Bilingual Spanish/English boy name

[Laruca]

Hi! I am expecting my third baby. Both my husband and me are Spanish but we live in the UK. We are struggling with names for the baby. Ideally, we would like a name that is written the same in both English and Spanish and with similar pronunciations in both languages. We have these names in the list: Alex, Lucas and Oliver. What do you think about these names? Any other suggestions?
Thanks!

If you like Alex, have you considered Alec? It’s a bit less common but just as nice :)

Our friends have a Rafa, Santi and Oscar

How about Benjamín, Félix, Julián ? They all work in both languages.

Ones to avoid include:
Luís it gets pronounced as Louise
Fernando, nickname is Nando as in the chicken place
José María because boys called María will be teased

Mario is a cool name.

It depends on the accent, it tends to shift a bit between the y in you and j in june.

With regards Íñigo, one issue is that a lot of English speakers will pronounce it Ínigo. The ñ also tends to cause problems on forms etc - I know an Iñaki who emigrated and he has a hell of a time with it.

Thanks. I hadn't thought of that. The one I know doesn't seem to have problems, but he has said he doesn't like it. I didn't probe.

Do forms not accept Alt codes? (never tried)

Yea, it’s super.

Depends how they are coded. Several government database systems, including passports, don't accept any diacritical marks at all.

The UK will add a note into your passport explaining if the name in the UK one varies from your other nationality one.

For example in the UK you can have many first names but in Spain the maximum is two or one hyphenated one. So if you're called John Paul George Ringo Smith on your UK passport, your Spanish one would only be John Paul Smith.

Nico
Matias
Diego

Sebastian

Hector really fits the bill for you

Luis is quite hard to say
Often comes out as Lewis

Santiago/Santi

Luca

Raphael/Raffa

Alejandro / alex

Mateo

Manuel /Mani

Eduardo

Ruben

I am due next week and still not decided...

We have now these names on the shortlist:

Pablo (Spanish name for Paul)
Mikel (Basque name for Michael)
Jon (Basque name for John)

What do you think about Jon? I know it is a very usual name in the UK, but I don't know of any kids with this name and it is not even in the top 100 of boys names in 2022 in the UK. Is it an "old man's" name in the UK now? I like that the pronunciation is the same even if the spelling is slightly different in English and Basque

I like all of your choices, OP.

John with an ‘h’ is more of an ‘old man’ name in the UK. Most Jons in the UK are Jonathans and there are quite a few in their 20s-30s. It’s still very usable however IMHO.

I think Jon/John is a great boy's name. One of those classics that I don't think ever really sounds dated.

I like them all. As per PP, John is older (I don't know any under 50) but I know a few Jonathans/ Jon and one is 18. I think it's a classic name! Where I work, there is a 4yo 'Dave' which is very unusual (that's definitely an over 40 name!), although David is such a classic, underused name.

Mikel may be pronounced mick-ELL or MIKE-al depending who is saying the name. Do you mind 'Mick' or 'Mike' as a nickname (that's definitely an old man name)?

Pablo is great.

@Laruca I like Jon and it doesn’t feel dated like some names.

Update! The baby arrived yesterday and we decided to call him Jon

Congratulations
Not sure what The Spanish will do with the J though

OP has explained that as she and her husband are Basque they will use the Basque pronunciation rather than the Castilian.

My sons are named Joaquin and Federico. Haven’t had any problems. If people get it wrong, They just correct them. It helps having Joaquin Phoenix as a celebrity. People used to have a problem pronouncing my sister Siobhan’s name in the 70s/80s. The way they mangled it over the school announcement system was hilarious.

Interesting, what will the basque pronunciation be?

@Hoppinggreen , John