I was wandering around the planet believing that my name - [name_f]Naomi[/name_f] - was Hebrew and meant “pleasantness” or “pleasant one”.
Then a Japanese fellow I knew asked me why I had a Japanese name. I looked it up and found that [name_f]Naomi[/name_f] is a unisex name in Japanese. One way of writing it is:
直美
where 直 (nao) means “honest, straight” and 美 (mi) means “beautiful”.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you know of any other names like this?
[name_f]Ciara[/name_f] has a few incarnations in different languages, same sound but different spelling.
[name_u]Asa[/name_u] is a male Hebrew name meaning doctor, but it is a female Japanese name meaning morning (also a word) but said ah-suh.
[name_f]Kaia[/name_f]/[name_f]Kaiya[/name_f]/[name_f]Caia[/name_f] all sound the same but mean several things in different languages.
[name_f]Mina[/name_f] is both a diminutive of names ending in -mina ([name_f]Wilhelmina[/name_f], [name_f]Philomena[/name_f]) and means ‘fish’ in Sanskrit.
[name_f]Ami[/name_f] means either ‘second beautiful’ or ‘[name_f]Asia[/name_f] beautiful’ in Japanese, a male name in Hebrew meaning 'trustworthy, and a variation of [name_f]Amy[/name_f] (which means beloved.)
Chika is both a Japanese name with several meanings (depending on the Kanji) and also an Igbo ([name_u]West[/name_u] African language) name meaning ‘God is the greatest’.
[name_f]Hana[/name_f] means ‘bliss’ in Arabic and ‘flower’ in Japanese, as well as being an Eastern European variation of [name_f]Hannah[/name_f].
[name_u]Neil[/name_u]/[name_u]Neel[/name_u] - [name_u]Neil[/name_u] is an Irish and Scottish name meaning either “champion” or “cloud” and [name_u]Neel[/name_u] is a Hindi name meaning “blue” (okay, they are spelled differently, but sound the same)
[name_f]Sheila[/name_f]/Sheela/Shila - [name_f]Sheila[/name_f] is a Celtic variant of [name_f]Cecelia[/name_f] and Sheela/Shila is a Hindi name meaning “character, conduct” (according to Behind The Name).
[name_f]Noa[/name_f] is a girls’ name in both Hebrew (female version of [name_u]Noah[/name_u]) and Japanese.
[name_f]Gitta[/name_f] is a short-form for the [name_m]German[/name_m] name [name_f]Brigitte[/name_f]/[name_f]Brigitta[/name_f] (pronounced Brih-[name_m]GEE[/name_m]-tuh) and [name_f]Gita[/name_f] is a Hindi name meaning song. They sound the same, but one is obviously a nickname.
The first one I thought of was [name_u]Kai[/name_u] meaning sea in Hawaiian, forgiveness in Japanese, willow tree in Navajo, and earth in Scandinavian.
There is the word name “[name_f]Africa[/name_f]” for the continent. And then there’s the Irish/Scots Gaelic name “[name_f]Africa[/name_f]” meaning “pleasant.”
There is the name “[name_f]Linda[/name_f]” defined as being of Germanic origin and meaning either “serpent” or “tender.” And then there is the Spanish name “[name_f]Linda[/name_f]” meaning “pretty.” And then there is the name “[name_f]Linda[/name_f]” in Quenya (an Elvish language created by J.R.R. Tolkien) meaning “beautiful sounding.”
[name_f]Tori[/name_f] is a nickname for [name_f]Victoria[/name_f] in English, and it’s also a Japanese name.
[name_f]Amara[/name_f] has a origins pretty much globally…
Greek ‘unfading’, Sanskrit ‘immoral’, Mongolian ‘peace’, Latin ‘love’ and Igbo ‘grace’ (which I believe is a [name_u]West[/name_u] African ethnic group, around Nigeria maybe?).
[name_f]Suri[/name_f] has several meanings too, I remember. Nameberry listed it as - “the sun” in Sanskrit, “rose” in Persian, and is the name of the Andean Alpaca’s wool, as well as a Yiddish form of [name_f]Sarah[/name_f], a title used for Jain monks, and a Japanese word for pickpocket.
[name_u]Dana[/name_u] is from Celtic and Scandinavian mythology and means “from Denmark”. There’s also a Slavic name [name_u]Dana[/name_u] (pronounced a bit differently, though) meaning “gift from God”.