Slightly(!) preposterous foreign names

[InmaculadaConcepcion]

...this is inspired by my own MN nn.

Inmaculada Concepcion

is a bona fide name here in Spain (although it's rare to find anyone under fifty with it). We've caused a mixture of horror and hilarity among our Spanish friends by telling them we're going to call our daughter IC...

Another good one is:

Purificacion

And you get the male/female combos of:

Jose-Maria
Maria-Jose

(a friend with the latter name insists she's called "Mary Jo")

as you also get

Jean-Marie

in France.

Anyone got any more to add?

Marie is a perfectly respectable middle name for a boy in France (it's DHs middle name). As is calling a girl something like Marie-Pierre.

Name fashions vary by country. Mine is quite frankly ridiculous in France but perfectly normal in anglophone countries and I see it popping up on MN name threads all the time. Each to their own.

I agree, frakki - "Jesus" for example is hugely popular in Spain and no one bats an eyelid at people with that as a first name, but it can cause amusement among the Anglos at times.

And let's face it, the male/female thing is quite big in, say, North America with "Joe" stuck on the end of some girls' names

Inmaculada Concepcion, though...??!! Even many Spaniards think that's a tad OTT!

No different to Puritans calling their children Patience, Faith, Abstinence, The-Lord-is-near and Zeal-for-the-Lord - just extremely religious.

And yes, perhaps, OTT for modern tastes but there's a world of difference between something which is 50 years out of date, like IC in Spain, Doris in the UK or apparently Giovanna in Italy (I always thought it was a nice name!), and something which is entirely normal but slightly foreign, such as Jean-Marie.

And androgynous names are back 'in' such as Jordan and Taylor or boys names being claimed by girls with the number of girls called McKenzie, Addison or Reese.

I used to have an Italian friend called Ginevra - meaning Geneva - which I always found a bit odd.

Odder still I find Dolores. However religious you are and want to honour the Virgin Mary, why would you call your daughter "sorrow"?

Italian friend called Addolorata (the pained one)

IC- the biggest trollop I ever knew was called Purificacion (Salamanca 1986) which always made me laugh.

I have taught several girls called Titty as well. Which I can never bring myself to say.
"erm, you there, can you read now?" etc.

Lots of Taiwanese called Fanny as well.

Also odd in a very Spanish way is Pilar - short for Our Lady of the Pillar I think?

I always think that calling your daughter something like Patience or Chastity is just asking for trouble really.

Dd also has twins in her class both called Maria (Maria Grazia and Maria Luisa) which I find, if not odd, then just boringly unimaginative with all the lovely names you could have.

Ginevra is the Italian version of Genevieve, it is not linked to the city!

Immacolata used to be a common name for women in southern italy too. They are very religious names: Addolorata, Consolata, Immacolata.

Oops, never realised that Franca, thanks!

I agree that it is confusing, as Geneva is called Ginevra in Italian !!!

When I lived in South Africa the Zulu woman who cleaned for us had children called Patience and Evidence. If I remember correctly they were both boys. She also had an older son called Patrick.

I once taught a kid named 'Zulfucker'; his parents were Iraqi.

Unsurprisingly, he liked to be known as 'Zully'

When I was little we had an au pair called Maria-Jesus, and her dad was called Jesus-Maria.

I once knew a girl whose sister went by her nickname, Candy. One day I called her by her full name in front of a group of her own friends. She cut me dead and never spoke to me again. I didn't understand why until I was a lot older: her full name was Candida.

My mum once worked with someone called Disappointment.

A French friend of mine told me that when she worked in Zaire children would often be given the saint's name corresponding to the day on which they were born (the saint of the day often features on French calendars). She swears that there were kids born on the 14th July who ended up as 'Fete-Nat' (the French fete national).

I saw in the paper today that little girls born recently are being called Neytiri after the girl in Avatar - it's only been out 5 weeks!

I have an Albanian friend called Orges (which is pronounced in such a way that it seriously sounds like Orgasm with a silent 'm').

Dh (half Russian) wanted to call ds 'Valerie'. I vetoed.

Let's all laugh at the dagos and their Catholic traditions of naming children [hmm}.

That's . Actually worth two, so again.

Nikita - boy

A lot of the names are not even that unusual if you were aware of traditions of people with different religions even in the UK. There are lots of Catholic men with Mary as their middle name in Ireland and probably in the UK, maybe more in days gone by than now, but I have close male relatives near my age all with this mn. Plenty of Irish people have first names or middle names like Consuela, Dolores, Assumpta, Carmel -- anywhere there's a strong Marian tradition you'll find these names (that is, all over the Mediterranean, South America and even North America, Phillippines, France, Portugal, Spain, Portugal, parts of Germany, Poland).

At best this thread is an indicator of parochialism and lack of exposure to other cultures and traditions.

This thread is racist