I recently went through my running list of possible names for our second child – to be born in September – with my husband. I’m sad to report it didn’t go very well – although I was not surprised. He didn’t really like most of them. So we’re kind of back to to square one.
For some – especially within the Latino population, naming their child might not be a very difficult task for they have no problem choosing the name of someone in the family, their father or mother, or another relative whom they want to honor or as a kind of tradition passed on from generation to generation. Like my husband, for example. He carries his father’s name as so does his son from his first marriage. I respect this decision, but I don’t agree with it. Even though I absolutely L-O-V-E my name (I’m not named after anybody and no one else in my family has my name), I just can’t fathom having two Roxanas in the house. Not only is it confusing, but I feel like it kind of robs the new member of the family a bit of their own identity.
Then, there’s the matter of how much I want the name to reflect our culture or how ethnic the name should be. I remember when I was pregnant with Vanessa and while I was visiting my family in Perú, my cousin showed me her little book of baby names and as I was going through it, I found several different ones in Quechua – the language spoken by the indigenous people of my country and other South American countries. Knowing it would annoy my mother – who prefers more Spaniard names – I chose one and I couldn’t contain my laughter when I announced it: URPI, which means dove in Quechua! ¿Qué cosa? asked my mother in desbelief. ¡Estás loca!
I was just kidding, of course, but it got me thinking about the other dilemma I have in choosing a name for my child. Although I know I’d like to find a a name that reflects our heritage – a Latino name – more than anything else it has to be one that can be easily pronounced by English-speaking people. In other words, I would hate to choose the kind of name that would be so difficult for English-only speakers that it would end up being butchered.
Coincidentally, at one of my recent prenatal appointments, I met an American doctor married to a Peruvian man from Cuzco who had named her daughter Quilla, Quechua for Moon. I immediately asked her if others here in the States were able to pronounce her name and she laughed knowingly.
As I was dwelling on my possible list of names recently, I came across the top 10 Hispanic names of the last five years according to the Social Security Administration. Some didn’t surprise me, others I hadn’t even thought about.
Check out the names for niñas:
1. María (my mom, her sisters and my sister’s middle names)
2. Sofía (my brother’s daughter’s name)
3. Isabel (my aunt’s and sister-in-law’s daughter’s name)
4. Adriana
5. Daniela
6 .Valeria
7. Ángela
8. Mariana
9. Juliana
10. Liliana
I like Daniela, Valeria and Ángela (they pretty much sound the same both in English and Spanish), but I truly like Juliana. My husband doesn’t like any of them. And, what’s worse, everyone in my family hates Juliana because it reminds them of some song that goes something like: “Juliana qué mala eres, qué mala eres Juliana.” Go figure.
Here are the top ten names for niños:
1. José
2. Ángel
3. Juan
4. Diego
5. Carlos
6. Jesús
7. Xavier
8. Antonio
9. Miguel
10. Alejandro
I was cracking up when I saw this list. The first two names, José Angel, are my husband’s and his father’s names. I like Diego, but it kind of bothers me that it is now so easily associated with Nickelodeon’s Dora the explorer. I like Miguel – my father’s name – but I know it’ll be shortened to Mike or mispronounced. The u is silent (that’s the best way I can explain it), but most English-only speakers don’t understand that, so they actually pronounce it. This was a non-issue in Miami, but now that we live in Denver, things are totally different. A lot of people don’t really care if their name is mispronounced, but then, why even have a name. This is one of my pet peeves. What can I say?
In case you’re wondering what some of the rejected names were, here’s a sample: Katalina, Stella and Carolina for a girl and Ignacio, Javier and Gianmarco for a boy. Good thing I wasn’t really in love with any of them, but the best part is that we will actually find out later on today what we’re having in September. So choosing should get just a tiny bit easier! I’ll keep you posted…
Names are hard… We struggled a lot w/ names, especially since we were coming up w/ 3 names at once. One of the big things we considered was that we wanted whatever name we picked to be pronounced the same in both languages. For instance we didn’t want my family calling a child Miguel and the English speaking part of the family calling that child Micheal. Or even different pronounciations of the same name “David” in English vs ” David” (Da-veed) in Spanish. We’re also anti nick name.
One of my favorite girl names is Alejandra but my wife (English speaking only) can’t pronounce it… thus it was immediately crossed off our list. As for your Katalina, I love that name. My cousin from Colombia is named Catalina and she moved to attend college at BYU. Needless to say, the folks in Utah had a terrible time pronouncing her name and she ended up going by “Cat”.
Good luck!
Steph’s last blog post..12 & 18 month check ups
Steph:
Alexandra is my middle name and I love it and all its variations. Unfortunately, it has already been taken by other members of the family…
Congractulations on the new baby, finding a name is hard. My nephew did not have a new until he was like two months old since my sister couldn’t decided how to name him.
I love Katalina but Americas pronuance it more like Caralina, which really bother me. I was trhilled to know you like my name, but remember are going to pronounce it Yuliana. Have you tought about Lucia? It can’t be shorten and it is the same in English and Spanish
Good Luck in your search
I love my unusual, hard-to-pronounce-by-English-speakers name, so I’m not much help! My husband and I found that when looking at boys’ names there were a lot more we liked than with the girls’. (In fact, it sort of worries me that I have a boys’ name I’d LOVE to use…I want to say we’re “done” at 3 kids, but…) And I’m with you on the not liking the named-after-so-and-so thing…I do think it can rob a little bit from identity. Good luck with this- whatever name you choose, in a year, you won’t be able to imagine your little one as any other name!
Violeta’s last blog post..Best Children’s Book. Ever.
How about:
If it’s a girl:
Contessa !!!!!!!!
It the name of royality!
Nick name: Tess or Tessa
Of course my favorite name of all time is:
CIRENA JAIN !
“CJ”
I hear you!! with my two boys we had the same problem, we wanted a name that can be pronounce in our two languages and it’s not easy. Our other problem is that we add two last names, the way we do in Latin America and people here in USA have a very hard time understanding this. So frustrating when they think the first last name is a middle name but I guess we just need to live with that,and explain every time when people ask.
Silvia’s last blog post..Salsa de Aguacate/Avocado Salsa
Silvia,
I didn’t even get into the two last names thing because that would’ve taken the whole post! I didn’t take my husband’s last name when we got married, so our daughter has both her father’s last name and mine, the way we do it in Latin America. To avoid the issue of my husband’s last name being confused for Vanessa’s middle name, I used a hyphen. So far, we’ve been okay…
Hi Roxana, I didn’t change my last name when I married my husband either (and that’s another story too, you have no idea how many faces of What!! I get) and I use a hyphen for the last names on my children too! they even have middle name and still some people think that my last name is their first last name, go figure!!
Silvia’s last blog post..Nuevos sabores/New flavors
Hi, we had the same type of problem. We had to deal with the Latino side, the Russian side and the American side. It was crazy, at the end we just decided on a name that was pronounceable in all languages, but not a specific culture.
You know, once you find the name and the baby is born, it will be the perfect name even if it’s a Loa name:)
marina k. villatoro’s last blog post..Foodies Delights – Gallo Pinto – Costa Rica’s Staple Food
We went thru the same thought process when choosing our daughter’s name. When we chose Camila we totally thought it would be easy to pronounce in both English and Spanish, maybe the writing of it would differ a bit with double Ls, a K instead of the C, etc.
Turned out that it’s not as easy on English speakers as most of the time she get called “Camilia”…oh well…as long as it’s pronounced with love then all’s good
So, Roxana, boy? girl??
I am more into the good ol fashion Latino names mixed with unusual middle names. My husband and I have a deal, I pick the first name and he picks the middle name. So far, it has worked and I love my children’s names. I have three boys and their names are: Joaquin Mar, Lucas Eloy and Santiago Aristides. I thought the Aristides was a bit much, but my husband’s grandfather had just passed away when he was born and he wanted to honor him and it does go with Santi’s personality, very strong! I live in Panama, so I don’t think pronounciation will be a problem but I do live in a very bilingual environment. If I ever have a girl, I love the name Ema Sofia. Roxanna….don’t keep us waiting!!!!
Reynita!!! I’m so glad you left a comment!!! I love all of your boys name, but you know why I can’t use Joaquin, ha, ha!!!
You might not remember – although I’m pretty sure I told you – but before Vanessa was born, and because I was convinced I was having a boy (something about mother’s instinct, NOT!) I had chosen Santiago Miguel as his name…so you know I love that name!
I promise I’ll let everyone know what I’m having soon…
This is why my daughter has three names: Lucia (aunt who helped raise me) Violeta (very Chilean name) Amanda (my maternal grandmother and my middle name as well.) My family in Chile calls her Violeta as I did but my husband calls her Lucia and now that she is 2 1/2 I don’t want her to be confused. Since our last name is in English and very common, I had to find a first name that was unmistakably in Spanish but not so hard to pronounce so I couldn’t use my mom’s name Viviane or my grandmother Sylvia. Feel free to borrow Lucia if you like it, it’s not like there are tons
Florencia’s last blog post..Speech explosion!
Well, I didn’t really think much about Spanish names when I was having my children, but I’ve always been an Anglophile, so they have kinda British names. Luckily, everyone knows Penelope Cruz is a Spaniard so….
Gaspar is a good Latin name, but I hate to hear English-only speakers butcher it, so it’s Jasper to them.
I think you should go with a name you absolutely love. And if you and your husband can’t agree, well then the baby can end up with all the names you both love and you can each call the baby what you want.
That’s how we ended up with a boy with three names and I call him one and Daddy calls him another. And depending on the social context he is either Gaspar or Jasper or Charley. hee hee.
Buena suerte!!
Congrats! That was our criteria too – had to be pronouncable to speakers of English and Spanish. Good luck, I know you’ll find something you both really like.
livesimplylovestrongly’s last blog post..Making Cleaning Easy
I really believe most Americans know that Miguel is pronounced without the “u.” And “Mig” is a cute nickname. That’s my vote for a boy’s name.
Laurie’s last blog post..Burgers , Bananas, or Broccoli?
Laurie,
You need to come to Denver… I was surprised… I never thought Miguel could be mispronounced by so many people….
We’re going through the same thing trying to find a name pronounced in English and Spanish in the same way. Our first daughter, Alexia, is mispronounced and mispelled in both languages so I guess it didn’t work out with her. People call her Alexis most of the time and can’t figure out whether to spell her nickname, Lexi, as Lexie, Lexy or how we spell it, Lexi.
If we ever have a boy it will be probably named Joaquin, despite the fact that no one in my English only speaking family will ever spell or say it right… But since we are planning to have another girl in July we are trying to find something we can agree on. My husband suggests names like Gloria which I can’t stand. And I like names like Jordan but don’t want her to be called Hordan by his family… I like lots of hispanic names like Marisol, or Cecilia, but don’t want the name automatically shortened to Mari or Ceci… We have considered Lucia like someone mentioned above- but I don’t want Lexi and Lucy. I even considered Roxana but don’t want Lexi and Roxy. So we are still undecided and considernig Solana (which everyone seems to want to shorten) or Naomi which really isn’t a hispanic name unless we change it to Noemi. Good luck on this big decision! The poor kids are stuck with it for life, lol!
You essentially tend not to demand an school expenses, you would need talent and instruction. In Rodeo I had mates who barley designed it with the aid of High Your education and some others who MBA’s. Pro sports usually do not treatment far too substantially about training, they treatment how beneficial you will be for the sport.
I was recommended tҺis bblog by eans of mү cousin. I’m not sure whether thiѕ post іѕ written vvia hіm aѕ noЬody else know ssuch distinctive approⲭimately my difficulty.
You’re incredible! Thank уߋu!