Using foreign name with no connection to place of origin

[toomanybirds]

Ingrid. With no connection to Scandinavia. Thoughts?

I quite like Ingrid, I’d say go for it. I’m the same with a couple of Irish names I like, no connection to Ireland so don’t know if people would think it was silly.

It's totally fine! No different from using Isabella (Italian), Nathalie (French) or Maria (Spanish). It's easy to spell and pronounce, so no problems there either.

It's fine.

Fine to use.

It's fine, I'm in northern Ireland and back when I was in school (I'm in my 30's now) there was an irish girl called Ingrid and she certainly had no connection to Sweden...

Use any name that you like, it's your baby...there are no rules to say you can't use the names from other countries

Lovely name, fine to use without having any Nordic connections.

Yep, great name, no problem with it at all.

Thanks everyone! I wasn't expecting such a positive response. (DH is a bit sceptical - always reminds me that Alan Partridge called his son Fernando...)

I’d say go ahead, we very nearly used Astrid for DD and definitely not scandi!

I love Ingrid nn indie

It's not just a Scandinavian name - I know an Afrikaner South African Ingrid!

Given how far it's spread around the world, I don't think it would be weird to use in the UK - it's not specific to one place.

Ingrid is fine. Maria is not just a Spanish name, it's an English name too.
I would draw the line at something that uses unfamiliar letters or is difficult to pronounce or spell.

Ingrid is lovely
I know someone who has just called their baby Dmitri with no links to Russia at all, that’s a bit weird

Go for it! My sister has a very common Russian/Indian name. The other one has a French name, which is understandable considering my mother his friends. And I have a very very odd name that came out of nowhere. Funnily enough, there is a celebrity crush ha ha ha, don't ask me where dictation came out with that, I did not say that, I said there is a celebrity who shares my name, and her mother nearly named her my sisters name. Her mother is also friends. How weird French, so who knows, she and my mother could have been friends

I think Ingrid is lovely, and not unusual at all to use here. Such an interesting quandry. We gave our little one a Scottish name with tricky spelling. DH and his family have Scottish roots but considered themselves English who lives/grew up in Scotland. Some of his immediate family thought it was a bit weird and I'm sure they put it all on me because I love Scotland and it's culture and I'm not from the UK myself.

There are no qualms about people around the world using 'Western'/'English' names but it doesn't usually go through other way. It might look a bit nuts to give a non-Chinese child here an obviously Chinese name, say (even if it was one that was easy to spell and pronounce). Is it thought of as cultural appropriation? Or just to do with lack of familiarity?

You can get away with Ingrid m, go for it

In these cases I think it depends on the name, Ingrid is easy to pronounce and a well known name in the uk so I think it is completely fine, and a lovely name.

My dd is Anneka, and we're not scandi either.

Thanks very much everyone. I really was expecting more naysayers!

Very good point about Isabella etc, theconstantinoplegardener. I suppose I think there is a spectrum of how well-known and easy to spell the name is. Still have to convince DH though.

Sunrise, yeah, I'm not sure! Perhaps there's a tang of cultural appropriation about it. I was worried about seeming pretentious, as Scandi culture, furniture, tv etc is all considered quite cool.

OP, for some reason I never made the connection between Ingrid and Scandinavia, probably because I went to a very international school in another country and Ingrid is relatively mainstream imho!

I know what you mean, I love the names Astrid and Mercedes - I could probably use the former but I'd feel a bit weird about using the latter and having to constantly tell people that it's a Spanish name and I've not named my daughter after a car!