Stephen wrote:

>> (b) names "imported" from 
>> other languages (e.g. "Etienne") 
> 
> That is something that does not happen very much in the UK. Most "foreign" names
> are anglicised except those from the subcontinent or Islamic names where it is
> obvious that the people are not natives. I have met a few Africans with names
> like "Blessed" or "Joyful" which always raises a smile.

The company I work for employes a lady named Joy. She recently gave 
birth to a baby girl named Hope. *groans*

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:34:48 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>Stephen wrote:
>
>>> (b) names "imported" from 
>>> other languages (e.g. "Etienne") 
>> 
>> That is something that does not happen very much in the UK. Most "foreign" names
>> are anglicised except those from the subcontinent or Islamic names where it is
>> obvious that the people are not natives. I have met a few Africans with names
>> like "Blessed" or "Joyful" which always raises a smile.
>
>The company I work for employes a lady named Joy. She recently gave 
>birth to a baby girl named Hope. *groans*

Neither name is uncommon nor is Charity, or at least they were in the not to
distant past.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> The company I work for employes a lady named Joy. She recently gave 
>> birth to a baby girl named Hope. *groans*
> 
> Neither name is uncommon nor is Charity, or at least they were in the not to
> distant past.

Brings a whole new meaning to "full of hope", eh? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:50:06 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>>> The company I work for employes a lady named Joy. She recently gave 
>>> birth to a baby girl named Hope. *groans*
>> 
>> Neither name is uncommon nor is Charity, or at least they were in the not to
>> distant past.
>
>Brings a whole new meaning to "full of hope", eh? ;-)

Or "no Joy" ;)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> like "Blessed" or "Joyful" which always raises a smile.

I met a chinese woman who named her daughter "May", which is the word for 
"rose" in mandarin. Or something like that. In any case, a very clever 
bilingual pun.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:58:36 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

>Stephen wrote:
>> like "Blessed" or "Joyful" which always raises a smile.
>
>I met a chinese woman who named her daughter "May", which is the word for 
>"rose" in mandarin. Or something like that. In any case, a very clever 
>bilingual pun.

Yes very clever.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

I'm suprised no one posted http://xkcd.com/327/ yet ;)

Post a reply to this message

On 4-9-2009 0:45, Darren New wrote:
>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6128905/Germany-angered-over-legal-ruling-to-allow-Islamist-to-name-son-Jihad.html

> 
> 
> Can any germans here explain why the government would give a crap about 
> what the kid is named?

The Netherlands have sort of the same rules. Including following the 
rules in the country of origin of the parents.

There is a debate here about the Moroccan rules. They only accept Arabic 
names (not even traditional names from non-arabic endemic tribes to 
suppress local culture). Moroccan parents get a list of names acceptable 
by the Moroccan government to choose from from the Dutch civil servants, 
even if they have the Dutch nationality. The problem is that if you have 
the Moroccan nationality you can't get rid of it. All Dutch citizens 
with a Moroccan ancestry have a double nationality. Also their children 
become Moroccan citizens if they want to or not. Taken all together it 
means that for generation to come, the naming of a lot of Dutch people 
is restricted by Morocco. Some people here can get very upset by such 
things. BTW if you think it is not a big deal, not following this rule 
will make it impossible for the child ever to enter Morocco and possibly 
even the parent may face prosecution if the enter the country.

About our own rules and conventions, they got more relaxed. It used to 
be that only names that were already in use were allowed. A friend of 
mine was named Jur, which is sort of an abbreviation of Jurriaan. His 
parents had to prove that this name was in use before it was accepted by 
our government. (Which incidently shows that those that complain about 
the Moroccan government have not so good a memory). These rules were 
sort of circumvented later if the parents wanted to be 'unique' by taken 
names from other countries. So we have a lot of 'Bjorn's and 'Kjelt's 
and other scandinavian names, but also more extreme ones, starting from 
about the eighties.

Now it is almost completely free, quite a lot of people have ridiculous 
names and even the traditional ones are seldom spelt they way you would 
expect.

Male/female: I have two nieces Robin and Charlie, both female to 
everyone's surprise, both names are boy names here. I assume that if 
they had a brother it would be called Alan or something like that. I do 
have a cousin with that name, perfectly English name of course, except 
that it is extremely uncommon here. Very common, however, is 'Ellen' 
which is a girls only name that happens to be pronounced exactly the same.

Post a reply to this message

BTW coincidentally just saw this video about differences in names between 
USA and Germany:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyA9-tkDBSg

This is a very nice show in general.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>> like "Blessed" or "Joyful" which always raises a smile.
> 
> I met a chinese woman who named her daughter "May", which is the word for
> "rose" in mandarin. Or something like that. In any case, a very clever
> bilingual pun.

http://bash.org/?879548

Post a reply to this message