Baby Names??

dulcemariamar1 · October 2012

When you decided (or for those TTC, when you have to decide) did you chose a name in your native language or in the local language? Will you try to make sure that you pick a name that will be easy for people to say in your host country?

If your SO is from another country/language, how will you go about picking the name? Will you give the name that works in both languages? Or will you divide the first and middle name between the two languages?

LadyMadrid08 · October 2012

We decided to just forget the host country this time around, but have agreed that any names must be easy enough to pronounce and be spelled the same in English and Spanish.

So we ended up with Aurelia for a girl (which was harder for my family than I expected) and we are likely going with Martin for a boy. I don't love the boys name, but DH didn't love DD's name when we picked it so I am giving a little. Plus, it's been growing on me these past few weeks.

Publius · October 2012

We're both native English speakers, but our kid will be growing up in Suisse Romande. They'll be attending the local cantonal schools, probably up until high school. Since they'll be growing up in a French speaking area and going to school locally I think it's important that their names work in French (ie, be easy enough to pronounce, be gender appropriate, not look completely foreign).

LadyMadrid08 · October 2012

Oh, and we chose to do no middle names. They both have two last names though! So more traditionally Spanish I guess.

LadyMadrid08 · October 2012

UKmommy:
We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.>

Interesting. We both pronounce our daughter's name the same way, but if we do go with Martin he will use the Spanish pronunciation (Marteen) and I will use the American one.

Is it really such a big difference you think it would confuse them? Just curious--this is something I hadn't really thought of.

Publius · October 2012

UKmommy:
LadyMadrid08:
UKmommy:
We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.>

Interesting. We both pronounce our daughter's name the same way, but if we do go with Martin he will use the Spanish pronunciation (Marteen) and I will use the American one.
Is it really such a big difference you think it would confuse them? Just curious--this is something I hadn't really thought of.
Realistically, DH and I are probably over thinking things. We are just concerned about little things like teaching LO how to say his or her name. We think it will be easiest for everyone if the name is accent neutral, like John.

So Cecil is out? Wink

dulcemariamar1 · October 2012

My DH wanted to choose a name in English and use a MN. My only request was that it couldnt be too difficult to pronounce here in Spain.

So my DH suggested the name Willow. He LOVEs the name and I think it is cute so I said okay.

You can only imagine the reaction we get from people. It is actually kinda funny. They are always shocked when my DH tells them that he came up with the name. He is really proud of the fact.

My in-laws hate the name. They actually wanted me to name my LO after myself. Tongue Tied

Perhaps, it would make more sense to do a combo of the two languages but since my DH wanted a name in English, I am not going to fight him on this one. Plus, just because we live here now doesnt mean we are going to stay here forever. We could move back to the States or an English speaking country so I am not worried.

dulcemariamar1 · October 2012

LadyMadrid08:

UKmommy:
We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.>

Interesting. We both pronounce our daughter's name the same way, but if we do go with Martin he will use the Spanish pronunciation (Marteen) and I will use the American one.

Is it really such a big difference you think it would confuse them? Just curious--this is something I hadn't really thought of.

I dont think it will confuse him but I think when he is older, he will choose the pronunciation that he likes best and everyone will end up using that one.

Potato Pie · October 2012

LadyMadrid, I LOVE the name Martin for a boy. DH likes it too, and we'd do the same pronunciation difference of MAR-tin and Mar-TEEN.

Girls names are always easy, though even simple ones like Anna (which we both love) would be pronounced differently depending on language-speakers. That's the case with our own names as well. It's not too big a deal.

DH and I are also arguing about using middle names. He says no, I say yes. I really want to use them because I can honor use some names I'd like to use out of respect (like our mothers') without giving them as first names.

We'll have to fight that issue out for awhile...

Publius · October 2012

dulcemariamar1:
LadyMadrid08:

UKmommy:
We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.>

Interesting. We both pronounce our daughter's name the same way, but if we do go with Martin he will use the Spanish pronunciation (Marteen) and I will use the American one.

Is it really such a big difference you think it would confuse them? Just curious--this is something I hadn't really thought of.

I dont think it will confuse him but I think when he is older, he will choose the pronunciation that he likes best and everyone will end up using that one.

Maybe not. I've got a cousin with a name that exists in both German and English, but it's pronounced differently. He uses the German pronunciation when he's speaking German and the English pronunciation in English. I asked him about it once. He said the German pronunciation just sounds wrong to him in English and visa-versa. That's just how it's been his entire life.

dulcemariamar1 · October 2012

Publius:
dulcemariamar1:
LadyMadrid08:

UKmommy:
We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.>

Interesting. We both pronounce our daughter's name the same way, but if we do go with Martin he will use the Spanish pronunciation (Marteen) and I will use the American one.

Is it really such a big difference you think it would confuse them? Just curious--this is something I hadn't really thought of.

I dont think it will confuse him but I think when he is older, he will choose the pronunciation that he likes best and everyone will end up using that one.

Maybe not. I've got a cousin with a name that exists in both German and English, but it's pronounced differently. He uses the German pronunciation when he's speaking German and the English pronunciation in English. I asked him about it once. He said the German pronunciation just sounds wrong to him in English and visa-versa. That's just how it's been his entire life.

Yeah, I could see how that would happen. But in LadyMadrid's case, they live in Germany. I wonder if he would choose the English or Spanish version. How do they say the name in German?

LadyMadrid08 · October 2012

dulcemariamar1:

My in-laws hate the name. They actually wanted me to name my LO after myself.

My SIL is named after MIL. Yup. And DH is named after FIL. People are so original sometimes. I think it's sweet and kind of funny how attached your H is to that name!

My ILs hated Aurelia's name up until I pushed her out of me and they had a face to connect it to. No joke, my MIL would go on and on about how ugly it is...ugh.

LadyMadrid08 · October 2012

PotatoPie: I will tell DH the name gets a thumbs up! He'll be glad to hear it!

dulcemariamar1 · October 2012

LadyMadrid08:
dulcemariamar1:

My in-laws hate the name. They actually wanted me to name my LO after myself.

My SIL is named after MIL. Yup. And DH is named after FIL. People are so original sometimes. I think it's sweet and kind of funny how attached your H is to that name!

My ILs hated Aurelia's name up until I pushed her out of me and they had a face to connect it to. No joke, my MIL would go on and on about how ugly it is...ugh.

Really? They hated the name? It is such a pretty name. Is it common in Spain?

I am not having a boy so it doesnt matter but I love the name Benjamin but my DH says it sounds horrible in Spanish. I asked some Spanish friends and they also said it was an ugly name.

It is funny how one name in English sounds nice but in another language people consider it to be "ugly."

dulcemariamar1 · October 2012

LadyMadrid:

I hope you dont think I am being rude because I am not sure from your previous post if you and your DH have decided 100% on the name for your LO.

But have you considered the name Oliver? Perhaps, you dont even like the name but I know that it is a name that they use both in Spain and in the States. It was a name we were considering if LO was a boy.

PittPurple · October 2012

I was born in Israel so I have a Hebrew name. Although DH and I are both English-speaking American and we live in an English-speaking country, we plan to use names that at least reflect my other nationality as well. It's important to me to name our children after a relative who has passed away - the tradition in my family was to use the first letter, not necessarily the whole name.

DH's grandmother passed away a couple years ago and we were both close with her so we're looking at Hebrew M names that aren't difficult to pronounce by English-speakers. DH isn't Jewish or Israeli so anything that is a struggle for him is out (anything with the gutteral 'ch' sound basically)

kelly321 · October 2012

dulcemariamar1:
Publius:
dulcemariamar1:
LadyMadrid08:

UKmommy:
We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.>

Interesting. We both pronounce our daughter's name the same way, but if we do go with Martin he will use the Spanish pronunciation (Marteen) and I will use the American one.

Is it really such a big difference you think it would confuse them? Just curious--this is something I hadn't really thought of.

I dont think it will confuse him but I think when he is older, he will choose the pronunciation that he likes best and everyone will end up using that one.

Maybe not. I've got a cousin with a name that exists in both German and English, but it's pronounced differently. He uses the German pronunciation when he's speaking German and the English pronunciation in English. I asked him about it once. He said the German pronunciation just sounds wrong to him in English and visa-versa. That's just how it's been his entire life.

Yeah, I could see how that would happen. But in LadyMadrid's case, they live in Germany. I wonder if he would choose the English or Spanish version. How do they say the name in German?

Yet another variation, if I read the Spanish pronunciation correctly up above (mar-TEEN). In German it's MAR-teen, but sounds more like MAH-teen since they say the r differently.

DH and I decided to choose names that sound about the same in English and German. There are quite a few, although this LO will probably be Elizabeth, which is usually spelled Elisabeth and pronounced ah-LEEZ-a-bet in German. But if her nn is Liz/Lizzy like we're planning, then that's the same :-)

sucredee · October 2012

DD is half Dutch and half American and we live in the US. Her name however is French. DH and I are both Francophiles and wanted something uncommon in the US but something that would work most places. It is not hard to pronounce here ( or anywhere we go anyway). Her middle name is MIL middle name and goes well anywhere too.

LadyMadrid08 · October 2012

dulcemariamar1:
LadyMadrid:
nbsp;
I hope you dont think I am being rude because I am not sure from your previous post if you and your DH have decided 100nbsp; on the name for your LO.
But have you considered the name Oliver? Perhaps, you dont even like the name but I know that it is a name that they use both in Spain and in the States. It was a name we were considering if LO was a boy.
nbsp;
nbsp;

I like Oliver, but Dh vetoed it. I think we are pretty set on Martin. And I don't think it was a rude suggestion. :

jbranden12 · October 2012

We wanted to make sure at least one of the two names was Danish, but that they are both easy to say in both languages, even if they are pronounced a little differently. With my daughter, we named her Patricia (my grandmother's name/my middle name) Kirsten (DH's grandmother's name).

For this baby, we will use the same middle name if it's a girl to honor her sister and we have a short list of girls names picked out. We are having more trouble with boys names, because we both want to use my dad's name as a middle. That means the first should be Danish, but I don't like that many Danish boys names! Still looking...

MouseInLux · October 2012

DH is a local so we wanted something that his parents can say and that doesn't sound bad in the other "official" languages so it gets hard...that means it has to work in 4 languages. We've ended up with "English" names but they exist in the other languages enough for it to be ok.

welshgirl · October 2012

UKmommy:
Well, my first language is English (US) and I live in an English-speaking country (Enland) so you would think I would have no issues. My DH is from the UK. Now that we are preparing for a new baby, we are running into some potential baby name pronunciation issues. For example, my DH and I pronounce names that contain the letter R differently (i.e., my version of Harper has a hard R sound in two places while DH's sounds more like Hahpeh). We run into the same issue with any name that ends in a vowel. I say "Emma and her friends..." while DH kind of adds an R sound between Emma and and (i.e., Emmer and her friends). We have had to watch this because we want to make sure that we choose a name that we both pronounce the same way to avoid confusing LO.
Since DH is Welsh originally, we have been looking at Welsh first names as well. There are some really lovely ones!

I really loved anghatad and myfanwy, so pretty!

Because we're both English speakers, we limited to family names. And my husband suggested e avoid scots and welsh names, which really just helped us nlimit. We were tempted by welsh names as we lived in Wales for six years, and scots because we live hear there now, but avoiding them wasn't an issue.

welshgirl · October 2012

UKmommy:
expatmama:
I have no idea the name for this one. We both don't like choosing a name before we meet the baby, so we put together a list of 5 possible names for each gender and decide after the birth 'who' the baby is.
That's a nice idea. DH and I are toying with that idea as well.

We did that as well, we had two names for my son and three for my daughter.

Also, we did limit based on my pronunciation. I can't say our favourite nickname for Charlotte, I'd say loddie and not lottie... There ere others but I can't remember.

101Mims · October 2012

As DH is half Malaysian - half English, grew up mostly in South Korea and attended International Schools. So he was determined to name our son something that was easily spelled and pronounced in as many languages as possible.

I?ve had an international upbringing, now Im in Spain, and many of our firends who are also an international bunch have a real hard time pronouncing my name. I?ve just given up correcting people and dealing with the awkwardness, and call myself Chistina as it?s easier all round. So I too wanted an easy first name for our son. His middle name is my father?s middle name, which is traditionally English, and although is a bit of a mouthful here, we knew we wldnt be here forever.

So our son is Tai Edward (last name). For our daughter we just chose something we really liked, but that cld be shortened in many ways to make it easy for her where ever she ends up.

sadsadie · October 2012

My husband is from France, so we've got a set of names lined up that work beautifully in both English or French. It was important to us that our child's name reflected their French heritage, but remained "workable" in English too.

lorryfach · October 2012

We just said "screw it" and picked names we like, no matter what trouble it will cause some portion of the world to pronounce or spell it. Both of my parents are American and Americans have a problem saying and spelling my name, but I turned out ok, and in fact really love my name. There's no way to guarantee your kid will like his or her name no matter what you do, so I figure you just do what you want. Elder daughter has a very Danish first name that no one outside of Denmark can pronounce, and an English middle name. Younger daughter has an English/Spanish first name that Danes say incorrectly and Spanish middle name (a family name; my grandmother was Mexican) that seems to confuse everyone. For that matter, our last name is half Dutch and half Danish and pretty much the entire world has a problem with it. No regrets about any of the names yet.

lacblack · November 2012

I am American and my DH is Swedish, so we tried to find international names that would fit both but I could not find any boy names that I liked that would be considered Swedish as well so I convinced my DH that we could choose an American name since the child has a Swedish last name, so that we could incorporate both cultures. Middle names will most likely be more Swedish! It was important to me to have some of my culture included, especially since we are living in his home country.