Names

[hennatoes]

If you're from one country and she's from another and you speak different languages, how do you name your kids? What strange or funny names have you run into?

I know a guy from Brazil who came to the States at the age of 5 and married a gal from Costa Rica. His English sounds perfectly American, but he has a Brazilian accent in Spanish. I don't know Portuguese accents well enough to tell what her accent is when she speaks Portuguese. His name is spelled the same in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, but pronounced differently. They have a daughter named Alessandra, which is a Portuguese (also Italian) spelling, and both talk to her in Portuguese.

I've met Latinos named Hoover, Jefferson, Edlin, Clariveth, and Eudy. I found "Edlin" particularly funny as it's the name of a text editor decades ago. Hoover is from Colombia and was named that there. Jefferson is from Mexico, IIRR, but I haven't seen him in a few years.

[Jeff S]

I usta know a guy named Mike Hunt.

[JimD]

The name and spelling Jhon is very common in Colombia. There are tons of names that appear to be adopted from English but with Spanish phonetic spelling like Harison and Yeraldine (Geraldine). I forget which Central American country it was, Nicaragua maybe but some years ago there was a spate of parents naming their children after auto parts. The government finally outlawed the practise.

[Gato4Astrid]

If you're from one country and she's from another and you speak different languages, how do you name your kids? What strange or funny names have you run into?

I know a guy from Brazil who came to the States at the age of 5 and married a gal from Costa Rica. His English sounds perfectly American, but he has a Brazilian accent in Spanish. I don't know Portuguese accents well enough to tell what her accent is when she speaks Portuguese. His name is spelled the same in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, but pronounced differently. They have a daughter named Alessandra, which is a Portuguese (also Italian) spelling, and both talk to her in Portuguese.

I've met Latinos named Hoover, Jefferson, Edlin, Clariveth, and Eudy. I found "Edlin" particularly funny as it's the name of a text editor decades ago. Hoover is from Colombia and was named that there. Jefferson is from Mexico, IIRR, but I haven't seen him in a few years.

I have known many Afro-African who are 'Washington'  (Denzel, MaliVal - tennis players, for example), but GEORGE was a white man and a racehorse!!!

[fathertime]

If you're from one country and she's from another and you speak different languages, how do you name your kids? What strange or funny names have you run into?

Hehe, I have seen some odd names in Colombia and here as well of course, but I think choosing a unique name is just fine.  In sweden the govt has to approve your name choice.  A little overreaching in my opinion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_law_in_Sweden

In our case, I recently received a book on my family history and deep within the book were many Italian family names that were heavily Latin influenced which enabled us to come up with a name that incorporates both backgrounds.  The wife found the name which I liked too so we agreed and I choose the middle name.

Fathertime!

[InnocentVixen]

Naming has more to do with parents personality than where they are from I think, my parents are 100% mexican (well, kind of, you know what I mean) and my first name is lebanese and middle one is english. First name was chosen by my father out of tradition and middle one chosen by my mother because they liked the sound of it.

An english teacher told me she once met a girl called "sumer taim" her parents did not speak english but someone told them it meant summer (as in summer time), in little ranchitos even common spanish names would end up with a strange spelling because they couldn't spell...

I don't know any latin+nonlatin couples that have kids, but when I marry and have a baby I would like to decide with my husband something we both like, with a nice meaning and that we can both pronounce without much trouble, if there is tradition in naming boys/girls that would also be considered.

[Bob_S]

If you're from one country and she's from another and you speak different languages, how do you name your kids? What strange or funny names have you run into?

Our daughter has an English first name and a Japanese middle name (花).  We find that combination to be pretty common among mixed-culture parents with hafu kids.  One name from one language and the other name from the other language.  It helps if the name chosen sounds similar to a name in the other language or has some well known accepted common pronunciation.

This actress

is 1/4 Swedish, 3/4 Japanese and is named "Lisa" (里依紗).

[Researcher]

  You can name a kid whatever you want but they can always change it later to something stupid like....Ocho Cinco!!!! hehehehe


  Researcher

[hennatoes]

Our daughter has an English first name and a Japanese middle name (花).  We find that combination to be pretty common among mixed-culture parents with hafu kids.  One name from one language and the other name from the other language.  It helps if the name chosen sounds similar to a name in the other language or has some well known accepted common pronunciation.

I've met a few like that. One has an ordinary English first name, but he goes by his middle name, Kenji.

  You can name a kid whatever you want but they can always change it later to something stupid like....Ocho Cinco!!!! hehehehe

I'm 200 meters from Ochenta y Cinco

[Pivery]

I knew a girl way back named 'Cinnamon'. Her parents were hippies and used
to get high all the time. Another girl I knew was named  'Summer'.

My lady and I have decided that if our baby is a boy I get to name it. And a baby girl gets her choice. But we also decided early on to give our baby a Latino first name and American middle name. Probably not going to be Cinnamon or Summer though!

Pivery