Ethnic names

[olga3860]

We are from Russia, however we live in the UK temporarily. We should be back before our daughter is born, however if we aren’t I worry her name would be hard to pronounce. A neighbour when I asked her yesterday said that these names are too hard to pronounce for our area, and that I should choose something less ethnic and more English. She recommended names but we would really like a Russian name for our daughter. People struggle with our sons names in our area, and our names, so I am not surprised. Maybe my accent is hard to understand? We have tried explaining how to say them all the time.

Aleksandra
Irina
Maria
Tatiana
Yekaterina

We had Xenia on our list, as well as Anastasia but people have said it would be too hard to pronounce the way we do.

Irina is my top name, however my husband does not mind. Her siblings are Vladimir, Nikolai, Anton, Mikhail and Kirill.

Yes, Dasha is the diminutive for Darya. Although I know someone who name their daughter Dasha instead of Darya but that is rare and only normally those outside of Russia)

Aleksandra without changing the spelling is such a beautiful classic name.

My dc are half British, half German and it was important to us to choose names that worked well in both languages. It is important to recognise their heritage too.

Don't just choose an "English" name and Russian-ise it. Chloe for example is awful in English and Khloe just sounds like a name with a "unique" spelling.

Go for a classic name that you love and don't be swayed by other people's opinions on the matter.

If your neighbour is the type to have an England flag flying outside her house, may I suggest she may be a little xenophobic and "little England" type?

All of those names are lovely and easy to pronounce in English

Our childrens' names are not pronounced the same in English and our native language. The is a slight difference but it isn't that important for us. It works just fine.

I think that's key. Not being too worried that English friends may pronounce the names slightly differently.

Fwiw I have a very common English name, which has a similar German equivalent. I always found it quite endearing that ex-MIL called me by the close German equivalent. Almost like a pet-name.

My step-mother is also Norwegian and her name is pronounced slightly differently in English to Norwegian. She just accepts it.

So choose a name you like the pronunciation of in both languages.

Yes I understand! I guess it won’t be any different than my son’s names and that is okay. I am not upset about it, I was just wanting to find out if any of the names I listed were going to be bad))

This a thousand times. No need to call your kids British names. How dull if we all had the same names.

Oh gosh OP, your neighbour sounds mad, name your child a lovely Russian name (or any name you like) and people can make the effort to learn to pronounce it !

The names are fine, @olga3860 . They'll probably sound a bit different depending on who says them, but you get that anyway in the UK.
e.g. Alexandra/Aleksandra will have a long or short a sound in the middle depending on the regional accent.

Your neighbour sounds batshit.

Ah, a flag waver.

How lovely those all are!!

Your neighbour sounds like she occupies quite a small world OP. I'm British and out of your suggested names and existing names, only 2 are unfamiliar to me.

Yekaterina is the only one I can see people having trouble with, but if your ultimate plan is to return to Russia in the near future and she'll grow up there then don't worry about what anyone here thinks or says anyway.

Ps.. I know a couple of Anastasia's, both are British! One goes by Ana and the other by the very British working class Stacey.

Tatiana is a main character in A Midsummer Nights’ Dream, a core English GCSE text.

This is totally a neighbour issue, not all English people.

All your name choices are lovely, but I especially like Tatiana.

That's Titania. @PiggieWig .

Oops, you’re right. Still a lovely name though.