Not my nephew exactly, but my cousin’s baby; she and her husband asked me to pick out an English first name for their son (who will arrive in mid-October up in Nor Cal).
So! I need as many suggestions as possible.
Limitations: name must be easy for Mandarin speakers to pronounce, as the baby’s mom, dad, and paternal grandparents do not speak English. Therefore it should not end with a consonant, and if possible, it should not have F, L, R, or V sounds. (worst possible name I can think of: Roland)
My mother impressed upon me the importance of picking out an auspicious name, with strong, prosperous connotations. So the name’s meaning should have something to do with wealth, intelligence, strength, good luck, etc.
Woohoo I’m excited!
Erik and I had fun thinking about this. I actually think Ralph would be worse than Roland.
There aren’t many English boys’ names that end in vowels, are there? Erik came up with the -y names: Bobby, Danny, Tommy, Tony, etc. There are Mandarin words (and names) that end in consonants too, no?
Anyway, these were my thoughts:
Gene
Sean or Shane (sounds like xian?)
Tyson, Ty for short
I’ll tell you if I think of any more.
Comment by lisa — September 16, 2008 @ 1:47 pm |
Sean is nice, as is Tyson. I’ll add it to the list!
Yeah, there are names that end in consonants, but I think what my mother probably meant by “no consonants” were probably names like Ralph and Roland. So I proposed Alton, which she liked, despite the L and the N.
Here be the list so far:
Eli or Ely
Tycho
Aidan
Theo
Niko
Lots of Greek roots there, it looks like
. Please do add more if you think of any. Oh, and btw, the baby is going to be born up in your area–San Jose!
Comment by apricot — September 16, 2008 @ 5:18 pm |
What about:
Isaac
Patrick
… yeah, that’s all I’ve got. I like Aidan and Sean too.
Babies are so cute!! Especially when they belong to someone else
Comment by Lindy — September 18, 2008 @ 6:08 am |
Ooh, I like these Greeky names. Very sexy, and so much more interesting than standard-issue names like Christopher and Michael.
I recently met a woman named Tyche, and thought her name was great, though of course that’s useless to us here. ;b
Comment by lisa — September 18, 2008 @ 5:21 pm |