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HelpRe: Middle name question about appropriation
in reply to a message by PrincessZ
The big issue I take with using foreign names is that there is almost zero percent chance it is actually that name. There is almost no chance that the name in question miraculously uses only sounds that exist in your native language and that the accent is right too.
To me a foreign name I like is Kahina. Or rather I love it the way it looks to me. If I named my daughter Kahina it wouldn't be a Berber name meaning fortuneteller it'd be a nice sounding invented name, inspired by the Berber one but at this point pretty far removed.
The only reasons to give your kid the exact actual name from culture X and say stuff like "this is an X name meaning y" are: 1) you're part of that culture and you know what you're doing, 2) you're raising your kid within culture X.
The special third reason is when that culture made a concentrated effort to have an impact on your own culture. So, yeah, it is 100% okay for Polish kids to be named "Jessica" (a horrible mush-up of Polish and English pronunciation rules) because if Anglo culture didn't want that to happen they shouldn't have flooded our media with their content.
Oh, and there's a special place in hell for people who not only pick a foreign name but also one that violates their native tongue's pronunciation rules who then go around telling people "actually 'bju' is pronounced 'z'". Atrocious. Just spell it with a z then.
Tl;dr I think that if you like a name the way you say it there should be little to stop you from using it. Just face the facts and admit you've picked a weird name not a foreign one.
https://www.behindthename.com/pnl/109883
To me a foreign name I like is Kahina. Or rather I love it the way it looks to me. If I named my daughter Kahina it wouldn't be a Berber name meaning fortuneteller it'd be a nice sounding invented name, inspired by the Berber one but at this point pretty far removed.
The only reasons to give your kid the exact actual name from culture X and say stuff like "this is an X name meaning y" are: 1) you're part of that culture and you know what you're doing, 2) you're raising your kid within culture X.
The special third reason is when that culture made a concentrated effort to have an impact on your own culture. So, yeah, it is 100% okay for Polish kids to be named "Jessica" (a horrible mush-up of Polish and English pronunciation rules) because if Anglo culture didn't want that to happen they shouldn't have flooded our media with their content.
Oh, and there's a special place in hell for people who not only pick a foreign name but also one that violates their native tongue's pronunciation rules who then go around telling people "actually 'bju' is pronounced 'z'". Atrocious. Just spell it with a z then.
Tl;dr I think that if you like a name the way you say it there should be little to stop you from using it. Just face the facts and admit you've picked a weird name not a foreign one.
https://www.behindthename.com/pnl/109883
This message was edited 11/3/2020, 1:48 AM
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