Thoughts on the name Xavier (UK)

[Iwouldliketogoonholiday]

Thoughts on the name Xavier for baby boy. Please be really honest. If you do or don't like it please explain why as would be helpful.

Thanks

That is very true! (I also like Ignatius, even though I'm a very lapsed Catholic and would consider myself agnostic now)

I would go with Xavier and not bother with the history of it. It's a lovely name, I wouldn't say it's particularly hard to pronounce (barring the x men pronounciation) and most people don't know or care about the Portuguese Inquisitions in Asia in the 15th century. Especially in the UK!

@LiquoriceAllsorts2 , but the arguments for each pronunciation seem to be based on how they are said in other countries.

Nobody would be insisting on the pronunciation in other countries of names like Peter, David, Richard, Simon, Robert etc.

Really like it! A bit different but well known, masculine, strong and cool.

I always wonder whether the posters here who say "but it's pronounced THIS WAY in THIS COUNTRY" also refer to Paris as Par-ee, Moscow as Moskva, Rome as Roma, etc etc. Words which are used for a couple of hundred years in English get their own anglicised version. And people have been talking about Francis Xavier (either as a saint or a sinner) for a long while!

This is the only one of your potential names that I like. The others are not for me tbh.

Xavier has the best memes. I really wouldn't name your child that in case others make the connection. 😎

Indeed. If we obsessed so much about other countries and cultures which are (obviously) not a big deal in our own, Brits would never have called their DDs Andrea or Nicola, on the basis that these (with different pronunciations) would be boys' names in Italy.

Lovely

I do like the name, but my brain automatically goes ‘Xavier, rhymes with labia’ 🤣

I do like the name Xavier, but it will give rise to pronunciation issues - zay vee er, za vee ai, ex ai vee er etc. And spelling issues, particularly when given over the phone - it could be recorded as Zavier. For these reasons, I'd probably avoid it.

understand why people call the children the same few names over and over because as I'm finding, every name is associated with something or has pronunciation issues or something else. The more I dig the less options I have.

What There are thousands of great normal easy to pronounce names to choose from!

Have a look at ALL the ons names given to boys in 2021.

Our ds has a name that was only used 26 times in his birth year and it's a well known easy to pronounce/spell name. It's just not fashionable at the moment.

Also, why are some people adding in a random Y at the beginning of Xav? It's Xav and not Xayv?

As I said, it has to be a name we like not just that it fashionable or not or easy to spell pronounce etc. But I will look at the ONS again. Thanks

@MerryMarys , For the same reason as why we say David as Dayv-id not Dav-id.
Xavier /ˈzeɪviər, ˈseɪ-, ˈzævieɪ/
Xavier (given name) - Wikipedia

Many say it as Ekz-ay-vy-er though

this is how we pronounce my brothers name,

i like it…he does not

Name OK, will it get pronounced correctly or spelt correctly? Will your DS have a lifetime of correcting people?

There are multiple pronounciations due to other countries but I don’t feel like there is one English correct English pronunciation as shown by the different opinions on here about how to pronounce it

There is, but the posters on this thread post how they think it should be said.

If you posted names like William or Catherine, you'd get some insisting that both were 3 syllables, and some saying 2. There's a standard pronunciation of them.

Good spot. So mine introduces himself as Xav and we call him Xayv-ee-er

There's been a consensus among people who've used the name in England (mainly historians, Christians) for a couple of hundred years that it's Zay-vee-er. Now the name is massively more popular and people are encountering it for the first time. If you'd never encountered "Ivan" you'd possibly say it the Russian way, "i-VAN." After all, it is a Russian name (their equivalent of John). But we still talk about "Ivan the terrible" as EYE-van because that's the English version.

Sometimes the "English" version of words does get changed (Bombay changed to Mumbai, Peking to Beijing and so on). Maybe the same will happen to Xavier? Or indeed to Ivan?

Thumbs-up for Xavier. I knew a Xavier - he was a nice guy.

It's a split diagraph as Ds2 would say. They are his favourite thing!

@MoralOrLegal , Sophia, Maria and Clara are examples.
They used to be Soph-eye-a, Mar-eye-a and Clair-a.
I like the older versions more than the new ones.

Yes, and thank you for side note on split diagraphs. It was just to disambiguate two possible pronunciations of the name for the OP, based on my experience. Not random at all. Spell check, however, seems to be struggling with diagraph.