Kenya?

[justhayley]

so I was in the park this afternoon when I heard a mum call her little girl "Kenya" at first I thought why on earth would you call your child Kenya, then I turned around to see a little blonde curly head girl in a hippy dress and it really really suited her.
Don't think I'd be brave enough to use it but the more I think about it he more I like it.
What do you think?

No.

Was it pronounced Kenyaaaah.
I don't want to mention the 'c' word.

Was it pronounced Kenyaaaah?
I don't want to mention the 'c' word.

Maybe its a name from somwehere else, and not as in the country?

I've been to Kenya and I loved it there. Maybe they'd been too.

I quite like it actually. And it sounds nice when you say it..it really rolls off the tongue.But, there'd have to be some sort of story for me that links to the place - she was conceived there or something..

I have long loved this name but I could only use it if I had links to the country or my partner did (even if it was just by having African ancestors).

Plenty of naice English white people use India as a name, so why not Kenya?

Can you imagine some little child in Kenya running around called England? Or Basingstoke, Slough, Milton Keynes, Cleethorpes...

My Indian friend (from India) almost wet herself when she came across a child called India ("Whaaaat? Really? India as a name for a child?").

It's quite nice actually. Makes a change from other place names such as India and Adelaide.

No. She may get 'Ken' for short which probaby wouldn't suit her so much!

I know a Keanna maybe it was that?

Are you sure it was Kenya and not Kenyon? I know a little girl called Kenyon. which is bloody awful.

my colleagues grandson is called Kenya but they do have Kenyan ancestry so it makes sense.

A boy?

We jokingly told our friends we were going to name out child London when i was pregnant... After a while it grew on us! We didn't call her London but we both still like the name- just not brave enough to use it lol. Kenya does sound a little bit ummmm... Chavvy... Reminds me a bit of Kendra (you know the ex playboy bunny?)

If my DS decides to call any prospective grandchild of mine Scotland, Ecosse, Alba or Caledonia, I'll need to disown him!

Chelsea, Chad, Bristol, Paris, Georgia, Venus, Virginia, Charlotte, Sydney, Dakota, Austin, Madison, Savannah...

don't really see why Kenya is worse than any of those.

And may Venus Williams slam your ass down if you dare to label any of them Chav.

I quite like it and I'm not the biggest place name fan in the world. Certainly no different from India, Sydney, Tyrone, Erin etc.

I know 2 babies called Alba . I always have a slight pang of wistfulness that we didn't try and work in where dd3 was conceived into a middle name.

My sister was born in Africa and my dad wanted to reflect that somewhere in her name, my mum thought it would be too "showy" and her name is a 70s fave, 36 years later my sister still bears a grudge

It was definitely Kenya, she said it a few times. The mum was very English, quite posh actually, she did have a well travelled look about her so maybe that's where she conceived.
I don't see it as Chav, although yesterday I didn't even know it was a name. I think it has a really pretty sound. I always liked India as well but again probably not brave enough to use it, would perhaps use both as middle names.

Was it Keen-ya, or Ken-yar?

I wondered that too. When I was little, the country was always pronounced Keen-ya.

Some (if not most) of the placenames mentioned in this thread were named after people, so it's interesting to see which came first. Like the city of Adelaide being named after Queen Adelaide.

I suppose some places are named after, well names (Paris, Virginia...). Some folks just try to go for the extraordinary (the Beckhams?) and it can sound a bit odd.

I haven't met a 'Bristol' but as a child of the Carry On generation, I would make the unfortunate connection. I did come across a little Mali (Mah-lee) recently (girl). I thought that was unusual. Where I work there, I find that the kids with 'unusual' or 'cool/hippy...' names are Brits and American. The other kids (from all over the world) tend to be called the equivalent of Peter and Jane.

I'm not keen on surnames for first names (ok so we do have a lot in scotland that are both anyway) or 'ye olde professions' (fletcher, paige, cooper...).

Would Kendra be any better?

Think its an American thing when I was working on a summer camp many many years ago there was a craze for names that are countries so I looked after a Kenya, Egypt, America, India etc Infact I once said to someone 'I'm English' and they said 'Hi I am Bill'

Well, I suppose kids won't get teased so much these days with fashion for 'unusual' names (unless they are called Tom or Mary). I met a little Gaia recently. Not sure about the whole earth theory but the name sounds quite 'hard' to the ear.

Paris comes from the earliest inhabitants the Parisii tribe, they were Gaulish so the name may have been 'Romanised' later. Virginia is a reference to Elizabeth I (the "Virgin Queen").

Sorry to be nerdy but I find this sort of thing interesting.