(no subject)

[lethe-cat.livejournal.com]

Friend of mine is looking for "race neutral" names. Names that, when you hear them, you don't think "Oh that probably a Chinese man's name", or "That's a white girl name".

I've really never thought of the racial aspect of names, so I don't really know how to help her.
She also wants names that "travel" well between culture (like, are easy pronounceable in multiple languages).


Help? ...Thoughts?

Comments

[depeche810.livejournal.com]

Anna is a name that I think is easily pronounced in many languages and isn't too conforming to a certain race/ethnicity.

[celebrate.livejournal.com]

We're a mixed race family, so that was important to my husband and me as well. Honestly, I think the best way to choose a "race neutral" name is to pick something that's in the top 50. If a name is popular, there will inevitably be babies from all different backgrounds with the name.

[lethe-cat.livejournal.com]

ohhh good idea :)

[morningapproach.livejournal.com]

"a white girl name.." meaning irish? Scottish? French? German? Canadian? American?

Shiobhan
Emmanuel
Emmett
Ethan
Everett

I have only ever spoken English, so I don't know about other languages.

[lethe-cat.livejournal.com]

""a white girl name.." meaning irish? Scottish? French? German? Canadian? American?"


Er, I was talking about race, not nationality. White usually denotes "Caucasian", right?

Thanks for your imput! I like Everett.

[hwar.livejournal.com]

The two most neutral names I can think of are Lucas and Nina. Anna and Michael are similar but maybe skew a little toward Caucasian.

[sal_amanda]

I think Anna might skew a little toward Caucasian, too, but actually Michael is a name that is across the board for all races. I've known a lot of different Michaels that were white, black, Asian, Native American... And it's a common enough name that has at least some version of it in many languages. That might be exactly what the OP is looking for.

[sal_amanda]

See my comment above about Michael. Very common boys' names like that or Joseph or John or Joshua or Andrew might fit the bill. As for girls, I work at a pretty diverse college and the most common girls' name I have for multiple races would be Brittany, though I'm starting to notice names like Alexis or Alexa, Kimberly, Stephanie, Briana, and Olivia are across the board with my student population, as well.

[ohhvelocitygirl.livejournal.com]

while I'm not sure what a "white girl name" is, anna seems to be in every culture. sophie/sophia/sofia also seems neutral.

[doxerssoldout.livejournal.com]

the only problem with joseph is that the J sound varies a lot in different alphabets. for example, the german J is pronounced like the english Y.

only mentioned it because i was going to suggest that joseph too until i tried pronouncing it in my head :) i think it's pretty race-neutral, so it would definitely work on that level.

[morningapproach.livejournal.com]

except that "chinese" is a nationality, and there is no such nationality as "white". I am not White, I am Austrian-Canadian.

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

I'm Caucasian. I'm Italian by nationality. My name is Desiree. When people hear it, they go, "Oh, are you French?".

I'm assuming the OP wants something that doesn't suggest race or ethnic tones of any sort.

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

Nina is Italian/Spanish/Mediterranean. Maybe even Mexican.

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

Sophia/Sophie is another Italian/Spanish name.

[adamantplatypus.livejournal.com]

Any names with themes will not be ethnic based. Like...florals: Lily. Rose.

Oooorrrr....Virtues? Faith. Hope. Joy?

[ohhvelocitygirl.livejournal.com]

there's a french variant? I'm pretty sure every name originated from somewhere, so I doubt you could ever find something completely neutral.

also, "Er, I was talking about race, not nationality. White usually denotes 'Caucasian', right?"

[sal_amanda]

Hmm, good point.

[sal_amanda]

Oh, and I just thought of some more. We have a small population of students from Africa and two of the girls we work with from that group are named Nancy and Grace.

And another boy name is Anthony. Yes, it's Italian in origin, but is heavily used by numerous races.

[morningapproach.livejournal.com]

I know quite a few south americans who are named Anna, same with Europeans.

[hwar.livejournal.com]

Behind the Name gives multiple usages: Russian, Italian, English, German, French, Polish, Slovene, Czech, Slovak. That's pretty cross-cultural!

[lethe-cat.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I meant. Thankyou. morningapproach is confusing me a bit.

Also, Chinese is both a nationality and an ethnicity. It isn't only Ethnically Chinese people born in China. .

y'all knew I was gonna pitch in right?

[velkoria.livejournal.com]

okay so... names are pronounced differently in different cultures, there's no way around it really. I think your friend should go with correctly spelt, universal names. Names like what? Anna, Monica, Irene, Sofia, Luisa, Emma, Laura, etc...

In every language I can fluently pronounce those names are changed, they change but they are all going to be recognized and it will make the pronunciation easy for at least French, English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.

P.S.: Yes, I realize I only listed girl names.

[kitchen-poet.livejournal.com]

Benjamin is a name that is pronounced similarly in most languages. It used to be seen as a mostly Jewish name, but that stigma has long since disappeared.

I second Anna/Ana/Anne as a neutral name. Sofia is used in a lot of cultures as well. Oh, and Alex and Matthew/Mathias are pretty universally popular across cultures too!

[smallandneedy.livejournal.com]

This applies for Michael too though. I'm Norwegian, and we don't pronounce it the same way as it's done in English.

However, I think there are very few names that can be pronounced the same way in all languages. It's one thing to choose neutral names in a race aspect, but if you want to add in the whole "different sounds, different pronounciations" aspect as well, I'm not sure if it can be done.


Anyway, I know a few people of multicultural backgrounds that needed to find a name that was suitable in both:
My friend, who's a Norwegian, married an African guy from Uganda, and named their son Jacob.
Another girl I know is Norwegian and her SO is from Thailand. They named their oldest Tim since that was easy enough to say and use in both languages.

[novangla.livejournal.com]

I agree about Ann -- pretty easy to move into whatever language. I don't think there's really a such thing as racially and culturally neutral, but there are some that are more versatile than others. I've been looking at American / Peruvian neutrality, so the big thing for me is finding names from either language and seeing how easily they work in the other. So like, Isabella and Gabriel float back and forth really easily, whereas something like Jennifer or Xavier would not.

[aquilinum.livejournal.com]

Statistically speaking, the "whitest" girl name is Molly. Girls named Molly have a higher chance of being white than any other single name.

[aquilinum.livejournal.com]

It's actually Greek in origin.

[jordle.livejournal.com]

My friend picked this because she is Australian, but her husband is Dutch and they live in Europe.

[tondelayo.livejournal.com]

This wiki page of most popular names (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_given_names) should help! My husband and I used it to help zero in on a name for our daughter.