babynames | (no subject)

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At the grocery store, the cashier's name was Wanita. I commented on the unusual spelling, and she said her parents were into South American culture at the time and thought they would give her a Spanish name and then misspelled it. Nice.
This happened with my cousin Kaeli, whose mom was into Irish folklore and named her thus, not realizing she should have spelled it Ceilidh.

What do you think of cultural appropration for names? Examples please.

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I think if you are using it because you like the culture/folklore and origin of the name, you shouldn't mess with the spelling.

I think that's stupid to do, ESPECIALLY if you're going to claim that you're doing it for cultural reasons. I think Antoine is the one that gets torn up the most. I've seen Antjuan, Antwaan, Antwon, etc. It ends up making the parents look ignorant, like they didn't know how to spell the name so just made something up by spelling phonetically or something.

I think it depends on the intentions of the parents. Like, if I liked the name Ceilidh, I would respell it to Kaeli (or something more phonetic) because our last name is HORRID for anyone to spell or pronounce. So I would not want to doom a child to have to spell her/his first AND last name for everyone under the sun (no one would ever remember how to spell Ceilidh, even after being told several times. same as with our last name).

But if the last name was "Jones", I think there's a bit more freedom with the first name.

I did that with our daughter's name... original spelling I saw was Meili but that's not too phonetic for people, so I respelled it Maylie. (only because I think -ie is less pretentious than -i or -eigh or -ee). I didn't do it for cultural reasons though, just because I liked the name.

However a name like Juanita, is common enough even for Anglophones that it's stupid to respell it, especially a dorky spelling like Wanita.

I think Meili and Maylie are beautiful. My best friend's name is Maele, and I've been looking for a variation of the spelling in case I ever want to use it.

Regarding Wanita, I definitly agree. It's like spelling Jose "Hosay".

I actually saw "Maylie" in a baby name book (now that we're debating names for the one I'm pregnant with... Maylie is now 4 yrs old) and was surprised because here I'd thought I made up the spelling. It was listed as a variant under "May".

Just a comment on the whole hard last name thing, when I was in elementary school there was one kid with a really difficult last name, everything was silent and weird to pronunciate and the teacher put it on as a bonus for a spelling test. lol

My husband chose "Emilie" (the French spelling) instead of "Emily" because we're both of French descent and the French/Cajun culture is still a big part of our lives and our families lives. I think if a culture means a lot to you and is a big part of your life, it's sometimes okay. But there is a point where it gets rediculous...i.e. Wanita. I agree with

screaming_pink that if you're going to do it, leave the spelling alone.

I think those parents just not have been THAT into South American culture if they couldn't even spell Juanita. Jesus.

I say if the name just isn't readable in English (or the main language of whatever country the child is going to live in), then don't use it. Like Ceilidh looks like SEAL-lid, not Kaylie. =\ Wanita, people would know how to pronounce, even if it looks weird. I'm sure (or I hope) most people would know how to pronounce Juanita in America, since Spanish is the second most used language here. If that's the case, then use the "correct" spelling. Same goes with names like Sean and Jose - most people know Sean sounds like Shawn and Jose sounds like ho-ZAY. It's the names people just aren't used to and are that strange-looking that people should steer clear of. In my opinion, at least.

That reminds me of one of my friends. She has a great-aunt or maybe a great-grandmother whose name was Wona and it's pronounced Juana.

Well...in Spanish, Juanita is not even pronounced like "Wanita"...it's almost like "Khuanita." The only other excuse for Wanita I can think of is that "Juanita" pronounced "Wanita" was kind of a popular American ladies' name in my grandma's generation...but using "South American culture" as an excuse blew it.

And either way, Juanita is Spanish as in it originated in Spain...if they really knew what they were talking about then they might have picked a name from an indigenous South American language. Erhisidfoghhdfiog.

Oh well. I saw a girl named Mesa, who said her parents chose it for the same reason as your girl in the store. It means "table" in Spanish.

I know a woman named Oahn...pronounced Juan. I know she's half black and have asian decent. But she told me it was from her asian culture that she was named that.

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