I want to honor my grandmother [name_f]Antonina[/name_f] who passed away in [name_f]September[/name_f].
I don’t like [name_m]Anthony[/name_m] and want to use a variation. Both myself and my husband are foreign born (me Ukrainian, him Brazilian). We are leaning to the [name_m]French[/name_m] spelling [name_u]Antoine[/name_u]. I prefer it to Russian [name_m]Anton[/name_m] or Portuguese [name_m]Antonio[/name_m]. My husband speaks [name_m]French[/name_m] fluently.
We are thinking [name_u]Antoine[/name_u] [name_m]Emmanuel[/name_m]
(siblings are [name_f]Esther[/name_f], [name_m]Rafael[/name_m], [name_f]Naomi[/name_f] and [name_m]Gabriel[/name_m]).
What do you think? We plan to call him by a nickname [name_u]Tony[/name_u]
We have (or had) a [name_u]Berry[/name_u] called blade whose oldest son is named [name_u]Antoine[/name_u], if I remember correctly. So I can totally see this name being used. It seems like a great option for you guys! I pronounce it An-twon and like in the midwestern US, where the name definitely isn’t common at all!
[name_u]Antoine[/name_u] is beautiful and perfect to honor [name_f]Antonina[/name_f]. Have you thought of just [name_m]Anton[/name_m]?
About [name_u]Antoine[/name_u] - you and your husband may speak [name_m]French[/name_m] fluently and are perfectly able to spell and pronounce it with ease, but will your families? [name_u]Antoine[/name_u] is very likely to get butchered in Portuguese, like it is in my experience in Spanish, because the “toi” sounds either like the word “toy” being said in heavily accented Portuguese and Spanish which I can’t describe. That’s my only concern. [name_m]Emmanuel[/name_m] is a lot less problematic in all languages, though it does come across religious in a way that [name_m]Antonio[/name_m] even though it’s the name of a very popular saint is more traditional, like [name_m]Henry[/name_m], [name_m]Charles[/name_m] or [name_m]Andrew[/name_m] would be considered in English.
