What do you do if you've used your favourite names?

[EnglishMcSwedeFace]

My husband and I have 2 kids, when we had our son we could only agree on 2 names so used both of those for him. When we had our daughter we couldn't find a boys name we both loved so were lucky she came out a girl. We'd only planned on having two kids so we gave her our 3 favourite names. No doubt you can see where this is going...
We don't know the sex of our new baby and are completely stuck on names. The biggest issue we have is that I'm English but live in Sweden with my Swedish husband. Large parts of my family wouldn't call themselves racist but they're very insular and can't see why anyone would move out of their local area yet alone to another country. They also cannot seem to comprehend why we'd give our children "foreign names" - I know this is an issue and we limit our contact with most of them but obviously things get talked about in the family. When choosing names we've tried to find something that can be pronounced by my English speaking family but are also Swedish. Our son is Heinrich which we thought would be OK but a lot of my family call him either Henry or pronounce it Hen-rick both of which he hates. When we had our daughter we thought we'd got around that by calling her Astrid and on the whole they spell and pronounce it correctly.
So now we are trying to find names for our new baby and I'm looking for any help or suggestions.
For boys we like

• Björn but that has the triple threat of being pronounced B-jorn, compared to Björk and the accent over the o.
• Leif but they'd either pronounce it as leaf or spell it wrong.

For girls we love: Freja - same issue with pronunciation as Björn and my husband wants to spell it the Swedish way not with a y. Elisabet - similar issue to Heinrich.

Please mumsnetters help me out with suggestions or tell me what you did in the same situation. I know it sounds like we're choosing names purely to please my xenophobic family but some of them aren't xenophobic and want to do it right but need a little help and we're also conscious of the fact that they'll likely travel to other countries and we don't want them to spend their lives telling people how to spell or pronounce their names constantly.

I feel your pain I have an Irish/British crossover, in the same fashion.

I'm pretty sure the average Brit would manage Freja, as it's so similar to Freya (OK, they might need to be told once...).

Leif is tricky (I have to say, I thought it was leaf) and no-one can get their i's and e's the right way round at the best of times!

Personally I think your massively overthinking it!

Choose a name you and your DH like, that's it- sod the others/what they think...their opinions matter not a toss.

Congrats BTW

I'd have thought that Björn would be pronounced generally correctly (Borg and the one from Abba) and there's a good chance Leif too (Garrett, but you probably have to be a certain age for that)

Freja should be OK too as the 'j as y' pronunciation is fairly common.

Not sure what the problem is with Elisabet- so guessing that my pronunciation might be wrong!

Our youngest came six years later than eldest. At that point we revisited names we'd discounted because they were names used by friends or relatives. At that point we'd stopped seeing some we had seemed close to in the run up to first child so they became available.😂 I've not regretted it either. (My youngest liked having a well known name!)

I was made for dancin'
all night long

@MerryChristmasToYou

I was made for dancin' all night long

I know of some couples who have used older children's middle names for younger children's first names. (Not even mentioning Wills & Kate here at all) I would spin that as 'we liked it so much we wanted to name both of you that name'. And it could be a link between them.

In terms of international relatives, I hear your pain there too since my husband and I are of different nationalities. Despite sharing a language, pronunciation of many words is still different and that is true for DD1's well known name. My relatives 'mispronounce' her name.

At the weekend I saw a friend from school who is married to a Norwegian. He was moaning that his relatives consistently misspell their younger daughter's name even though it is well known and easy to spell: think Katie vs. Katy

In the end though, you and the child have to live your lives with that name all the time so choose something you like (you'll be shouting it across the park) and that your child can manage (reasonable to spell/pronounce/unambiguous).

I thought he was great and I still like the song.

I had a quick look at the current (well, 2019) top 10 baby names for girls in Sweden. There were loads of names which are typically used in England: Alice, Olivia, Vera, Ella, Wilma, Alma, Lilly. For boys, almost the entire list was comprised of names you would find in an English classroom: Lucas, Liam, William, Elias, Noah, Hugo, Oliver, Oscar, Adam.

Names which are most common among Swedish women (all ages) include Eva, Maria, Kristina, Sara, Lena and Emma. The men's names are more typically Nordic but include Erik, Karl, Peter and Thomas.

It should be fairly easy to find a name that works in both languages.

I think Freja and Bjorn are easy for English people?

Freya is pretty common now and a j pronounced as a y not unusual? Fjord? Hallelujah? Surely they can manage Freja, especially if you verbally tell them the name before they see it written down?

And Bjorn is familiar because of ABBA and Baby Bjorn?

I had a quick look at the current (well, 2019) top 10 baby names for girls in Sweden. There were loads of names which are typically used in England: Alice, Olivia, Vera, Ella, Wilma, Alma, Lilly. For boys, almost the entire list was comprised of names you would find in an English classroom: Lucas, Liam, William, Elias, Noah, Hugo, Oliver, Oscar, Adam.

I love Alice but DH says no, he's also ruled out a couple on that boys list. The other issue with having a surprise late baby is that all of our friends have children and my husband has a large family so there's a lot of names that we can't use. Nobody wants to have the exact same name as their cousin!

It should be fairly easy to find a name that works in both languages

You'd think, wouldn't you!

Personally I think your massively overthinking it!

I expect you're right. I have a habit of doing that but don't we all when choosing a name that your child will (likely) have for the rest of their life?! Really I know we just need to throw out all our thoughts on what other people think or can pronounce and pick names we love but even that is surprisingly hard!

I would choose a name you like and worry less about your family's reaction. They'll cope, and if they deliberately refuse to pronounce it correctly, ignore them until they get it right, they sound like a pain anyway.

Fwiw though, I have an English name that everyone has heard of, but that hasn't stopped people spelling it wrong, or getting it confused with another similar name. I don't think it's always deliberate, sometimes people are just absorbed in their own little worlds.

Following on from what Synchrony said above about Freja, tell them over the phone or face to face what the name will be. They're more likely to get the pronunciation right if they hear it from you and aren't getting confused by the spelling.

Honestly, are there really people out there, even in Britain, who would pronounce the J as an English J in the extremely internationally well-known name Björn?? I know it's a bit of a meme on this board that all Brits (well English) struggle horrifically with foreign names, but I can't quite imagine anyone coming out with B'Jorn of all things!

Honestly, are there really people out there, even in Britain, who would pronounce the J as an English J in the extremely internationally well-known name Björn?? I know it's a bit of a meme on this board that all Brits (well English) struggle horrifically with foreign names, but I can't quite imagine anyone coming out with B'Jorn of all things!

I thought the same as you and our son was going to be Björn for most of my pregnancy then my parents came to visit and met a Björn and despite being told how to pronounce it several times my dad still said it wrong. B-jorn isn't quite how he pronounces it but I don't know how to write it phonetically, he sort of runs the b and j together so they almost make a buzzing sound.

Björn is lovely. My DP is also Swedish and it's on my favourite list at such time we have kids, but sadly not his (he knows too many of them).

Would it matter so much if the Swedish and British families pronounce a name slightly different? DP has a Wilma in the family and she's always been 'Vil-ma' to Swedish family but 'Wilma' to British friends.

That said, if my family had the same attitude as some of yours I'd probably be choosing Jörgen, Torbjörn or Åke, Linnéa or Siv just to spite them

@IVflytrap, yes, there are. Maybe not Bjorn, but Freja, Anja etc will get a j sound quite often

This is why so many of my friends from other countries have children called Max- it's almost impossible to mispronounce

OP, I appreciate your frustration. I would just go for names you like and not worry if your family mispronounce them. None of the names on your list is impossible or even hard for Brits to get right (after all, we manage Featherstonehaugh). If people persistently get them wrong, it's down to lack of effort and rudeness and there's not much you can do about that. You certainly shouldn't pick a name you like less.

I think most British people would know to pronounce Freja as ‘Freya’ and Björn you might have to remind them once or twice but it’s a fairly standard Swedish name and not too ‘out there’ IMO, I think they’re lovely names that reflect your children’s mixed heritage. 😊

@ILoveShula Björn was the only one I was asking about, though, I am aware people sometimes do this with other names with J in them. However, Björn is such a well-known name internationally, I couldn't imagine anyone pronouncing it wrong, but apparently OP's father does, which is honestly very very strange to me (no offence intended OP, I'm just baffled!).

@Doughnuttie

I think most British people would know to pronounce Freja as ‘Freya’ and Björn you might have to remind them once or twice but it’s a fairly standard Swedish name and not too ‘out there’ IMO, I think they’re lovely names that reflect your children’s mixed heritage. 😊

You'd be surprised. It's unpleasant to have your name mispronounced and you get sick of correcting people And some people just don't get the name right and will insist on using their way off saying it

How is Leif pronounced? In all fairness I actually thought it was pronounced leaf

@HopingForOurRainbowBaby

How is Leif pronounced? In all fairness I actually thought it was pronounced leaf

Layf

(He was always a bit too much 'pretty boy' for me, but he was indeed very pretty)

@IVflytrap, I don't know why they do it, some people are weird.

I mean, If you corrected someone and said It's Tayo not Theeo, why would they continue to call you Theeo (or whatever), but they do.

And not everyone in the uk will be familiar with Abba, Bjorn Borg and Baby Bjorn.

If you came across a name like Jonas, Anja or Jana, would you know it was a Y sound not a J.

(Dane living in England)

Freja would work perfectly well - people would know how to pronounce that.

Elisabet is lovely for a middle name. Doesn’t matter that people might not know how to pronounce it since it’ll hardly, if ever, be used by anyone but you.

I like the suggestion of Max for a boy. Or maybe Markus.

If you love Björn I’d honestly use it anyway...I’m not sure it really matters that the odd person won’t say it properly - you live in Sweden so the vast majority of the time it’d be no problem at all.