And now it's on to a first name shortlist

[Cheesecake]

Damn, this ne thing is hard! And we're both very picky and judgemental when it comes to names. Plus DH came up with the brilliant idea of wanting a Jewish name (we're not Jewish but his maternal grandfather's family was before most of his generation within that family converted to Catholicism). I'm somewhere between atheist and agnostic but I love the current pope and DH is baptized Catholic, but more out of culture than religion and is an atheist.

Even looking at Jewish names makes me feel like a fraud. And I really can't find any names that I like on the Jewish lists that don't have some super religious meaning.
Plus, we need the name to work in all 3 languages.

Anyone have brilliant ideas on how to proceed???

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[VillainV]

You need it to work in Dutch, English, and Italian? Yikes. Good luck :-) Maybe something like Hannah (or a variation of spelling)? Wait, it is a girl right? Or am I imagining that?

[2curlydogs]

Define "jewish"?

Both our sons have names with Hebrew/Jewish/biblical origins.  But they're not, I don't know, overtly so?

I guess you could start here.

www.behindthename.com/names/usage/biblical
www.behindthename.com/names/usage/jewish
www.behindthename.com/names/usage/hebrew

I like that they list names in other languages when you click in to them (e.g. www.behindthename.com/name/adam).

[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 10:54:28 GMT -5 VillainV said:

You need it to work in Dutch, English, and Italian? Yikes. Good luck :-) Maybe something like Hannah (or a variation of spelling)? Wait, it is a girl right? Or am I imagining that?

Yep, those 3 languages, and we're team green... Ugh

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[VillainV]

Aug 15, 2013 11:18:25 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Aug 15, 2013 10:54:28 GMT -5 VillainV said:

You need it to work in Dutch, English, and Italian? Yikes. Good luck :-) Maybe something like Hannah (or a variation of spelling)? Wait, it is a girl right? Or am I imagining that?

Yep, those 3 languages, and we're team green... Ugh

Sent from my Xperia Z, please don't mind typos!

Ah.  Well, my intuition says "girl" :-)    I've always like Isaac for a boy, but not sure if that would work in Italian.

[bazinga]

Yikes! I don't have any suggestions to offer but that is quite a task!
We are having a hard time picking a girl's name and we don't even have a lot of criteria.

[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 11:00:23 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Define "jewish"?

Both our sons have names with Hebrew/Jewish/biblical origins.  But they're not, I don't know, overtly so?

I guess you could start here.

www.behindthename.com/names/usage/biblical
www.behindthename.com/names/usage/jewish
www.behindthename.com/names/usage/hebrew

I like that they list names in other languages when you click in to them (e.g. www.behindthename.com/name/adam).

I don't know how he'd want to define Jewish. I like behindthename.com, hadn't thought of using them to look up Jewish/Hebrew names. I guess I will.

Thing is that he'll throw in that he wants a Jewish name, but that he hasn't fpund anything nice yet and he's just not voming up with any even remotely acceptable suggestions.
The 2 names he's suggested so far have been either a boys name for whether it's boy or girl. Uhm. No. And one name that at least in NL sounds super super white trash, parents didn't finish high school and for your 3rd b-day you'll get your first tattoo (so that's an absolute, definite no as well.)

I have a few suggestions/names I like or love and his whole response.has been 'I don't know'. It's frustrating...


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[2curlydogs]

Aug 15, 2013 11:35:31 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Aug 15, 2013 11:00:23 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Define "jewish"?

Both our sons have names with Hebrew/Jewish/biblical origins.  But they're not, I don't know, overtly so?

I guess you could start here.

www.behindthename.com/names/usage/biblical
www.behindthename.com/names/usage/jewish
www.behindthename.com/names/usage/hebrew

I like that they list names in other languages when you click in to them (e.g. www.behindthename.com/name/adam).

I don't know how he'd want to define Jewish. I like behindthename.com, hadn't thought of using them to look up Jewish/Hebrew names. I guess I will.

Thing is that he'll throw in that he wants a Jewish name, but that he hasn't fpund anything nice yet and he's just not voming up with any even remotely acceptable suggestions.
The 2 names he's suggested so far have been either a boys name for whether it's boy or girl. Uhm. No. And one name that at least in NL sounds super super white trash, parents didn't finish high school and for your 3rd b-day you'll get your first tattoo (so that's an absolute, definite no as well.)

I have a few suggestions/names I like or love and his whole response.has been 'I don't know'. It's frustrating...


Sent from my Xperia Z, please don't mind typos!

Beh. That's frustrating.

I guess my question is... how Jewish do you want it to sound?

Cause there's a difference (at least in my mind) between, say, Ezekiel and Ethan.  Both have Hebrew origins but one sounds a lot more like "I picked this from the Bible" than the other.

[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 11:23:47 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Aug 15, 2013 11:18:25 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Yep, those 3 languages, and we're team green... Ugh

Sent from my Xperia Z, please don't mind typos!

Ah.  Well, my intuition says "girl" :-)    I've always like Isaac for a boy, but not sure if that would work in Italian.

The Italian version of Isaac is his mother's grandfather's name and will be one of yhe middle names if it's a boy.

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[VillainV]

Is David on your list? It's not "Italian" but it works in Spanish and a lot of other Romance languages, so you might be able to get away with it. Maybe Margaret/Marguerite or variation. Rachel/Raquel? Sarah? Daniel? Daniela?

I'm totally rattling off names that you hate, aren't I?

[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 11:21:03 GMT -5 sameoldash said:

what kinds of names do you like that don't necessarily fit within those guidelines? just to get an idea..

I'm having a hard time with boys names but I don't hate Elliott and Sebastian.
With girls I love kinda classic sounding names, Victoria, Elizabeth, Oriana, Katherine, Eleonora.

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[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 11:39:43 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Aug 15, 2013 11:35:31 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

I don't know how he'd want to define Jewish. I like behindthename.com, hadn't thought of using them to look up Jewish/Hebrew names. I guess I will.

Thing is that he'll throw in that he wants a Jewish name, but that he hasn't fpund anything nice yet and he's just not voming up with any even remotely acceptable suggestions.
The 2 names he's suggested so far have been either a boys name for whether it's boy or girl. Uhm. No. And one name that at least in NL sounds super super white trash, parents didn't finish high school and for your 3rd b-day you'll get your first tattoo (so that's an absolute, definite no as well.)

I have a few suggestions/names I like or love and his whole response.has been 'I don't know'. It's frustrating...


Sent from my Xperia Z, please don't mind typos!

Beh. That's frustrating.

I guess my question is... how Jewish do you want it to sound?

Cause there's a difference (at least in my mind) between, say, Ezekiel and Ethan.  Both have Hebrew origins but one sounds a lot more like "I picked this from the Bible" than the other.

I'd be a lot lot lot more inclined to Ethan than Ezekiel. Nothing too biblical for me, for sure...

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[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 11:43:19 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Is David on your list? It's not "Italian" but it works in Spanish and a lot of other Romance languages, so you might be able to get away with it. Maybe Margaret/Marguerite or variation. Rachel/Raquel? Sarah? Daniel? Daniela?

I'm totally rattling off names that you hate, aren't I?

Some of those are either close family members I don't want to name after, others have bad connotations and 1 is my own middle name which I don't want to do.
But thanks for trying I don't hate those, they just won't make good fits for us.

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[VillainV]

Cheesecake, no worries :-) I'm kind of impressed that I was able to come up with that many. I usually suck at names :-)

Which means I'll be asking for you help in a few months!!!

[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 11:54:11 GMT -5 sameoldash said:

Aug 15, 2013 11:43:25 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

I'm having a hard time with boys names but I don't hate Elliott and Sebastian.
With girls I love kinda classic sounding names, Victoria, Elizabeth, Oriana, Katherine, Eleonora.

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oh man, i really want you to use sebastian. i LOVE LOVE LOVE it. it was on our shortlist for a boy.

I
While I like Sebastian, maybe even love it, we definitely won't use it because of other people named that. But it is the style name I like.

@publius Have you guys figured it out now. I recall you saying that YH sudenly thought Florent was awesome (and while I think it's a beautiful name, I agree that it doesn't work in English. )

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[2curlydogs]

Aug 15, 2013 11:45:25 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Aug 15, 2013 11:39:43 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Beh. That's frustrating.

I guess my question is... how Jewish do you want it to sound?

Cause there's a difference (at least in my mind) between, say, Ezekiel and Ethan.  Both have Hebrew origins but one sounds a lot more like "I picked this from the Bible" than the other.

I'd be a lot lot lot more inclined to Ethan than Ezekiel. Nothing too biblical for me, for sure...

Sent from my Xperia Z, please don't mind typos!

Boys:
Abraham
Benjamin
Aaron
Jeremiah
Jonathan
Alexander
Caleb
Daniel
Ethan
Eli
Michael
Nathaniel
Noam
Seth
Samuel

Girls:
Ruth
Naomi
Phoebe
Sarah
Anna
Aliza
Carmel
Deborah
Miriam
Rachel
Claudia
Elizabeth
Eve
Julia
Eliora
Leah
Martha

ETA: I Have no idea if these would work in either language.

[pixiedust]

For "Jewish" names, you might actually need to stay away from Biblical names if you want the pronunciation to be the same in multiple languages...this has been the case for friends of mine that wanted this for English/Hebrew, or English/Spanish and English/French...not the same as what you're looking for, but Italian is a romance language. There might be some exceptions (like Sarah?), but definitely depends on the language.

You might want to consider "Jewish" names that are not from the Bible (well, Old Testament), like those you might find on "Jewish" or "Israeli" lists rather than "Bible." Depending on the direction, this would also not make it seem super Jewish. For example, names like Ariel, Shira, or Talia. I can't think of any boy names at the moment.

[Cheesecake]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. So far the only name on the lists that have been mentioned here that is acceptable to me is Elizabeth. The rest all either give a bad vibe because I know people with that name, or is someone I really don't want to think we used his/her name or I really do hate.

Ugh. I had whole lists and ideas going on Evernote and then DH throws this in. I might very well just veto jewish names when he comes home tonight, because this is starting to depress me. I've browsed through your lists and so many websites and now behind the name and I really, really can't find anything I would even remotely consider.

And cue in stupid damn hormones and I'm ready to cry about this.

[sporklemotion]

If it helps at all, many modern Israelis are moving away from traditional Jewish names, so anything could arguably be called Jewish as long as it's not Jesus Christopher or something like that.

How about Ilana/Elana/Iliana, etc.
Lila
Miranda/Randi
Natalie
Tal/Talia

Jonah
Noah
Alexander/Alessandro (not Jewish but fits others)
Ilan

[Cheesecake]

Aug 15, 2013 13:16:15 GMT -5 sporklemotion said:

If it helps at all, many modern Israelis are moving away from traditional Jewish names, so anything could arguably be called Jewish as long as it's not Jesus Christopher or something like that.

See, I don't think DH cares much about what Israelis do, more about it being a jewish name. And I am definitely not about to include whatever Israelis do into my considerations. The jewish thing, I'm not happy with having to work around, but at least it's because there's a family connection for him there, but there is absolutely no connection with Israel. Heck, they ceased being Jewish before Israel even existed...

But thanks for your suggestions!

I'm guessing that what makes this more difficult is the fact that I've got terrible, terrible horrible memories connected to a number of beautiful Jewish names (Ilan for instance). Bad memories as in if I ever run into those people again I can't promise I won't be sent to jail. I don't think I want that feeling associated with my baby :-)

I just want to go back to my lovely romantic, classic names that I love instead of starting from scratch. If I look up straight up Italian names there are a zillion I like, Classic/Romantic the same. Anything else I'm all meh...

[ilikedonuts]

I'm confused why he wants a Jewish name when he's not Jewish.... It would be one thing if that was basically the only real thing you needed to worry about, but with a ton of other "rules" that it needs to follow plus the fact that a ton of names don't work based on people you know (which I totally understand), I think something if going to have to give.

[VillainV]

Maybe you can pick more of a family name than a Jewish name? Does he know the names of any of his Jewish ancestors? If it doesn't work in all three languages then maybe you can use it (or a variation) as a middle name....like you said with Isaac (or variation) for a middle name if it's a boy.

[Cheesecake]

We're doing family based middle names, and we kinda wanted a unique to this child (in our immediate surroundings) first name.

Things are looking up though. I just had a total hormonal meltdown about a ton of shit that's going on and when I listed everything that.sucked I added in the name thing and he was all sweet and said it's not that important. So I guess we just went from it being a requirement to it being a suggestion/option.

I'm starting to think that maybe we should noth just bring a shortlist of 5 names we like or so to the hospital and then choose when we meet baby.

Being ultra hormonal and tired does not help the naming process.


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[snickers]

I don't have any suggestions, but naming is hard, without all of those guidelines. I hope you find something you love soon!