Your favourite names (in any language)

This forum is to learn about foreign cultures and habits, because language skills are not everything you need as a world citizen...

Moderator:Forum Administrators

User avatar
Shiba
Posts:294
Joined:2010-05-20, 12:06
Gender:female
Country:ZASouth Africa (Suid-Afrika / uMzantsi Afrika / South Africa)
Contact:
Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Shiba » 2013-09-13, 9:02

linguoboy wrote:
Shiba wrote:Why do you say that? I'd seriously like to know, I'm not looking for an argument.

They don't give any citations, so there's no telling where they're getting their information from. I've been interested in name etymologies for ages, I've read a lot of scholarly works on the subject, and I've seen a lot of inaccuracies in BTN's etymologies. With a little work, I could find some concrete examples.

Ah, that sucks. It's the only source of names and surnames with a reasonably large database that I've found so far, I'll just take their etymologies with a pinch of salt now. At least they do often provide more than one possible meaning, so you can kinda decide which one you like best. :P

linguoboy wrote:
Shiba wrote:Also, there doesn't seem to be anything impossible about their etymology of the name "Amelia".

That's not saying much, is it? It's not impossible that I could be a native-speaker of Hmong. But as it happens I'm not, and if I claimed I was, it would be reasonable for you to ask to see proof.

Haha, yeah, but what I mean is that it seems to make sense. At least, Amala -> Amalia makes sense; Amalia -> Amelia is perhaps a bit harder to explain. That is to say, it's easy enough to come up with an ad hoc explanation, but there doesn't seem to be a reason for that a to change to an e.
Native: Afrikaans (af) English (en) || Intermediate: German (de) || Beginner: Some odd combination of Riksmål and Bokmål and whatever (no) || Learning on-and-off: Russian (ru) || Curious: Breton (br) Welsh (cy) Finnish (fi)
Korrigere feilene mine, vær så snill!

Die HERE is my herder; niks sal my ontbreek nie. ~ Psalm 23:1

User avatar
Multiturquoise
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4169
Joined:2011-10-10, 17:12

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Multiturquoise » 2014-02-04, 20:32

Male Names
Fehim (Turkish-Tatar)
Emile (French)
Zlatan (Serbo-Croatian)
Antoine (French)
George (English)
Heiko (German)

Female Names
Melanie (English)
Fearne (English)
Georgia (English)
Emily (English)
Paige (English)
Rosie (English)
Julie (English)
Rachel (English)
Kirstie (English)
Lauren (English)
Kirsten (English)
Amy (English)
Elizabeth (English)
Denise (English)
Florence (English)
Katy (English)
Katherine (English)
Ellie (English)
Karen (English)
Bonnie (English)
Katie (English)
Millie (English)
Naomi (English-Hebrew)
Diane (English)
Máire (Irish)
Eibhlín (Irish)
Aoife (Irish)
Caoimhe (Irish)
Siobhán (Irish)
Saoirse (Irish)
Niamh (Irish)
Georgina (English)
Aimee (English)
Hollie (English)
Justine (English)
Holly (English)
Francine (English)
Mollie (English)
Molly (English)
Charlotte (English)
Natalie (English)
Erin (English)
Chloe (English)
Emma (English)
Leanne (English)

Unisex Names (both male and female)
Meredith (English), which is of Welsh origin.
Laurie (English)
Last edited by Multiturquoise on 2014-06-24, 16:34, edited 14 times in total.
native: (tr)
advanced: (en) (el)
intermediate: (fr) (ka)
focus: (de) (sl) (hr)

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby linguoboy » 2014-02-04, 20:46

Eibhlín wrote:Siobhan (Irish)

Siobhán (unless you're from Ulster).
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
samarqand
Posts:169
Joined:2013-11-04, 1:24
Real Name:Jess
Gender:female
Location:Adelaide
Country:AUAustralia (Australia)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby samarqand » 2014-02-12, 3:55

Some of my favourite names are below:

MALE
Andrew
Ayrton
Brendan
Daniel
Harun (Persian, Arabic)
Hasan (Arabic, Turkish)
Jacob
Jahon (Uzbek form of the Persian Jahan)
James
Kieran (anglicised form of the Irish Ciaran)
Matthew
Rowan

FEMALE
Adele
Amira (Arabic)
Andrea
Charlotte
Nadia (Arabic)
Rose
Sahar (Arabic, Persian)
Sienna
Sofia (Italian)
Vienna
Yasmin/Yasmine (Arabic, Persian)
Yolande (French form of the Spanish Yolanda)
Zahra (Arabic, Persian)
.............Fluent in: Australian English (en-au)
.............Learning: Turkish (tr)
.......Knowledge of: German (de), Uzbek (uz), Hindi (hi)
.......Fascinated by: Arabic (ar), Persian (fa), Russian (ru), Spanish (es), Turkic languages (Uyghur (ug),Kyrgyz (ky) etc)

User avatar
Prowler
Posts:1961
Joined:2013-07-19, 5:09
Gender:male
Country:PTPortugal (Portugal)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Prowler » 2014-02-18, 8:37

Okay, I'm gonna try list some given names I like:

Josef/Joseph (German/English)
Reinhard (German)
Siegfried (German)
Wolfgang (German)
Luuk (Dutch)
Donatello (Italian)
Park (Korean)
Naoko (Japanese)
Sakura (Japanese)
Kyoko (Japanese)
Rei (Japanese)
Catherine (English)
Caroline (English)
Thorsten (Scandinavian)
Sven (Scandinavian)
Raquel (Portuguese)
João (Portuguese)

Varislintu
Posts:15429
Joined:2004-02-09, 13:32
Country:VUVanuatu (Vanuatu)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Varislintu » 2014-04-06, 8:36

Oh, haha, I just learned what the Finnish nickname for the given name Muhammed is: Muhis. :D

(Of course there must be others, I just haven't heard them. I'm out of the loop.)

User avatar
languagepotato
Posts:479
Joined:2013-01-22, 7:17
Gender:male
Country:NLThe Netherlands (Nederland)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby languagepotato » 2014-05-23, 12:51

from the ones present in arabic, i'll put the meaning in parenthesis
Jenna (garden/paradise)
Jasmine (jasmine)
Lina (young palm tree)
Nora (light)
Sarah (princess, also: wife of Abraham/Ibrahim)
Adam (adam)
Amal (hope)
Younes (jonah)
Yassine*
Amin (faithful/trustworthy)
Aminah (feminine form of Amin)

not present in arabic as far as i know
from japanese
Sakura (cherry blossom)

from dutch
Roos (rose)
Bloem (flower)
Madelief (daisy)
Lieve (short for Godelieve which i think means God-loving, but i'm not sure)

from english
Daisy


not sure wherefrom:
Emma*


* no idea what it means
Last edited by languagepotato on 2014-05-27, 12:25, edited 3 times in total.
native: (ar-MA) (nl)
very comfortable: (en-US)
somewhat comfortable: (de) (es) (af)
forgetting: (fr) (ar-arb)
touristy level: (ro) (sv)(ber)(pl)
someday hopefully: (ja) (sq) (cs) (tr) and many others

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-05-23, 17:22

Emma is Germanic and seems like it means "whole".
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-05-23, 17:53

languagepotato wrote:Yassine*
* no idea what it means

After looking around a little, I think maybe it comes from this.

User avatar
TeneReef
Posts:3074
Joined:2010-04-17, 23:22
Gender:male
Location:Kampor
Country:HRCroatia (Hrvatska)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby TeneReef » 2014-05-24, 1:57

I like Danica (common in the US and in Croatia).
विकृतिः एवम्‌ प्रकृति
learning in 2019: (no-nn)

onlyhuman

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby onlyhuman » 2014-05-27, 16:48

I like David very much.

User avatar
JuxtapositionQMan
Posts:679
Joined:2013-12-22, 18:14
Location:Denver
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby JuxtapositionQMan » 2014-05-27, 16:53

I'm not sure where it comes from, but I like "Xenaxis".
Well, that was a thing.
speak: [flag=]en[/flag][flag=]eo[/flag]
learning: [flag=]fr[/flag][flag=]de[/flag][flag=]ru[/flag][flag=]pt[/flag][flag=]es[/flag][flag=]ro[/flag][flag=]art-jbo[/flag]
hiatus: [flag=]fi[/flag][flag=]it[/flag][flag=]la[/flag][flag=]wa[/flag][flag=]sv[/flag][flag=]eu[/flag][flag=]zh.Hans[/flag][flag=]is[/flag]
want to learn: [flag=]fo[/flag][flag=]be[/flag][flag=]ko[/flag][flag=]he[/flag][flag=]sw[/flag][flag=]hi[/flag][flag=]tr[/flag][flag=]nl[/flag][flag=]cy[/flag][flag=]hu[/flag]

User avatar
rikenwa
Posts:11
Joined:2014-05-25, 12:24
Real Name:Li Xuanyu
Gender:male
Location:Changsha
Country:CNChina (中国)
Contact:

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby rikenwa » 2014-05-29, 14:09

I like these names(in Japanese).
亜里沙(arisa) 
瑠璃(ruri) 
紅葉(kureha) 
真冬(mafuyu) 
初夏(hatsuka) 
雪乃(yukino) 
鈴音(suzune)
苺(ichigo) 
詩織(shiori) 
胡桃(kurumi)
I think they are beautiful :)

User avatar
TeneReef
Posts:3074
Joined:2010-04-17, 23:22
Gender:male
Location:Kampor
Country:HRCroatia (Hrvatska)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby TeneReef » 2014-05-29, 14:31

They sound like spices. :wink: :para: :roll:
विकृतिः एवम्‌ प्रकृति
learning in 2019: (no-nn)

User avatar
Prowler
Posts:1961
Joined:2013-07-19, 5:09
Gender:male
Country:PTPortugal (Portugal)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Prowler » 2014-05-29, 18:55

TeneReef wrote:They sound like spices. :wink: :para: :roll:

Kurumi and Ichigo are fairly common names in Japan... or well, in anime, at least.

Varislintu
Posts:15429
Joined:2004-02-09, 13:32
Country:VUVanuatu (Vanuatu)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Varislintu » 2017-04-19, 15:46

It's not entirely the right topic for this, but...

I overheard (overread) a discussion on social media about a Finnish-American couple where the USian husband had one of those strange heritage names, let's say he was John Smith IV. The woman had taken his surname at marriage and was called Smith. But the weird thing was, his official last name in his Finnish passport was apparently 'Smith IV'. I mean, what the heck...?! :lol:

Anyway, I'm curious to know if in the USA the ordinal number would be considered an official part of the surname or was this some strange solution on the part of the Finnish officials to handle his name. :para:

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby linguoboy » 2017-04-19, 17:35

Most official forms here provide a separate box after the surname proper to indicate "Sr", "Jr", or an ordinal. It seems odd to me to treat it as a part of the surname but that may be the only way to record it in some databases.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
Aurinĭa
Forum Administrator
Posts:3909
Joined:2008-05-14, 21:18
Country:BEBelgium (België / Belgique)

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Aurinĭa » 2017-04-19, 18:56

Probably. I can't think of any way that could be recorded here, in databases, on forms,... other than treating it as part of the surname.
I didn't realise that number, Sr, or Jr was an actual part of the name; if I ever thought about it, I thought it was just something people added for convenience's sake, rather than an official part of the name.

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-04-19, 23:30

Varislintu wrote:It's not entirely the right topic for this, but...

I overheard (overread) a discussion on social media about a Finnish-American couple where the USian husband had one of those strange heritage names, let's say he was John Smith IV. The woman had taken his surname at marriage and was called Smith. But the weird thing was, his official last name in his Finnish passport was apparently 'Smith IV'. I mean, what the heck...?! :lol:

He must come from the famous Smith IV family. :silly:

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Your favourite names (in any language)

Postby Car » 2017-04-20, 15:34

Aurinĭa wrote:Probably. I can't think of any way that could be recorded here, in databases, on forms,... other than treating it as part of the surname.
I didn't realise that number, Sr, or Jr was an actual part of the name; if I ever thought about it, I thought it was just something people added for convenience's sake, rather than an official part of the name.

Same here, I think. It certainly isn't part of the given name, so where else should it go?
Yep, I didn't know that either.
Please correct my mistakes!


Return to “Culture”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests