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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Why?? (Actual names given last year)

135 replies

Tealdeal747 · 04/11/2017 12:59

There were girls called:
Dyc
Kc
Juri
Cauvery
Boex
Mu
Priceless
Dhax
Han
Euan
En
Das
Chu
Purity
Rut
Dikshita

And boys called:
Boi
Timotei
neophytos
Bode
Solo
Metatron
Blyss
Sing
Mate
A
Kohl
Godstime
Saxs
Rygg
Boon
Caio
Nimrod
Rouxx
Pride
Fountain
Goddominion
En
Daire
Creed
Braxtyn
Orinate

I used to think it was good that in the U.K. There isn't a set list of names and parents are free to name their dc whatever they like but surely some of these are cruel?

OP posts:
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AnyaMoondial · 04/11/2017 19:35

Euan is a female name in Thailand.

TeaAddict235 · 04/11/2017 19:39

OP have you and many other MN'ers ever considered what names like Lucy and Pippa mean in other languages??

English names are not the be all and end all that everyone aspires to.

You need to widen your circle more, travel more, and read more.

Good luck!!

Holliewantstobehot · 04/11/2017 19:47

Surely orinate is pronounced o-rin-ah-tee. I love the name Bride/Bridie.

MargotsDevil · 04/11/2017 19:49

@Fishfingersandwichnocheese no bother - and it appears @daisypond has further info! I teach a Polish Mate is all!

hellokittymania · 04/11/2017 19:57

Some of those sound very Vietnamese/Cambodian/Chinese I know a few in fact. Mu can be a lot of things in Vietnamese though, including Blind, I'm visually impaired. So my nickname by small children when I first started working in Vietnam was big sister "Mu"

Dikshita is pronounced as dik seeta I think,

And hey, I like minions!

TheEagle · 04/11/2017 20:10

I suppose most traditional Irish names are "a bit dated" given our heritage and history Hmm

Suppose we should stop using them.

Why on earth should a name have to "work" in English when it's not an English name?

BelafonteRavenclaw · 04/11/2017 20:12

You’d love my kids names OP as they’re native to DH’s country. Wouldn’t it be boring if we all had the same taste in names.

Littlegreyauditor · 04/11/2017 20:16

Maybe so, TheEagle. Bit late in my house though, it’s fada central here. I’m the only one with a boring Anglophone name. Grin

Tealdeal747 · 04/11/2017 21:11

Whether a name is commonly used in another country or not misses the point.

For these children, who were all born in the uk and so will likely attend school here, having a name which has a sound or connatation that may provoke bullying is not going to be something they will want to thank their parents for. There are plenty of names from every culture that also work well in a uk context. Why pretend otherwise? It isn't racist to point this out.

If I had a child in another country I wouldn't use a name that would cause my child ridicule in that society.

In lots of other countries parents dont have that freedom anyway- names have to be picked from a set list. Maybe that is better for the children if it saves them from teasing?

I'm not English btw.

Nice bit of racism there, assuming that.

OP posts:
TheEagle · 04/11/2017 21:16

tealdeal, my comment referred to the post which said that Niamh and Siobhán "don't work in English".

I don't follow your logic; why shouldn't someone honour their ancestors/heritage even though they no longer live in that country?

I'm specifically referring to the Irish names mentioned in the post above.

Alittlepotofrosie · 04/11/2017 21:26

@Tealdeal747

If people like you didn't teach their kids that its ok to sneer at other people's names then the children in question wouldn't get bullied for their names would they?

It's people like you who are the problem, not the names. Do try to be a little less judgemental.

BatteredBreadedOrSouthernFried · 04/11/2017 21:26

Where are you from OP? Which of the names on the list you gave are cruel or will provoke bullying?

Littlegreyauditor · 04/11/2017 21:49

Euan is Scottish, Dáire is Irish, and is in common use in N Ireland. Both are in the UK. Please explain how naming a child a name which is common in certain parts of the UK will somehow disadvantage that child and expose them to ridicule?

Or, alternatively, please explain why you think the UK does not include these countries?

VirginMeDear · 04/11/2017 22:09

Daire is a common Irish name.

I went to school with an Asian (not sure of country of origin?) for called Dikshita (pronounced dick-shee-ta). She was never teased and that was in a pretty rough, inner London school.

dustarr73 · 05/11/2017 00:57

Because surprising op we all have a bit of heritage we like to Lee.
And if you're not English put a list up of names from your part of the works and we'll take the piss.

I'm not English either

mathanxiety · 05/11/2017 02:15

You are wrong, OP. The onus is not on the parents to hide their culture for fear of ridicule. It behoves the wider society not to point and laugh.

If I had a child in another country I wouldn't use a name that would cause my child ridicule in that society
It's a little presumptuous of you to assume that another society might operate the way your closed-minded and rather ignorant little neck of the woods does.

mathanxiety · 05/11/2017 02:32

If it's racist to change spellings used by original culture, then why have I never met a יהושע?

Because that name is spelled in another set of symbols which would be incomprehensible to the majority of people in a country where Hebrew was not spoken or read.

Names like Niamh or Brighid otoh use the same Latin alphabet as English, and pronunciation is just a question of getting over yourself.

You managed with the many English words whose spelling is not related to their pronunciation or pronounced like other words spelled almost exactly the same, right?
i.pinimg.com/originals/7a/18/51/7a1851c2f8c648a90f76e3ab9dadf663.png
"The Chaos", by G. Nolst Trenite -
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

HeteronormativeHaybales · 05/11/2017 07:57

Nobody's commented yet on the fact that along with racism and imperialism, OP's managed to lay herself open to accusations of anti-Semitism. I'm pretty sure Rut is a Hebrew spelling of Ruth.

Virtue and religious names are very common in some African Christian cultures. No different from when people in Europe (not that long ago) were being called Traugott and Charity and Amadeus.

LinoleumBlownapart · 05/11/2017 08:12

Grin whoops OP. My next door neighbour is called Caio, it's from the Roman Caius. Those bloody Romans and their modern yonique names.

LadyWithLapdog · 05/11/2017 08:30

I'm looking up Orinate. I can only find urinate in Spanish or an anti malarial drug. OTOH it's the kind of word that kids wouldn't know unless their parents pointed out that it's so ha-ha funny.

Fekko · 05/11/2017 08:46

In answer to maths - if I went to live in DHs country there's no way in gods green earth I'd name a daughter after my grandma as it would be it would be a shit name - literally (it means shit and everyone would know that). So yes, sometimes you do just need to think twice when a child has more than one set of roots.

LinoleumBlownapart · 05/11/2017 09:11

I agree 100 % with Alittlepotofrosie, children need to be taught not to bully with guidance, but if that guidance is ridiculing names then that's what they'll do too.
Fekko you have the advantage of knowing the language and culture of your DH's country. Many people don't have that advantage. I know a British family in Brazil that named their daughter Coco. The mother had a slightly drawn out North London accent so she pronounced it Cocooo which means shit. Should she have chosen more wisely, probably but when the child went to school she wasn't ridiculed, everyone just made sure they emphasized the COco which sounds more like the word for coconut rather than the way her mother said it.

Migraleve · 05/11/2017 09:18

For these children, who were all born in the uk and so will likely attend school here, having a name which has a sound or connatation that may provoke bullying is not going to be something they will want to thank their parents for. There are plenty of names from every culture that also work well in a uk context. Why pretend otherwise? It isn't racist to point this out.

It’s racist to suggest born in the UK must have a traditional UK name or one that ‘would make well in a uk context’ —whateverthefuckthatmeans— How can you even try to defend why you are saying.

Would you suggest the Chinese family across the road from me call their children Peter and Jane, or the Asian lady I work with to call her next child Robert or Ann Hmm

You are about as racist and small minded as they come.

LinoleumBlownapart · 05/11/2017 09:34

I agree with you Migraleve but just wanted to say that a lot of Chinese families and some other cultures do give their children two names. DH worked in a Chinese company where people had English names for work.
But I agree it's wrong to assume that people would automatically know that a name doesn't work in English. People do not always come to the UK by choice or knowing the culture or language. It is very narrow minded. In 50 years Dikshita might have been intergrated into British culture and Euan might be top of the girls name list. Names and words change over time, look at Tracy, it was a boys name, then a girl's, now it's creeping back as a unisex name.

VirginMeDear · 05/11/2017 10:28

I grew up in London with a 'foreign' name that was deemed completely unpronounceable to most people. It is slightly similar to a common English name, so people just used to call me that, as my name was 'too difficult to spell/say' Hmm.

Fast forward 25 years and my name is quite popular now and nobody seems to have a problem with it. Things change, people adapt. I'm glad my parents gave me a name that reflects our culture.

Surely