Foreign language names...

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

So, this came up in the confirmation name discussion... did anyone, in the course of taking a foreign language in school, ever have to pick a name in that language to use for class?

I started taking Spanish in the eighth grade, and we had to pick the name that was a translation of our name. My name is Bethany, which doesn't have a widely-used translation (I didn't find out about Bethania until this year), so I was supposed to pick something that started with a B. The only two my book had to offer were Bárbara and Beatriz, neither of which I liked, so I went on line and found Bella. I assumed that it was pronounced like it is in English, but I told my teacher the name and she was like, "Oh, BEH-ya". I thought it was pretty ugly, but she'd already written it down and I was too timid to tell her I didn't want to be saddled with something so fugly.

In high school, though, I changed it to Bianca, which is actually Italian and not even Spanish, but my Spanish II teacher didn't care. My Spanish III teacher alternated between calling me Bianca and Blanca, but other than that it was Bianca. I'm thinking that colleges don't use Spanish names, but if I get to pick one next semester, I'm totally going for Lola. If it has to start with a B, though, it will probably be Blanca.

Anyway, anyone else have tales of foreign language names?

Comments

[babyisinme.livejournal.com]

I was Juliette in French. That's all :o)

[luxury-bus.livejournal.com]

For German I through German IV, I was called "Ruth," which was given to me by my Level I teacher -- "You like like a Ruth to me!" -- and ended up sticking with all of the other teachers at the different levels. The way it's pronounced, though, is like saying "root"... not especially attractive.

Oddly enough though, "Ruth" is one of my top girl names. =]

[politicking.livejournal.com]

Spanish I-III i was Gabriella/Gaby.

[politicking.livejournal.com]

i just remembered, two of my friends chose the names Luz (real name Dee) & Queso (real name Justin) LOL

[nothingbuthp.livejournal.com]

I'm taking French, and I go by Madeleine (my name is Meghan).

[americandiva.livejournal.com]

In Spanish class (in junior high) I was Ester which I hated. My name is Shanna so its not easily translated...so my teacher picked Ester for me. I have no idea why.

Spanish class in high school we just went by our real names

In Italian (college) I got to pick my name. At first I was Ana because of how close it is to Shanna....but that lasted 1 day until someone named Ana joined the class...So from then on I was Isabella which i thought was great.

[drunkontea.livejournal.com]

I took French in middle school and high school. The name I took was originally Sophie, but eventually I changed it to my real name, which is French to begin with: Jacqueline.

[nothingbuthp.livejournal.com]

I know a Sophie and a Jacqueline in my French class, too.

Saswati = Sophie and Kristen = Jacqueline.

[browncoatrebel.livejournal.com]

My Chinese teacher named us and gave us Chinese names that sound (vaguely) like our English names. My English name is Sara, and my Chinese name is Zhiruo. I think there's some inside joke there that goes over my American head because all the Chinese natives laugh when they hear my Chinese name. My teacher insists it's from a historical Chinese romance and martial arts novel, but my googling has only turned up some movie.

[museofmyself.livejournal.com]

I took French in middle/high school, and I always went by Nicole, pronounced NEE-cole. I think I chose it because my best friend was named Nicole. I don't know why I was so unimaginitive then; today I would choose something much lovelier! Perhaps Simone or Genevieve or Sandrine or Melissande... :)

[salenite222.livejournal.com]

I took German throughout highschool and my name was Veronica but we all pronounced it vey-(throaty r sound)ron-eeka. I hope that made some sense haha.

[zombulance.livejournal.com]

My name is Brandy and in Spanish in middle school my teacher called me Brandita (shortened to Dita) which I'm fairly sure she made up on the spot. In French we had to draw names from a hat and I got Jolie.

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah, it sounds like she just tacked a diminutive on to your name to make it sound more Spanish.

[tryyingtoevolve.livejournal.com]

I took Spanish (7 years) and French (1 year). I picked a few different ones:

French --> Marie; Antoinette (heh-heh-heh)
Spanish --> Alicia; Micaela

[http://users.livejournal.com/--1976---/]

I was "Rio" in Spanish sophomore year and every time I walked in class, my teacher would sing me that Duran Duran song. I loved it.

[ladydiddymus.livejournal.com]

heyyy my name is Bethany and I took Spanish in high school and I looove the name Bianca! bizarre.

[minga13.livejournal.com]

My name is Martyna. When I did French at school my French name was Martine, which is just the French version of my name (which is Polish).
These days if people call me Martine by accident I respond to it anyway as it's not that different from my name (mar-tee-nah [English pron] or mar-ten-nah [Polish pron] to mar-teen [French pron])

[forever-loved25.livejournal.com]

When I took spanish in high school, my name was Ana. It was the only decent name that was left. My real name is Amber. But in class we got to choose from a list and we had to go in order by last name, so I was last because my last name starts with a W. It's not too bad of name though.

[chibiaichan.livejournal.com]

I had Japanese for 3 years in high school (we went up to Japanese 6 but I wasn't allowed to start earlier... because of my special ed classes). My name was Ai, which means love =)

[istytehcrawk.livejournal.com]

In 7th grade French class, I was Jacqueline. In 8th grade Spanish, I was Adriana.

[monalyssasmile.livejournal.com]

For someone who loves names, I sadly didn't choose a name I loved in my 8th grade Spanish class because I was shy and didn't want anyone to call me anything but Alyssa, so I chose Elisa as my name. In 10th grade I took Spanish II and chose the name Isabella (ee-suh-bell-uh). If I chose one now I'd probably go with Luisa as I love that name or Ada even though they say it Ahh-duh instead of Ay-duh.

[nightskygalaxy.livejournal.com]

I never get to really change my name, haha. I'm Emily which immediately translated into Emilia for Spanish class. And now that I live in Italy, it once again translates to Emilia. Guess that's what I get for having a common name!

[rockstargrrrlie.livejournal.com]

I picked "Catalina" for Spanish because I liked the name and the character from Space Cases. LOL.

[stayback.livejournal.com]

I wish. That sounds fun.

I took Japanese for two years in high school and we didn't get to pick names. We just added -san to the end.

[kristinwitha-k.livejournal.com]

Same here; I took it for four in high school, and we just translated our names into their katakana equivalent and used that.

I think it would have been *fun*, but not necessarily any more practical.

[jeunelis.livejournal.com]

In my German class I was Ingrid as Frau said I looked like Ingrid Bergman.

:)

[thejoysofjess.livejournal.com]

I took Spanish and went by Margarita because I was in high school and that was awesome.

Then in Spanish 2, some girl from another class who had picked Margarita was in my class and she got pissed at me because her real name was Christina which translated easily so she lost Margarita and I got to keep it.

[yellowsummers.livejournal.com]

I was Lola one year, but mostly just Laurah pronounced the Spanish way. I was disappointed, because everyone else got some cool name.

Now I've got a Laura in my class with me who pronounces it LAO-ra all the time, so my teacher just calls me low-ra.

[in-the-starlite.livejournal.com]

I was Carolina (Cah-ro-LEE-nah) in Spanish 1 & 2.
Which is nothing close to my name, but we had a list to choose from, if I remember correctly.

[serenebean.livejournal.com]

I was Mercedes, Clara, and Carina in various Spanish classes. I loved getting to pick a name other than my own...Theresa goes directly to Teresa in Spanish. Kinda boring, and I hate spelling my name without the H.

[samaside.livejournal.com]

I was Mercedes, Yasmin, and Lucinda when I took Spanish in middle school and high school. It changed almost every year, lol. I kept Lucinda for two.

When I started college we didn't chose new names but we did start using "translations" of our names. I was in Japanese for a year and I was "SAH-MU" for Sam. The Kanji that a Japanese friend of mine gave me actually translate to "research warrior" which amuses me to no end. THen I went back to Spanish and had a British guy who pronounced my name "SAHM."

[scintillated.livejournal.com]

In 8th grade Spanish, I was Maria.

In 8th grade French, I was Claire Marie.

In 8th grade German, I was Heidi (though looking back, I should've picked Greta, ahah).

In high school Spanish, I was Gallina (since it was the closest translation to my name).

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

Gallina? Doesn't that mean "hen"?

[scintillated.livejournal.com]

Haha, yes. What I meant to say was that it was the closest thing that sounded like my name in Spanish. A lot of Jennifers answered to it, too. Sometimes I type waaay too fast for my own good! Sorry!

[dustkitty.livejournal.com]

I was insanely jealous of all my friends who took Spanish and French in high school--I took German, and our teacher didn't *do* the whole language-name thing. However, he did use German pronunciation rules on our own names, or, in my case, shortened it to a German variant. So I, Elizabeth, became Libby for the semester. I think the other major chance was Bryce--the teacher pronounced it a lot like Bruce, which drove Bryce crazy.

[kyo-o.livejournal.com]

In year 6 Latin I was Caia and when I first started Italian in year 8 I was Carlotta which I really liked but when we moved up a year, the new teacher didn't use our new names.

In Japanese I was Kyo but that's my middle name anyway (although it's officially spelt Kyo'o).

[nothingbuthp.livejournal.com]

I already posted mine, but I'll post people from my high school French class (that I remember) from this year and last year (French 1-2/3-4).

Meghan (me)= Madeleine (my teacher sometimes calls people by their normal name, but I'm ALWAYS Madeleine. Once she called me Melissa, which was weird.)
Saswati = Sophie
Kristen = Jacqueline
Alexandra = Elisabeth
Corie = Chantal
T.J. = Napoleon
Allyson = Alice
Kathryn = Genevieve
Lauren = Eve
Kael = Edmond
Koree = Vivienne
Meghan = Valerie
Sydnie = Claire
Alexas = Angelique-Kiki
Chelsea = Dorothee-Rose
Lauren = Lucie-Helene
Kate = Huit (like the #8--my teacher loves weird names)
Michael = Michel

[supermonkeyfics.livejournal.com]

I took Japanese for 3 years in high school & 1 year in college, but we just used the Japanese transliteration of our names (nee-KOH-ru instead of Nicole).

Last quarter I started Chinese, & the professor directed us to a Chinese name generator website that suggests names based on your English name, so that's what most of the class used. My Chinese friend helped me narrow down the suggestions so I wouldn't end up w/ something too odd. I picked NingShu. Not much like Nicole, but some of the closer matches sounded awkward to my friend, & I trust her judgment. *shrug* Works for me.

[supermonkeyfics.livejournal.com]

A few other people from my Chinese class:
Kathlyn = KaTeng
Jonathan = XiuJie
Amy = AiMei
Ray =RuiI
Emily = MingLi
Jennifer = JiaNing
Daniel = DaNing
Bryan = BaoRen

[eleanorgrace.livejournal.com]

Our teacher didn't do German names until our last year in high school. I picked Katja, but another girl thought it would be funny to be Eleonore, just to make things as difficult as possible. We sometimes went by the "German" names and usually our normal ones, so it was constantly confusing.

Also, Eleanor isn't remotely German. Germans can barely say it and they always look at me weird when I introduce myself, so I don't know why it was on our list.

[requiem-morrow.livejournal.com]

I was Ghislain (sp)

[thursdayx.livejournal.com]

in French class, I was Caroline.

[megumi-nagase.livejournal.com]

My real name is Eliana, but when i started to study Japanese i changed it to Megumi just because i like the sound of it. Now all my friends call me Megumi or Megu!

[waitingonsunday.livejournal.com]

I took four years of Spanish. The first two years, the teacher assigned us a name based on something similar to our first or middle name. (One Elizabeth in our class went by Isabella; the other, who was called Beth, was given the name Beta.) My name is Stephanie, so I got Stefanía.

My third and fourth year, the teacher let us pick, so I started going by Stefanía María.

My French teacher let us pick any name we wanted. I was in love with the name Sara at the time, so I chose it (pronounced more like sur-RAH).