Do you actually live in Finland? I'm just thinking that if you don't, you'd want to choose a name that would be easy for non Finns to pronounce. But if you do, that probably doesn't matter much.
Do you actually live in Finland? I'm just thinking that if you don't, you'd want to choose a name that would be easy for non Finns to pronounce. But if you do, that probably doesn't matter much.
Don't live in Finland at the moment, but it could be in our future. I'm not too worried about others in Canada not being able to pronounce the names. Both my brother and I had our (Finnish) names mispronounced 99% of the time, and it never bothered us. People usually only need to be told once how to pronounce something and they don't need it again. The only tricky part was when we were toddlers/young kids and weren't mature enough to recognize the mispronunciations. My mum said that she used to write our names phonetically on our name tags to get around this.
I think Valio is really cool. I also think it'll be easier for non-Finnish people to pronounce- when I looked at just the names and not pronounciations, I didn't have to slow down and sound it out.
Thanks everyone for the input! I think DH and i like Valio best too. It was my grandfather's middle name, too, whereas Akseli has no sentimental meaning for us. We just like how it sounds.
I like Valio! If you used Akseli, I think people might call him Axel, which is a more N American name, which wouldn't be bad to me at all.
Akseli is the Finnish form of Axel--a Scandinavian name. I wouldn't mind people calling him Axel, or Ox, or whatever. He'll be able to say what he likes and doesn't. Though... like you, I'm more partial to Valio.
I just looked at your baby name list and saw "Toivo". Great name--and my grandpa's! I love seeing all these Finnish names. My maiden name is Maki. Of these 2, I voted for Valio.
Re: Finnish baby boy names (poll)!
Don't live in Finland at the moment, but it could be in our future. I'm not too worried about others in Canada not being able to pronounce the names. Both my brother and I had our (Finnish) names mispronounced 99% of the time, and it never bothered us. People usually only need to be told once how to pronounce something and they don't need it again. The only tricky part was when we were toddlers/young kids and weren't mature enough to recognize the mispronunciations. My mum said that she used to write our names phonetically on our name tags to get around this.
Akseli is the Finnish form of Axel--a Scandinavian name. I wouldn't mind people calling him Axel, or Ox, or whatever. He'll be able to say what he likes and doesn't. Though... like you, I'm more partial to Valio.
BFP #2: 1.30.12 - missed m/c found on 2.27.12 - D&C 3.1.12 @8w