I met a little girl today...

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

She was a pretty little girl. Dark blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin... name of Priya.

That took me a bit by surprise. I always thought of Priya as being, at the risk of offending, an Indian name. It's a pretty name and I have known some lovely young ladies named Priya. But they've all been Indian before today.

Thing is, it is a nice name. And if it were a more anglo-saxon name, I'd consider it for a child of mine.

Do I have a problem, only picking "white british" names for my children? Or do you consider it unusual to pick a name from outside your ethnic background too?

Just wondering what everyone thought. Given that DH rejects names for being "too French" he won't be open to Indian names anyway, but I'm more interested in what other people think atm.

[TeniBear]

I'm a little the same, with names that seem "set" into a certain nationality. For example, I think a lot of Japanese names are beautiful. Indian names flow so nicely. But I couldn't use any of them.

People would presume that the person is that nationality, too. If I heard the name Zhu, for example, I'd think at least one of his parents was of Chinese background, and would be surprised if he was a blonde, blue eyed boy with a white European background. Sven? That just makes me think Swedish, blonde, paper white skin... Can you imagine a little Indian boy named Sven?

Actually, reading that back, I suppose it's not so much the specific nationalities in my mind. It's more that the name wouldn't fit the "look" of the child.

[Nai]

Lots of Asian children are given anglo names (or change their names when they move here) and children from parents with different backgrounds often choose a name from one of the cultures over the other so I don't really see an issue with it to be honest. I'm sure in Sweden there are kids that don't look Swedish who are called Sven.

My girls both have French names but we are not French - DD1 actually looks Spanish. We were even looking for Thai middle names for DD2 as that's where she was conceived but in the end DD1 chose the middle name.

Plus so many people just make up names these days anyway so it's sometimes difficult to know if a name is from another culture or is one that has just been invented by the parents.

[Kazmar]

Anyhting goes these days BUT i still kind of see a name and think where its from. Etc both my girls names are French. Im part French so thats mostly why.

After calling Annabelle a French name I couldn't,not, call Lucy a French name haha

[Twin Sister]

I'm the same way. My husband suggested a few Japanese names for our baby-to-be and even though the names are really nice names, and I'd love them on a Japanese person, they just seemed very out of place on my non-Japanese baby. He then suggested some very Spanish names and again they seemed a wrong match. It's kind of like naming your kid fluffy or Fido, it's just not the right fit.

[luna moth]

An Aussie friend of mine has a little girl called Priya. (her dad is Indian)

It means "beloved"

[Astrid]

I only wanted to use names from a western European/English/Irish background. I also did not feel comfortable using names that were not really part of our ancestral history. Hard to kind of explain, as it was mostly a gut feeling about it.

[maz]

All of my boys have traditional German names due to my heritage

Nikolaus
Wilhelm
Mateauz

their middles names are after family members

Owen
Tomas
Joseph

but mini me's

Vyolett

was just one the boys picked and we agreed.
I like to stick to a 'theme' so to speak and if that theme is to stay eg with my tradional's then so be it.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Priya is pronounced pre-A (hard a, as in hard, rather than ay or ah). And is a beautiful name. Just out of place on a little white girl, IMO.

I am part French and part Egyptian (and probably a lot more if I looked into my family tree); DH has Scottish and Irish ancestry. I have named DS after family members, so he has very traditional English names. I think if we had more boys we would go down the same route as DH doesn't like anything different.

I suppose it maybe is influenced by the fact I have a Welsh name yet have nothing to do with Wales. Except for being able to do a good Welsh accent! People have a go that I can't spell my name, I point out it's my name and I can and anyway it's Welsh, so people then ask if I'm Welsh... nope. Can't even speak the language. Have spent fewer than 20 days in my whole life in the country, and it's really close to us.

DH has also ruled out Celtic names for our children, claiming that they're too hard to spell. But at least they'd have the background for it when people challenged them on it! Then again, a lot of people think that Lieb's real name is Liebling and I was told, whilst pg, not to call my child that in case he ever visits Germany (OK, strange bossy person posting on my pregnancy website) but also where I drew the inspiration for such a beautiful name. But now, when we visit Austria, his name is considered "very Jewish", whereas over here it's considered as English as George.

Funny thing, names. I suppose I'd avoid other cultures yes partly so it didn't seem I was being all imperialistic and stealing their names (we Brits stole most of our words and ideas from other places; a bungalow was considered a hovel and not somewhere to desire to live before we invaded India) but mostly because I didn't want my child to be put through the grief of "but your name is Indian and you're white", which can happen even with European names, even with a name from a country a mere 100 miles away!

[Pandora]

I don't think it's unusual, but dh does.

Names on my lists that got vetoed included

Anke
Illiana
Anupam
Kali
Jules
Omar
Louis-Francois. -- this is my favourite


Dh's cousin recently became a dad. He's Aussie and his wife is Of Israeli heritage - they named their little boy Akira

[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)!

[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.