I’m not from a bilingual family but I have a friend who is and I have some questions about bilingual naming.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] bilingual families all give their children bilingual names?
If each parent speaks a different language neither of which being the language of the country the family lives in, do the children often have names that work in all 3 languages or just the one that is spoken in the country they live in?
I’m just so curious about this, can anybody who is from a bilingual family or just knows a lot about bilingual families offer any insight on this?
I think it depends on the family. I know numerous families in that situation, and most of them have looked for names that worked in the place they live in and in both or more languages, but some have settled for one or the other. Some friends of mine are [name_m]French[/name_m] and Spanish, and they named their kids [name_f]Clara[/name_f], 0livia and Mate0. Other friends are Canadian-Argentinian, and they chose out there names that aren’t used in either but that can be pronounced in both.
My bf is [name_m]French[/name_m] and if we ever had kids we want something that works in both languages. Our parents cannot speak the other’s language so it would need to be something easily pronounced by them.
We’re bilingual and while we definitely incorporated both our heritages into the middle names, we chose an American first name that would be totally differently pronounced in my country of origin, where my family still lives. Each family has their own preferences.
Bilingual here. I have a name that is pronounceable in both languages, but popular only in one of them. If I ever marry an Englishman, I would like an English name that can work in another language as well, but not necessary “bilingual”.
A friend of mine was posed with the same problem with her Veitnamese boyfriend. I don’t think they ever found a name that was easy for his parents to say. However they don’t have children yet.
Hubs and I want to raise our children to be bilingual so we are trying to find names that work in both languages but even the names we like that aren’t “bilingual” can still be pronounced fairly easily in the second language.
Really you have to decide what works best for you and your individual family.
The most important thing for us is to use names that can be pronounced properly by both sides of the family. Our future children will be raised trilingual, so it’s hard to find names that fit perfectly. Most likely we’ll end up doing this:
First name: a name from my culture that can easily be pronounced by his family or an international name that “belongs” to both of our cultures. Middle name: a name from his culture that can be easily pronounced by my family.
I actually made a post about this a long time ago where I got a lot of opinions. Here’s the link if you’re interested in reading it.
Do bilingual families all give their children bilingual names?
I am not bilingual, but my mom is from Taiwan and my Dad is White/American. I was bilingual for like 1 year, but it was too hard for my mom to translate for my dad, so she stuck to English with me and my sister (I’m a little bummed by this because I wish I was bilingual!)
We both have full American names, BUT we have Chinese nicknames that are used when we go to Taiwan or around our Chinese speaking family since our American names aren’t easy for them. However, those Chinese nicknames are difficult for English speakers.
But to answer your question, No not “ALL” bilingual families use bilingual names. That’s a big claim. I wouldn’t even say most! It’s a preference thing. I can see why, you want to blend the two cultures and keep your culture alive. My parents felt because we were being raised in [name_u]America[/name_u], it only made since to have English names so we fit in. [name_m]Even[/name_m] I considered Chinese middle names, but because my children would only be 1/4 Chinese, I don’t feel it would work very well and Chinese names are bit more difficult to pick out, so I think I’ll do what my mom did and maybe have her help me come up with some Chinese nickname options.