I met a little girl today...

[Bathsheba]

I'm like Astrid and prefered to use names that reflect DH and my Irish, English, Swedish ancestry... it felt right.

Don't you have French ancestry LZ? That would make perfect sense to call your children French names.

[Junglemum]

I must hang around with a group of new age hippies using whatever name appeals to them!

People ask the heritage of my daughters names, but never really ask about my heritage iykwim? I do know a couple of people who like their kids names to reflect their ancestry, but mostly not.

I'm not dutch, (although being a non-indigenous Australian with a very mixed background i might be ) my second daughter has a dutch name.

[Jellyfish]

I don't have a problem with it but I would be wary of disrespecting the culture I was using the name of. I would want to research and understand the meaning, history, significance etc and if I couldn't get a clear feeling about it would not use it. I would never want to seem like I was using a name without understanding it, "stealing" it without disregard type thing. I don't know if I'm explaining what I mean well but yeah.

[Lenny]

Just out of interest LZ - how do you pronounce Priya? I had a Sri Lankan colleague named Priyan. Is it sort of the same pronunciation?

I guess as a parent you need to chose a name that seems right to you, and right for your child. I think anything goes myself, as long as you love it and it is right for your child.

BTW - people mocked you rhyb? Really? That's awful.

[Glamourcide]

I don't have a problem with it but I would be wary of disrespecting the culture I was using the name of. I would want to research and understand the meaning, history, significance etc and if I couldn't get a clear feeling about it would not use it. I would never want to seem like I was using a name without understanding it, "stealing" it without disregard type thing. I don't know if I'm explaining what I mean well but yeah.

No, makes perfect sense to me, I feel the same. I'd only give my kids 'anglo' names because DH and I are through-and-through Anglo-Saxon and we would feel as though we were being disrespectful if we were to use names from other cultures without *really* knowing what we were doing. I've heard some names from different ethnic groups that sound beautiful, flow really well and are just 'pretty', but I wouldn't feel comfortable using them for my own children because as others have said, it kind of puts an image in your head of what the child would/should look like and might be a bit odd with an Irish name (our surname)!

[Cassius2]

we used to get a few comments about DDs name. it is arabic in origin and our area where we used to live had a high proportion of people with middle-eastern backgrounds. i think they were suprised to find an italian and his dutch/indonesian wife with a name for a child like that LOL! but when we told them how beautiful the name was it was allll good lol!

DH and I have a hard time with names as i am not fond of italian names and he is not fond of dutch names...so we have to go searching elsewhere lol.

[Astrid]

I don't have a problem with it but I would be wary of disrespecting the culture I was using the name of. I would want to research and understand the meaning, history, significance etc and if I couldn't get a clear feeling about it would not use it. I would never want to seem like I was using a name without understanding it, "stealing" it without disregard type thing. I don't know if I'm explaining what I mean well but yeah.

I think that is part of the reason why I am not comfortable using names of other cultures. You have explained it well.

[Nelle]

I can understand that naming a child is cultural. Still for me, if a name from a different culture had meaning for me, then I wouldn't mind using it. The most important thing for us with names is the meaning, we like to name children and one day be able to tell them 'this is why you have this name'. So it's a given that I'd understand the meaning of the name, or the name would have meaning (for example, if I wasn't sure what Sven meant, but some meaningful person or place was called Sven ).