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MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

mixedname.com

231–240 of 261 posts

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#231

I did a similar thing for our kids (Hindi/English) but we had slightly different goals. Since the kids were getting my English surname, we wanted to give them Hindi first names, but we wanted them to be easily pronounceable in English. So I wrote a character-based ngram language model based on the US census count of names, and used that to score a list of Hindi names. I then improved it by adding a bunch of rewrite r…

And here my approach to naming was: - veto names of dickheads I knew. Of course, I know good people with those names too but that wasn't the deciding factor. I simply didn't want my kids name to be associated with a dickhead in my own mind in any way, shape or form. Very me-centric I guess but I wanted the best personal relationship with my kid.

I never thought clearly about this, when deciding my kid's name I thought about people who I really admired and picked up the name I liked the most. But of course, I'd veto any name that reminded of someone I don't like.

What hit me hard about your comment is that I know a bunch of couples who have kids with my name, and it's not a common name. I will sleep happier today :)

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true, but they won’t all be commonly used as names everywhere. Jesús is a common Spanish name, but totally nonexistent in English and French as far as I’m aware. María too is way more common than “Mary” in English (that is a real English name, but AFAICT it’s pretty rare in the last few generations).

Mary used to be an _incredibly_ popular name in Catholic European countries. Notably, two consecutive presidents of Ireland were called Mary! Definitely less common now, but weirdly universal in the 50s.

Almost every successful Irish female politician was called Mary, for a really long time.

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#233
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally we ended up with Riya for my daughter (which is pronounced the same as the English name Rhea) and Aarav for my son, which is pronounced the same as two of the most common English words, "are" and "of." Native English speaker from the Pacific Northwest, I would pronounce those "Ri-yuh" and "Are-rov"(I think your intended pronunciation) or maybe "A-rav", depends upon whether I knew they were of Indian decent,…

I know a Riya whose name sounds like Ri-yuh, so I don't think you are completely wrong.

Isn't "Ri-yuh" how you'd pronounce "Rhea"?

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#234
post #228
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Irish name selection on this site is totally bogus. Apparently Cody, Jacqui, and Kelsi are Engish & Irish feminine names. Those are not even Hiberno-English names. https://mixedname.com/english_irish_feminine_names

My approach was to Google things like “Irish names” and add names coming up on such lists. Do you know of a good source I should use instead?

The trouble with that is that "Irish" name lists are often written by Irish-Americans, rather than Irish people.

For instance, you would often see names like Cailin, or Erin in American-Irish (they mean girl, and Ireland respectively) names, but these would be incredibly uncommon in Ireland itself.

This page seems reasonably legit: https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/100-irish-language-first-...

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#235

I did a similar thing for our kids (Hindi/English) but we had slightly different goals. Since the kids were getting my English surname, we wanted to give them Hindi first names, but we wanted them to be easily pronounceable in English. So I wrote a character-based ngram language model based on the US census count of names, and used that to score a list of Hindi names. I then improved it by adding a bunch of rewrite r…

And here my approach to naming was: - veto names of dickheads I knew. Of course, I know good people with those names too but that wasn't the deciding factor. I simply didn't want my kids name to be associated with a dickhead in my own mind in any way, shape or form. Very me-centric I guess but I wanted the best personal relationship with my kid.

I know. I came up with some very cool names that my wife immediately vetoed for that reason!

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#236
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except "Jarlath"

We have “Iarlaith” in Irish which I believe is cognate with it.

I think that was the original, and Jarlath is a transliteration. It's sufficiently rare in English that I think it's fair to call it "not an English name".

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true, but they won’t all be commonly used as names everywhere. Jesús is a common Spanish name, but totally nonexistent in English and French as far as I’m aware. María too is way more common than “Mary” in English (that is a real English name, but AFAICT it’s pretty rare in the last few generations).

Mary used to be an _incredibly_ popular name in Catholic European countries. Notably, two consecutive presidents of Ireland were called Mary! Definitely less common now, but weirdly universal in the 50s.

Probably common among Americans who ethnically identify as Irish-American too, but since the mass migration of Irish people to the US was more than a century ago, that is increasingly rare. My grandmother is named Mary, though.

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#239

I did a similar thing for our kids (Hindi/English) but we had slightly different goals. Since the kids were getting my English surname, we wanted to give them Hindi first names, but we wanted them to be easily pronounceable in English. So I wrote a character-based ngram language model based on the US census count of names, and used that to score a list of Hindi names. I then improved it by adding a bunch of rewrite r…

My older child is 11 years old, and since a few years before she was born, everyone we knew in India had been naming their children starting with the sound of "Aa" ... We know quite a few kids named "Aarav" and "Aadya" among others. So any names with that starting sound were immediately discarded. We wanted her name to sound significantly different from all contemporary names, and we decided that the best way to do it was to go retro. So "Surabhi" is what we chose. It has a very nice meaning, and it's just sufficiently old to be fashionable again. And it also reminded us of a favourite TV serial from our childhood.

Re: MixedName – Bilingual baby name finder

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true, but they won’t all be commonly used as names everywhere. Jesús is a common Spanish name, but totally nonexistent in English and French as far as I’m aware. María too is way more common than “Mary” in English (that is a real English name, but AFAICT it’s pretty rare in the last few generations).

> > Any name of a (Catholic) saint would probably have mappings to other languages > Jesús is a common Spanish name, but totally nonexistent in English and French as far as I’m aware. Jesus is not a saint. > María too is way more common than “Mary” in English (that is a real English name, but AFAICT it’s pretty rare in the last few generations). Mary is the most common female name in the US, but, José and María are b…

> Jesus is not a saint.

Good to know, but the overall point is the same, I think. He was a person who is (obviously) very important to Catholicism, and therefore the name has an equivalent in every widely-used language.

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