What do you consider to be truly international names?

[Noterday]

Some names (eg Raj, Sven, Chad, Ling) have pretty strong hints as to which country or region that person may be from.

Which names, to you, are very difficult to place? So if you heard the name, you wouldn't assume them to be from any particular continent or country.

So what works in many regions and languages, in terms of not being totally "out there", and not being too hard to pronounce in any language/ accent?

I'm struggling to think of ANY right now!

I live in Switzerland which has four languages and a large immigrant population and I would say that most of the names on their "most popular baby names" list are international/pan European. The vast majority of them are names that exist in English and other languages, with minor spelling and pronunciation differences.

The Dictionary of Medieval Names lists the most common names of the middle ages throughout Europe. That gives an indication of which names really got around back then, many of which are still common today. It's an interesting read.

Men's names: dmnes.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/the-most-popular-names-for-men/

Women's names: dmnes.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/the-most-popular-names-for-women/

Depends on just how international you mean - nothing with an r in it (interchangeable with l in a lot of languages)

A good number of languages can't cope with consonant clusters or consonants at the end of a syllable. So that leaves:

Sarah
Mary/Maria
Maya
etc. for girls.

Boys names have variants that work, as fewer of them end in vowels, e.g, Luka rather than Luke

"nothing with an r in it [...] So that leaves:
Sarah
Mary/Maria"

Looks like you forgot your first rule there.

One of the contestants said he named his son Victor, as it's a name that is spelled and pronounced the same all over Europe.

In many European countries it is spelled Viktor. But yes, it's a good one!

Of course as OP says, there is no name that works absolutely everywhere, but there are some really good ones suggested here. Generally names from the Abrahamic religions are good bets that can cover large parts of the world. I think Adam would probably have to win the prize for 'most international name'.

I was surprised to see Japanese women called Naomi when I lived there so I wonder how many other countries use it. That might be a contender too.

Anna
Sophia
Maria
Elena
Katrina
Victoria
Sonia

Alex
Nicolas
David
Lucas
Thomas
Daniel
Lee
Karl

We live overseas in a very multicultural environment. Off the top of my head, names I know of here that don’t have a clear link to their nationality/cultural background:

Girls
Isabel (and all variants)
Sophia
Olivia

Boys
Alexander
Leo
Lucas

Liam

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/23/liam-goes-supersonic-rises-up-baby-name-charts-around-world