don't like pretension but keeping family heritage might be nice... maybe...?

[LoathsomelyPretentious]

Am having twins (yay!!!!). Have norwegian/danish heritage, though no remotely close relatives any more.

Would Roald Ejnar (boy) and Solveig Linnea (girl) be too hard to grow up with in southern England? Surname is very english and begins with E.

Anyone got any other good norse names? Currently opting for William and Mary, or perhaps Caroline, if we wimp out on the lovely scandiwegian ones.
NB the baby name websites are totally crap.

thanks!

no harder than a lot of names IMO

How do you pronounce Solveig?

SOUL-vei(g)

I wouldn't whimp out. Ds has a thoroughly Scandinavian (read unpronouncable) name and it's never caused any problems. Of course, you can't afford to be touchy about how it does get pronounced, but ds is very laidback.

The only thing is, if you go for Roald, people will assume that you are very keen on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you can't stand it, then maybe something else.

I think Roald would be fine. People are familiar with it thanks to Dahl. However Solveig will constantly have to explain the pronounciation. Also it is pronounced similar to Solvent? If so I would have to say I do not love it and if your links to Scandinavia are not close I would probably try to avoid making your DD having to explain that everyday.

What abour other more familiar scandinavian girls names? Freya? Annika? Astrid? Dahlia?

i think it is a pretty name

If you're concerned about people not understanding or not being able to pronounce the names, I think that you'd probably have fewer problems if you went with Linnea Solveig. Linnea is a lovely name imo Roald I think is lovely as well.

tee hee at Roald + Dahlia... excellent combo, thanks for the idea , wonder if Roald's second name could be Quentin...

We're total Dahl fans, so wouldn't really mind if our kids were nicknamed BFG & Enormous Crocodile. In fact might perpetrate that ourselves...

I like those very much. I wouldn't worry about them being unusual. As long as you accept from the start that some people will always mispronounce and misspell them.

Think Roald should be easy enough and Solveig - I know a Finnish Solveig and she doesn't have any problems. Lovely names.

lol @ Roald and Dahlia - I totally missed that

oops, i clearly wasn't thinking re Dahlia, although if you are a fan...

Think I might pick Linnea as a first name too.

We're in the same position. Ds's middle name is Anders which I really like.

They are really nice names and FWIW, I think it is really nice to get names that are part of your heritage.

Am a fan of Roald Dahl as well thanks to DSs!

I think Roald would be fine.
You might run into more problems with Solveig, but if you're happy enough telling people how to pronounce it quite a lot of the time, then there's no reason why not. I think kids totally adapt to names - when I think back to my childhood there were plenty of kids with 'different' names and we didn't think anything of it.

For what it's worth, I love the name Sanna for a girl.

Think they're both really lovely names, better than Will and Mary!
I have unusual Welsh name and it's never caused me any problems. Made me feel special if anything. Go for it!

I like Els for a girl too

I like them both, and fwiw Solveig seems to be pronounced pretty much as it's written, so really there should be no problem.

Great choices - Roald and Solveig are much nicer and interesting than William and Mary.

Actually, this is a good website for baby names, and they also give (sometimes admittedly hilarious) ideas for twins

HTH

I like your choices and don't see why they would have problems with them, especially considering some of the names used these days

They are beautiful names

Roald and Solveig sound great. I agree with Cies that Solveig isn't too hard to pronounce. Solveig makes me think of Peer Gynt (though I'd steer clear of Aase ...) and Roald has Dahl to refer to.

All the best!

I don't like Solveig at all (in my mind it reads as Solvig) - much prefer Linnea which is very pretty.