... is hard!
UFM and I agree that we prefer a name which will be pronounced in a similar way by people who speak either language over a name which exists in both but is pronounced very differently. So Pierre, for example, would be fine, because English speakers know how to say it roughly in the French way, but Timothy would not, even though the very similar-looking Timothée exists in French.
We both like fairly classic names, especially for boys, but unfortunately many of them are ruled out by our first criterion. And there are an awful lot of boys' names where the French sounds or looks like a girl's name in English: Nicholas, Jean and Michael for example. Also, quite a lot of names which are just classic in French are posh classics in English - in UFM's family Charles and François were a plumber and an electrician, whereas in English they sound like aristocrats, which is not exactly the vibe that we're aiming for.
There are a lot of pitfalls to avoid too. I was never going to call my daughter Fanny, but UFM had to point out to me that Connor sounds a lot like connard and I only learned relatively recently that the first few letters of Fiona make a rude word in French. We met a little girl called Aliénor in the park the other day, and I thought her name was gorgeous until I realised that English-speaking kids would probably refer to her as "Extra-terrestrial".
Maybe everybody feels like this about their own children, but I'm also starting to think I am incredibly picky when it comes to names. There are some letters that I just don't like very much, like B and G, either because of the way they sound or how they look written down. Then there are the trends that make perfectly nice names sound annoying when you realise that in a class of children, they all sound a bit the same. For women my roughly my age in France this is the 3 syllables ending in IE trend represented by Virginie, Nathalie, Aurelie and Coralie , while in 2016 it seems to have been the letter L and ending in A - Léna, Lina, Lana, Luna, Lila, Lola and Lisa were all in the top 100 last year.
Finally, one really wants one's child's name to have a beautiful meaning or personal significance, all the while having no idea what kind of a person they will turn out to be and whether it will actually suit them.
I have been mulling all of the above over for months now. UFM thinks we should wait until after the next scan, when at least we'll know if we're having a boy or a girl and can rule out half the agonising!
UFM and I agree that we prefer a name which will be pronounced in a similar way by people who speak either language over a name which exists in both but is pronounced very differently. So Pierre, for example, would be fine, because English speakers know how to say it roughly in the French way, but Timothy would not, even though the very similar-looking Timothée exists in French.
We both like fairly classic names, especially for boys, but unfortunately many of them are ruled out by our first criterion. And there are an awful lot of boys' names where the French sounds or looks like a girl's name in English: Nicholas, Jean and Michael for example. Also, quite a lot of names which are just classic in French are posh classics in English - in UFM's family Charles and François were a plumber and an electrician, whereas in English they sound like aristocrats, which is not exactly the vibe that we're aiming for.
There are a lot of pitfalls to avoid too. I was never going to call my daughter Fanny, but UFM had to point out to me that Connor sounds a lot like connard and I only learned relatively recently that the first few letters of Fiona make a rude word in French. We met a little girl called Aliénor in the park the other day, and I thought her name was gorgeous until I realised that English-speaking kids would probably refer to her as "Extra-terrestrial".
Maybe everybody feels like this about their own children, but I'm also starting to think I am incredibly picky when it comes to names. There are some letters that I just don't like very much, like B and G, either because of the way they sound or how they look written down. Then there are the trends that make perfectly nice names sound annoying when you realise that in a class of children, they all sound a bit the same. For women my roughly my age in France this is the 3 syllables ending in IE trend represented by Virginie, Nathalie, Aurelie and Coralie , while in 2016 it seems to have been the letter L and ending in A - Léna, Lina, Lana, Luna, Lila, Lola and Lisa were all in the top 100 last year.
Finally, one really wants one's child's name to have a beautiful meaning or personal significance, all the while having no idea what kind of a person they will turn out to be and whether it will actually suit them.
I have been mulling all of the above over for months now. UFM thinks we should wait until after the next scan, when at least we'll know if we're having a boy or a girl and can rule out half the agonising!
We chose Littlest's name so long ago (before he was conceived) that I barely remember the process. But it was the only boy's name on our list. A one-name list. For girls I have a couple, but I'm with you on all these points---it's complicated! especially if you don't just want something that sounds nice, but something that has personal significance of some sort.
ReplyDeleteI hear you! We chose our boy name (it was my dad's name) long before I was pregnant. Girl was another story. My husband hated every single name. And he wanted nothing ending in "a". And then things would sound weird in one language or another. We wanted names grandparents on both sides could say (my mom can't even attempt anything sounding French - she still says my inlaws' names wrong). We finally did find a name we both liked (though no personal significance) only for the anatomy scan to confirm boy. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI found it much harder to brainstorm for boys (we didn't know the baby's gender until birth). I also wanted names to be easy to pronounce in French and English and I was paranoid about bad jokes in either language! (Good point about "Connor"!!)
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