DH and the unpronounceable baby names

[Olinguita]

DH (Indian) and I (white British) have our first baby on the way in September. I suggested that we give the baby an Indian name to reflect their culture. We don't know if we're having a boy or a girl. We have a girl's name shortlist sorted, but boy is proving tricky.

The problem is, the only names that DH has come up with are things that are tricky to say (Atharv, Satyameva), or that sound a bit odd to the British ear - stuff like Shlok, Parth, Sachet, which I worry that a kid could get teased about, or which would be constantly misunderstood/mis-spelt in adulthood. I don't want to be insensitive to his culture or narrow minded BUT I also don't want to give the child a name that is going to cause challenges in daily life as they grow up. The problem is that my normally easy-going DH is getting REALLY defensive about it and is refusing to budge (maybe late pandemic/Dad-to-be jitters, who knows....!)

He has vetoed all of my suggestions of 2-syllable Indian boys' names on the grounds that they are too common, or there are acquaintances of ours that already have those names, or he just doesn't like them.
To give you an example of where I was going, my list included:
Roshan
Pranav
Ishaan
Rohan
Ivaan
Vivek
Niren
Nayan
Varoun

I'm pretty familiar with Indian culture and speak Hindi, and from what I've observed, most of my Indian and British/Indian friends have tended to favour more contemporary, easy-to-pronounce baby names similar to those on my list. So I don't think I'm wildly off-base but I could be wrong.

My questions for you:

1. Has anyone hit an absolute roadblock with their partner about baby names, and how did you deal?
2. Any cool Indian boy name suggestions? (If you hadn't clocked from the names suggested already, DH is Hindu)

On top of all this, my very traditional British family are piling on the pressure to give the child a "proper" English name like William or George and won't drop the issue. The joys of baby-naming....

I’ve met Indian men called Roy and Jai, both good names in my opinion.

Congratulations.
We’re a mixed race couple. I’m white Scottish Italian and husband is South Indian. Our surname is long and not easy to pronounce for most people so we chose, I told him, that our baby would have a simple first name and also would be Italian so that she is aware of her Italian ancestry. He never had an issue with this. In laws wanted an Indian name but he told them they will made aware of the babies name when the time comes. They’ve never said anything about her name and suits her perfectly. A lot of our family/friends have very long names but shorten it down if that’s an option for you?

Prakash
Kumar
Manesh
Prasad

DH is an Arabic speaker and we had a similar debate about names. They had to work in both languages and be something that people could pronounce fairly easily when they saw the name. Some names didn’t work because the Arabic version and the transliteration into English didn’t quite match - there are some letters that don’t really have a match.

Also out of interest OP what's your girls name shortlist? Looking for some inspiration and sounds like we have similar taste judging by your boys list

Nikesh

How about
Arjun
Devrath
Arnab
Kumar
Uday
Roy/Ray/Rayan
Rohit
Veejay
Devin
Vade?

Alternatively, how about your baby’s last name reflect his dad’s heritage, and his first name reflects yours? That’s what we did. Works perfectly well.

Ashwin
Vishal

You are one half of your relationship and one half of the child's genes come from you. It's perfectly reasonable for you to say that the name should be easy to pronounce phonetically to British people as well.

It's great that you suggested going for an Indian-sounding name, but don't let your own culture and preferences be completely bulldozed.

@Melitza

Have none of the pp’s ever come across Irish names? Hard to spell for uk folk and pronounced differently to how they look. I’ve not known any Naimhs or Siobahns get teased or bullied about their names.

They are nice names though. The Breda I knew would tell you a different story, as would my Auntie Cliodhna (pronounced 'cleaner').

I can offer suggestions for dealing with a roadblock.

You both make long lists. You compare lists, veto a few truly unacceptable names, talk through what's left, then from those you draw up a short list of

Have you considered Samvith? I believe it's a Marathi name but also easily shortened to Sam.

If he still digs his heels in tell him you've decided on William, he'll soon change his mind.

From your list, I like Rohan. It reminds me of Lord of The Rings. How about Sanjay?

For a girl, Jasmine or Anjali?

Also
Rush (Rushi)
Nish (Nishan)
Arwan

Soham

Was that meant to be Sohan? If not, there's nothing wrong with the name per se, except, to many in Britain, it will be associated with a horrific crime for decades to come.

How about Seth? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I gather that that is a traditional Indian name (sorry, I don't know any more specific than that) as well as a traditional British (Hebrew) name?

The most unfortunate Indian name for an English speaker that I've ever heard must be Dikshit, though. I'm sure it's lovely in India; if you live in the UK, maybe pass on that one.... In fact, anything ending in -jit, if the first name can be interpreted or mangled unkindly. When I was at school, I knew a boy called Kamaljit. Even though it wasn't quite so 'obvious', shall we say, his sister Ravajit still had the first part of her name routinely manipulated to 'Rabbit' - plus the 'amended' ending, by the mean kids.

Shlok, Parth & Sachet are odd to UK ears but honestly, Atharv & Satyameva sound fine to me. Satyameva would naturally shorten to Satya, and I don’t find Atharv hard to pronounce - you’d need to spell it a lot (because of the Uh not Ah sounds) but that’s the same with other names too.

Dinesh, Vinik?

Harish/Haresh both go easily to Hari - which would sound acceptably ‘English’ to your lot. Not that I think they get a say!

Jaideep or Vijay both become Jay. Saatvik becomes Vic etc.

Have you looked at diminutives you both like and then go from there?

From guys I work with

RaviKumar / Ravi
Ashish
Nikhil
Vinod
Rohit
Kamal
Sri
Sreeni
Chetin
Arun

I like Nikhil and Ashish

Sachin and Arjun are pretty nice boys names, although they may have been on your discounted list!

As for breaking the deadlock- we kept lists of names we liked, adding throughout the pregnancy.

Once baby was here, compared notes, and found one that was on both our lists.

I do like Kiran :)

My son was friends with a little boy called Atharv in primary school - he was one of the only Indian children in the school, and I as far I know there were no issues with pronunciation. It is quite a straightforward name to say and spell.
Obviously, if you don't actually like the name then please ignore, but I thought I would just put this out there!

I like Vikram, I don’t think I’ve seen that mentioned yet. Names of Indian men I know include:

Parag
Prakash
Rajul
Rajkumar
Ramesh
Pheroze (is this Parsee, though?)
Sujal

How about Aryaan?

@Luckyelephant1 Kian isn't an Irish name as there is no letter K in the Irish alphabet. Cian is Irish as the letter C is instead of the K. It means ancient.

Just seen you've already vetoed Sachin, shame as it's lovely.

I also love Ravi; I used to work with a man with that name and he was the kindest, most hardworking employee you could ever wish for.

Also:

Ajay
Praha (short for Prahalad)
Vikram
Vipul

The op hasn’t vetoed Sachin, her husband has. He needs to rethink his name priorities very quickly so she should put Sachin back on the table if she likes it. I would add some English names I like to the list just to make it clear compromise is needed here, if one person is suggesting names the other gates they both may as well. (After having the rant I suggested above)