Baby boy, Aris, Elias or Zacharia

[Sofita90]

We just found out the gender and I was prepared more for a girl so not many baby boys names. I am Greek and my husband Moroccan and we live in uk. So we want a name to be easy and nice for UK but in our cultures as well. We short listed the above, which is your favourites? Aris I think is my favourite, what do you think?

Love all 3 OP and love the connection to both of your heritages

Elias is beautiful - I considered it too for son.

Just to let you know round our way aris is slang for arse.
I just looked up why that might be and it’s double Cockney rhyming slang - aris from Aristotle, Aristotle rhymes with bottle, bottle and glass = arse, which I didn’t know!

Don't want to be that person-but is that you you want to spell Zachariah?

@CurlewKate In Arabic is Zakaria, but in greek is with ch sound. As the kid will have a greek passport as well and we may move on day to Greece I need to think how will be spelled nicely. Zachariah means they will the x at the end of the word in the position of h.

@MagicianMoth in which dialect will have this meaning? Would be this an issue in surrey, kent or central London? Aris does not come from Aristotle, is a completely different name. But I get what you mean. thanks for making me aware

Cockney rhyming slang is a London thing

I know Aris doesn't come from Aristotle, I was just saying that Aris (not Aristotle) is slang for arse, and that the reason for that is a convoluted series of rhymes going from Aristotle to bottle to bottle and glass to arse.

It's Cockney slang, so east London and Essex, I don't know how widely it is used elsewhere. Other examples "have a butchers" for have a look (butchers hook - look); "rabbiting on" for talking - (Rabbit and pork - talk).

Aris is a lovely name, I just wanted to flag that up!

@MagicianMoth would this spelling make it better : Ares?

I suppose it depends how it is pronounced - like the god of war? Also it may be that this is very much a regional (and age) thing, so really happy for other MNers to jump in and say they don't think it is a problem!

Zachariah although I am biased as its was my grandfather's name. At 80 his older brother still called him little Zachy Zac

I'm a northerner so can't even get glass to rhyme with arse but it looks like OP will be around the London area so very relevant to her

Yes it is pronounced like the ancient greek god of war, this is where the name comes from.

Aris - I immediately thought of arris meaning arse. It was pretty common back in the day - you'd hear it in the 70s TV comedies ("He got a wasp sting on the arris" kind of thing). So personally I'd avoid it, also Ares (same thing). Zechariah is lovely but I've only seen it spelt like that.

I did a bit of research and I found another mumsnet chat and the mother was coming from Greece and was advised that Ari instead of Aris will be fine. Do you agree? If yes the 'S' is dropped some times on the speech in our language so Ari would work as well.

I think Ari would be fine. I do like Elias as well though!

Ari is lovely

Me too and not the point of the thread but wondering how gkass rhymes with arse. Glars?

Yes, Ari is nice. But you might get fed up of saying "No, not Harry".

Zachariah I love but my first thought seeing it without the h is that it was a typo. It looks a little feminine to be ending in a, I might think this was a female version of it like robert and roberta.

Elias is lovely.

Aris I wasn't sure how to pronounce- is it like Ares?

I like Elias out of the 3 , you couldn't go far wrong with pronunciation or spelling

Yes Ari works better than Aris in UK, but still prefer Elias

What are your thoughts on the spelling Ilias? Instead of Elias?

How are they pronounced?

I would pronounce those as 2 different names

The name is pronounced like ee-LEE-as, 3 syllabus with emphasis on the second.