Greek boy names please!!

[Rk123]

Hi there, I am in need of a greek boy name!

I was thinking Antoniou but we got a few reactions from fhe family... need more suggestions please!

Dimitri is a lovely name.

BlackPrism that doesn’t make it a Greek name. Greek people can give their children non-Greek names! It’s a Latin name.

Thodoris
Vasillis
Emmanuel/Manolis/Manos/Maki
Yianni
Yiorgos
Alexandros
Themistoclis
Xenophondas/Nondas
Costas
Nikos
Neophitos
Dimitri/Mitzos
Adonis
Stelios

Possibly a bit outing 🙈

DH has a lovely friend called Aneas.

@Booboostwo thanks for fighting the good fight with names.

Why not Adonis though? Is that because of what you think English people with think? I know lots of Adonides in Greece and Aphrodites. Nobody bats an eyelid.

Do people mean Milos for Miles?

I know a Greek called Theodoros who called himself Theo with a short e (like the e in the brand Mentos sweets - sorry, all I have to hand right now). I've heard several others use it too but yes, without the s at the end which would sound weird.

@thighofrelief101 I think the name you mean is Diamandis which is a bit of an unusual one. Wouldn't be my top choice. Pandolakis is a nickname/diminutive. -akis is added at the end of boys' names to make them diminutives/cute/nicknames/etc. E.g. Dimitris would perhaps be Dimitrakis when he's small or when his friends are taking the piss out of him. Or when mama is fussing over him. Girls have -aki added to the end of their name e.g. Maria and Maraki or Christina and Christinaki. Girls can also have -oula added at the end which I hate (because I had one relative who used to do it to my name and it sounds AWFUL) e.g. Christina and Christinoula.

@BillyAndTheSillies friends of mine called Ari (conjugated form of Aris) are actually named after the God Ares or their name was Aristides rather than Aristotelis.

@Rk123 I agree that I would give you a funny look for Antoniou as a first name. Also will the baby ever have a Greek passport/ID card? I am currently going through all sorts of name comedy with passports and names and spellings. It ain't pretty but something you need to think about if relevant to you.

The hardest thing with Greek-English names is getting your head around the fact that with most of them there will be at least two ways of spelling it/pronouncing it/etc in English and not being too precious about it or else being clear from the outset that you prefer one over the other.

@Charley50 Georgios is right.

Names I know - not necessarily a fan of:

• Lysander (Greek Lysandros, I like this one)
• Panagiotis (nickname Panos)
• Stefanos (I like this one)
• Vangelis (hard sound on the g)
• Vyronas (Byron in English and actually spelt Byron in Greek but pronounced Vyron)
• Efstathios (nickname Stathis)
• Vassilis (Basil)
• Filipos (Philip)
• Alexis/Alexandros
• Angelos (means angel)
• Christos
• Dimosthenis
• Dionysis
• Kimonas
• Nestor
• Marios
• Nassos
• Petros
• Thomas (with the Th pronounced softly like as in "thud", accent on the a)

My grandfathers name was Neoklis which I believe is an Ancient Greek name. It was never shortened though.

PBos is Andonis (Antonis) is fine, but the OP wanted Antoniou which is a surname.

So first name , last name:
Christos Antoniou
Antonis Christou
Antonis Georgiou
Giorgos Antoniou

are all perfectly valid as some first names have surname verions as well.

An Uber was trying to find me once in a part of Athens where someone names streets alphabetically. I was at Aristotelis road, just below Aristophanes road and he was on Aristides road. I kept telling him, I am at the philosopher, right after the playwright, you are at the politician, but he didn’t get it for a while.

As if I would let a wrong Greek name thread go without a fight!

Oh that's interesting @PBobs DH is Greek Cypriot, but his family are Catholic not Greek Orthodox due to his Irish granny and our priest is likely to react to a child called Aristotle (getting a Byron through was a tough fight to be honest).

Not sure whether it's a Cypriot thing or my in-laws have been anglicised for a while, but when speaking to FIL about Ari, all the ones he knows are Aristotle.

Apostolos

Byron is a pretty cool name.
There's a village in Cyrus where all the men were named after philosophers.
How about Michaledes, OP, you can shorten it to Michael?

@Booboostwo might not have been clear from my post but I'm Greek born and raised in Greece. I get Antoniou is a surname . You replied with "Goodness SmiledWiththeRisingSun, no!" when Smiled suggested Adonis - I was confused by what you meant by it. I also spelt it as Adonis rather than the Greeklish spelling as I'm trying to work out if OP is looking for a Greek name or an Anglicised Greek name. The latter makes paperwork easier. The former is my preference - even with the nightmare paperwork I'm in right now. Not sure why I'm explaining myself to you - but the tone of your message suggested I didn't know I could speak my language. So thought I should clarify

@BillyAndTheSillies Yeah Cypriots tend to be more Anglicised - and names will likely be slightly different in certain cases. Sadly can't help with the Catholic aspect - I'm Greek Orthodox and for us it depends what your priest is like. Some still get upset if you choose a non-Christian/Saint name. Some don't care. Byron is a great name - surprised that caused a kerfuffle. Is that because it's not Biblical enough? Our DC will have an Ancient Greek name and I fully expect some raised eyebrows.

OP I like the name Orestes/Orestis too. Although I suspect in England someone says it sounds too much like testes.

Leonardo
Vassos

Hello fellow Greek PBobs
I was referring to Smiled’s second post. Andonis is fine by me. The Greek automated transliteration system, the one that was created to change Latin characters to Greek consistently through out the EU but is now used to disasterous effects by the Greek state to change Greek characters to Latin (it change my Daughter’s Charlotte to Harlot!) changes Αντώνης to Antonis. Personally I prefer Andonis but there you go.

I thought the policy of the Greek Orthodox Church was to accept all orthodox saints names as well as all Ancient Greek names. Lately they have accepted more unique names, a friend found a priest who accepted Ilia for a girl and Myros for a boy, but I think he was lucky!

In my family we have:
Panikos
theodosis
Yiannis
Petros
Costandinos
Artemis
Savvas
Andreas
Yioti
Vassos

@Booboostwo sadly not all priests agree with whatever the latest policy update may or may not be. It's the same with weddings etc. Just depends who you get. I have a non-Saint name (well, it's a tenuous Saint) and I was baptised in a tiny village many years ago and that was fine. Friends haven't had the same luck recently. I'm not worried about our name choice for baptism although I am sure it will still cause a stir with my more traditional aunt.

As for the ELOT-743 translations don't even get me started. It is causing me, my unborn DC and my DH all kinds of trouble right now. I don't even want to talk about it and the malakes who put it together and use it without the possibility of editing the spellings. There isn't a name I couldn't tell you the translation for on there. Not that half of them make sense. Currently trying to reverse engineer the spelling of English names so we don't end up with six different versions of the same name on six different official documents. My middle name is hilarious in my Greek passport/ID. Makes no sense at all. Bit like Charlotte/Harlot. My husband is English - his name is a disaster on there.

Hence my question to the OP about passports, ID cards etc. Be careful how you spell things and how you write them in English and in Greek if you are thinking of trying to move between the two languages on official documentation. Things are not always what they seem...

@Booboostwo hello too. Sorry - ELOT is like a red rag to a bull right now.

We are English and live in Cyprus. I named my daughter an English name which is a greek word and looks similar written in both languages.

I struggled to do this with a name for DS so decided to look at English names of Greek origin, Christopher, Alexander and Philip for example. We called him Gregory because I like it's meaning.

We can't pronounce it the greek way. Dd is in Greek pre-school and can't pronounce it the English way so merges the two in her own way and calls him Gegorious.

Both my dc have more English middle names but even in Greek on their birth certificates they have strange spellings so I second anyone who says watch spelling and pronunciations with anglo-greek names!

When had to go to the birth registry with a lawyer to get Harlot changed! It now says Sarlot - Charlotte.

If you are in Cyprus and Greek and decide to call your child Darren can you register it civilly and ignore the priest? How would you conjugate it?

I understand that if you name a child Andreas you would call to him as Andrea and refer to him as Andrea but when would you use the full name in speech?

Thanos. My son's Greek friend's name.

Just thought of another. Angelos. My brother had a Greek friend by that name.

Calix

Aristotle/ 'arris - is rhyming slang for arse.
Not been mentioned so far, suppose it's not well known enough to have any bearing.

Just coming on to say that some of the names mentioned are incredibly old fashioned, and most young Greek or Cypriot couples outside of these countries wouldn't choose them (Spiros for example!).