes:

Anthony/Antonis
Theo/Theodoros
Leonidas/Leo
Ilias
Thomas
Nicolaos/Nicholas
Gregoris/Gregory
Byronas/Byron
Adam
Matthaios/Matthew
Timotheos/Timothy
Christos/Christopher
Rafail/Rafael (also on my shortlist)
Mixalis/Michael
Romanos/Roman
Damianos/Damien
Andreas/Andrew

I could go on! I hope this helps. If you want more girls' name suggestions then just shout!

I love the name Damianos, but it's very unusual in Greece. I've never met even a single one. I know several English Damians, though!

Grigoris is nice and Gregory is fine in English. There are lots of names that are transferable, really - Filippos/ Philip, Nikolas/ Nicholas, Stefanos/ Stephen. Since you like George and don't want your child to be teased over his/her name, I assume you are not going to go for names that are really strange in English, like Themistoklis or Panteleimon!

I like Sofia a lot too. Zoe is another good one that works very well in both languages. I didn't worry about that, mind you, I just gave my dc the names I liked!

Also, Viki seems to be becoming more popular in Greece, although it tends to be Vasiliki rather than Victoria, at least in the cases I know. Elena is fine in both languages too.

DS has a half Greek half British boy in his class called Zeus. His brother is Theos? He has another boy with no Greek parents called Titan, shortened to Ty. They probably don't fit the bill because they are too obviously Greek but to me they are preferable to George.

Speaking with Greek friends, it seems there is a bit of a trend amongst people having babies at the moment to try to pick 'rare' sounding names - so rather than thinking you have chosen something odd, people might appreciate its rarity, if you see what I mean. That might give you more leeway to pick 'transferable' names, like Damianos/Rafail that are rare, but not unheard of in Greece too.

Another option is to pick a Greek name that has a very English sounding nickname. I know a few people who go by 'Harry' when speaking with English people but are actually called things like Aris, Theoxaris, Xarisis etc
Same is true for Vasilis - Billy, Bill, Will etc.

I agree with comments above about Sofia and Zoe - both are lovely and are also transferable. Anastasia has many diminutives which sound 'English' - e.g. Natasha, Anna etc. Your Greek family can use Greek sounding nicknames and your English family/school can use the familiar ones. However, I also agree that if you like a name then you should go for it. The same thoughts have gone through my head regarding forthcoming DC but at the end of the day, your child will certainly not be the only child in the school with a non-typical name if you go that way. Good luck :)

I just want to add I have worked in 2 secondary schools and four primary schools and this has included a lot of playground supervision and I have NEVER heard any child being teased about their name. And there were some pretty outlandish ones!

No Shrinking. I was going to say that DS's friend doesn't get teased. 4 or 5 year olds are pretty accepting of different names and then as they get older nobody bats an eyelid because it is just normal.

My greek cypriot friend is Christianna, her sister is katerina :)