German and English boy's names

[Phobicmum]

Hi all,

My son was born nearly a month ago and we still haven't chosen his name. It needs to work in both German and English which is the big stumbling block.

We like Otis, Raphael, Flynn, Magnus (Gus), Hugo and Jago but all of them I still have reservations about. Has anybody got any ideas of names that we might like that would work in both languages?

Hugo for example is a cocktail in Germany.
Magnus sounds a bit like "Ich mag Nüsse"...

Thanks

Bilingual German English boys we know are called

Sebastian
Quentin
Marcus
Alexander

We have a German friend called Henrik who lives in UK and works well here.

Florian
Gunther
Thomas
Peter

Does Wilbur work?

Ralph
Franz
Avoid letter J, there is no German sound for it
Max
Dominic

I’ve met germans named both Hugo and Magnus. I think germans can distinguish between someone liking nuts and Magnus as a name. I like Magnus as it’s also popular in Scandinavia. Henrik or Gunter or Gunther are also nice.

Xavier is nice or Anders. Both also nice.

Love Henrik

Harry - world famous name

Oh what about Helmut.? I’ve always liked this name. Or Karl?

Magnus doesn’t sound like I like nuts in German, I know a few Germans with that name.
Other ideas:
Thomas, Martin, Daniel, Sebastian, Oliver.

I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, it's quite an international area so there are plenty of kids from English speaking countries with English names like James or Milo, and they always get pronounced almost exactly the same way we do in English. So I wouldn't worry about German friends or relatives struggling with pronunciation, unless it's something really unusual.

Also, there are four kids in my son's class with variations of the name Nick... Nico, Nick, Nicolas, and Nicolay!

Magnus is a common enough name in Germany, I don't think it would cause any confusion at all.
Henrik is really nice

Christian
Tristan
Alexander
Dirk
Andreas
Karsten

Some of the suggestions above are the analogue of Barry or Clive here in the UK - very uncool and unfashionable. For example Günther and Helmut!

Tobias (Tobeeas)
Peter
Andreas
Martin
Stefan
Lukas

German here. Raphael, Magnus and Hugo are all fine. Flynn is currently popular but strictly as an import rather than a name that works both ways iyswim. How about Felix? Or you could take a look at German baby names lists - just google "Jungennamen".

@Snowisfallinghere

I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, it's quite an international area so there are plenty of kids from English speaking countries with English names like James or Milo, and they always get pronounced almost exactly the same way we do in English. So I wouldn't worry about German friends or relatives struggling with pronunciation, unless it's something really unusual.

Also, there are four kids in my son's class with variations of the name Nick... Nico, Nick, Nicolas, and Nicolay!

Hee hee, they can prounounce James specifically because you're in an international part of Switzerland. I can assure you that there are less, ahem, cosmopolitan parts of the German-speaking world that would say 'jah-mess'. I've heard it happen. We had to choose names that would work in both cultures too, and it's interesting that even names that seem to have similar pronunciation have fine distinctions - I can hear immediately if my DC are saying their names in German or English. On your list, Magnus and Hugo would work (but the latter as Hoogo not Hyoogo) and I was about to say that Flynn would be tricky for Germans to say (pronounced as Floon or Flunn), but have just looked at the most popular boys' names in Germany and Finn or Fynn is at place 4. Finn I know really well, I've just never seen it written as Fynn before. My personal faves would be Raphael and Sebastian (nn Basti). I also like Theo, but the German is said very differently to the English (Tay-o). Luca is very popular for boys right now. In fact, a lot of the most popular boy baby names aren't all that German (Luis comes in at place 2). Please don't take Gunther - it's a much older name. I'd expect a 65-year-old know-it-all to be called Gunther.

@Blubells

Some of the suggestions above are the analogue of Barry or Clive here in the UK - very uncool and unfashionable. For example Günther and Helmut!

Absolutely - I think Gunther and Helmut are best friends in a Verein together, and Dirk is a member too.

I said James would be pronounced as jah-mess and was using a semi-German transcription: it is actually said as Yah-mess. No joke.

We needed a name that works in both languages too. I agree with others to avoid J. We probably would have gone for Jack in the UK but he would have been Yack here. I also know a James who gets called Yam-ez.

First names that come to mind are Leo, Oscar, Henry, Ben, Noah, Lucas

Mattias
Jonas
Tobias
Max
Carl
Fred
Milo

Felix

Axel

Carsten, Oskar, and Alexander would probably be my top three for being pronounced sufficiently similarly. A lot of the names suggested have different stress or sounds, like Thomas or Adam. Names starting with a J, like Jonas, or W, I'd avoid completely. Matthias and Tobias are also pronounced EE-as not EYE-as in German so I wouldn't use them if I wanted consistent pronunciation.

Maximillian
Kurt
Frederick/Friedrich
Alexander
Axel
Matthias
Christian
Torsten
Torben
Peter
Andreas
Florian
Timo
Thomas

Magnus is fabulous!