Choice of three Hungarian boys names...

[Pixbix]

My partner is Hungarian, so we'd like to give our little boy a simple to pronounce Hungarian first name (with my English surname).

We're down to three choices and I'd love to hear other's thoughts. They are Levente, Lehel and Kende.

We're really struggling to choose a favourite. I'm haven't been able to find a name I really love (including English names) and he's a week old already!

Rude!

So people should deny their heritage to suit those who are too lazy to learn how to pronounce a person's name?

Thats not what I mean. But it gets pretty wearing every time you speak to someone who doesn’t know you and you have to start the whole correcting them thing yet again. You can’t expect everyone you encounter to correctly pronounce a very unfamiliar name . It’s not that people are too lazy to learn, it’s just that the person at the other end of the phone, reception desk, interview panel etc, just probably hasn’t come across it before, does their best but gets it wrong.

I came to suggest Laszlo, I had a Hungarian colleague named Laszlo early in my career and he’s still one of my favourite people!

My FIL was Polish. He and my MIL deliberately choose names that worked in both languages, and weren't going to cause their kids and spelling or pronunciation issues (and weren't going to cause the Polish relatives any prohibition issues either). They did well..

@TakeTheShiteOutYaMouth nothing to do with denying heritage. Having had a Hungarian surname for 32 years that no one could pronounce, it’s bloody tiresome. I still speak the language and when people ask my name, they’re surprised but love the story behind it all.

I’m assuming ops baby will have the df surname, so I think op should choose a name that is both easy to pronounce in Hungarian but English. Depends if you’re staying here or going to Hungary to live eventually. My dp were settled here in the Uk and had zero intention of going back, hence our English version names.

I like Peter

OP your baby has to be called László, it's the coolest name in the world! Congratulations on your wee boy.

Heh yes! Likewise Zoltan

Zoltan, Sandor, Lazlo, Bela or Biblical names, Mark, Josef, Tamas, Andras.

I like all of those. Bela might be mocked as Bella though.

I have a very mixed first name and surname albeit I'm very British. Choose the name that works best for you. People will soon learn how to say the name correctly.

On a different note I really love Bela and Lazslo. So much so that I may name my new robot vacuum one or both of them!!

I like Levente and Kende the most. Lehel also has an interesting sound - to me it sounds a bit Hebrew (I'm not familiar with the Hungarian language myself). English people will probably not pronounce them exactly the same as Hungarians, but that's the case with literally any name.

This was Hungarian FILs name, so I like it, but it's not obvious how to pronounce it (like Ference)
His brothers are Laszlo, Jeno (yennuh) and Gergely (gergey) . They're all older men, though.

Of your names OP, I like Levente best.

@inquisitorgeneral I thought that as well! Reminded me of both Bethel and Lehi (who is a prophet in the book of Mormon, randomly).

Oh, I had no idea about this! Thank you for flagging. That strikes Levente off the list?

That was supposed to be an exclamation mark at the end, not a question mark (typing while holding baby!)

Thanks so much for the responses, suggestions and considerations everyone. Kende is in the front running.

People will soon learn how to say the name correctly

People who you are around a lot will but you’ve still got to go through it with everyone you come across in daily life who you will prob not speak to again, call centres, reception staff, interview panels etc. If you have dodgy phone signal that ramps the whole tedious business up a notch.

Hungarian is not like any other language in terms of people getting used to the pronunciation - my very common and easy to spell and pronounce hungarian surname is continuing to cause endless confusion, misspelling etc.
I naively gave a couple of my kids nice solid traditional hungarian first names - they have changed them to a shortened UK version because they were so fed up

I’d agree

But can you not find something that will be easier in English?

Kende is best. Ken is a handsome nick name.

Zoltan & you can shorten it to Zolly which is cute. I am half Hungarian and this is my fave name