I knew a guy named Shai Penis. I doubt he could travel to English speaking countries.
Darn, edited out. Peeenis.
I know a woman about my age originally from another country - her first name is Assumption. Her nickname is Baby. It was hard calling her either if those…
What is the nickname for Assumption? Not sure I wanna know!
About 5 years ago I kept hearing Ava for a new baby name (from co-workers at 2 different jobs and elsewhere). I hope no one paired it with Gina for a middle name.
We almost named our D a very unusual first name, but got too many “you’re not really going to name a child that, are you” reactions. So we went with a more conventional name. I still love the name we didn’t use, but our D hates it and while she’s not crazy about the name we did select, likes it way better than what it could have been!
I also almost named her Anastasia - it’s Greek for resurrection, and I went into labor on Easter. Probably would have called her Ana, although I also loved the Betsy-Tacy and Tib books when I was little and might have called her Tacy.
romani - In my opinion, many names are “traditional” if they come from the Bible. Here is a listing of the ways other countries spell their version of John. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this list, but do you have any input on the two Romanian names on the list (Ioan and Ionel)
Chon
Dzon, Džon (Congolese, Serbian)
Ean (Manx)
Eoin (Irish)
Evan (Welsh)
Gianina (Italian)
Gino, (Italian)
Giovanni, Gianni (Italian)
Giuàn (Emiliano-Romagnolo)
Gjoni or Gjin (Albanian)
Hans (German, from Johannes)
Hone (Maori) [1]
Honza (Czech)
Iain (Scottish Gaelic (common form, though Ian is used in English))
Ianto (Welsh)
Ibane (Basque)
Ifan (Welsh)
Ioan (Romanian, Welsh)
Ioannis
Ionel (Romanian)
Ieuan (Welsh)
Ivan (Bulgarian, Croatian, Russian, Ukrainian and other Slavic language nations)
Jaan (Estonian)
Jack
Jan (Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Polish, Norwegian)
Ján (Slovak)
Jani (Finnish)
Janez (Slovene)
Jānis (Latvian)
Janka (Slovak, Hungarian)
Janek (Czech)
Janne (Finnish)
János (Hungarian)
Jean (French)
Jens (Danish)
Joan (Catalan)
João (Portuguese)
Johan (Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Faroese, Afrikaans)
Johann (Germanic: German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch)
Johannes (Germanic: German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch)
Jóhannes (Icelandic)
Jon (basque)
Jón
Jonas (Lithuanian)
Juan (Spanish, Filipino, Manx)
Juhani (Finnish)
Seán (Irish Seán, after the French Jean)
Shane (Anglicised form of Seán)
Shaun (American form of Sean)
Shawn (Anglicised form of Seán)
Siôn (Welsh)
Xoán (Galician)
Yan ( Indonesian)
Yanka (Belarusian)
Yann (Breton)
Yannis (Greek)
Vanya (Russian, Ukrainian)
Yohannan (Malayalam)
Yohannes (Ethiopian)
Yohan, Yohanes ( Indonesian, Malaysian)
Yonnachan (Malayalam)
Youhannon (Malayalam)
Yahya (Arabic, Turkish)
@ romani, if you were quoting me, my context to that is names found in the bible, Hebrew roots in general…that doesn’t necessarily equal something exclusively white. Many names have Hebrew or latin roots . That’s what I consider traditional and classic
I met a young man in Rio de Janiero and his name was Vladimir Lenin. I’ve heard it’s not uncommon for children to be named after other famous people, or names from mythology. A Colombian friend knew a Richard Nixon in high school!
Ah, so again we’re likely using an English (white) version of the Bible for our “traditional” names.
Got it.
My whole point is that just because some names seem “different” doesn’t mean they’re not “traditional” to the people that use them. They’re just not “traditional” to our Euro-American ears.
Articles of possible interest:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-the-most-common-name-in-america/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/more-evidence-james-smith-is-the-most-common-name-in-the-u-s/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-tell-someones-age-when-all-you-know-is-her-name/
http://vizual-statistix.■■■■■■■■■■/post/107987401281/using-a-list-of-the-52-131-active-medallion-taxi
Note that, in the last one, the most common NYC taxi/limosine driver surname is not associated with any of the 20 most common given names, presumably because the most common surname is associated with a certain religion and/or national/ethnic origin, while all of the most common given names are associated with a different religion and/or national/ethnic origin.
Not sure why you find that offensive romani, really I don’t . Seems to me that you are trying to suggest a discriminatory and or racist tone to what I ( and others ) view as traditional . Why did whiteness have to come into the conversation ? Why must you single that out ??
Like Yusuf, Ibrahim, Issa, Dawud, Musa, Suleiman, Ayoub, Idris?
Even those old Biblical names were made up at some point. I think romani was trying to head off the insults to the Lakeesha type names.
I love the name Suleiman. So much better than Solomon. Maybe its just the history of it being followed by “the magnificent”.
When I hear or read that white folks don’t like the names most black Americans give their kids, what I picture is the old plantation mentality: listen and follow the Massa. It is very paternalistic. Personally, I don’t like traditional names (i.e. George, William, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Emily) Bibilcal names (i.e. Jacob, Mathew, John, Ruth, Sarah). I don’t like those that I consider white (i.e. Chase, Colt, Madison, Taylor).
If an employer is so shallow that h/she is going to deny a qualified candidate because the parents should have been thinking of what white people would prefer, then I say take the job and shove it. I do take comfort in fact that those who have that position and are also NFL fans have to put up with names they don’t like.
I had an adult student once who was from France and her name was Agnes but pronounced Ahn yay (accent on the second sullable). I thought it was lovely name when pronounced that way but don’t like it with the anglo pronunciation.
I have few students named Anya and Anja (pronounced the same way). Also Anastasia is making a comeback.
Suleiman makes me think of octomom.
ucbalumnus , Adam, Andrew, Michael , Joseph , Benjamin, Daniel, Joshua, Michael, David, Mark , Anna, Abigail , Elizabeth, Hanna, Sarah , Rachael, Mary would be a handful what I would consider traditional and classic, but there are certainly many more names that can be found in the bible…the ones you listed are probably in the bible as well, although I can’t say I ever knew of anyone that uses most of those names .
I really don’t see why my simple description of what I consider traditional names are offensive.
Did I specify any names that I don’t like personally , and if so , please feel free to point out how that is offensive.
There are name traditions in any ethnic / religious group …should I feel ashamed of mine ?
There are a lot of outlandish names in the Bible too. Ezekiel comes to mind. It’s a great name but somehow, it just didn’t catch on!
I like Agnes even with it’s rather frumpy English pronunciation. It sounds lovely in French and really intense in Polish - Agniezka. (at least I think that is Agnes)
I share a name with a long-time celebrity (since before I was born)—I don’t come up in the first ten pages of Google results for my name. Totally accidental—my parents didn’t know who that person was when I was born—but while it was horrible in high school, once I got to college it was fun.
My children have names ranging from utterly uncommon in the US but incredibly common in a country we’re not terribly friendly with, to a name held almost entirely by children under ten and women over eighty.
And one of them has a name that she shares with two other people findable through Google, neither of them from the English-speaking world. Therefore, according to lots of people on this thread, it’s an absolutely horrible, horrible name, since it isn’t “traditional”—but it’s documented from the Old English period, so how can you get more traditional than that?
Seriously, folks, like others have said, all names are made up. They’re arbitrary. There is no list holding the only true naming practices allowable. Have fun with it a little bit, and if your idea of having fun with names is to stay within the Social Security index’s top twenty, let everybody else have their own fun doing otherwise.
Exactly!
For example, from my tribe:
Zev, Mordecai, Aaron, Noah, Simon, Isaiah, Yitzhak, Avi, Isaac, Eli, Seth, Leah, Rivkah, Shoshanah, Miriam, Adina, Chaya, Naomi, Shira