I got this idea today when I was talking to a few friends of mine that I haven’t seen in a while. We were catching up and in between all of the trying to make me pronounce Arabic words (they are Arabic) and laughing at how terrible I was (totally fine lol, I had a great time) they mentioned that they had basically “white-washed” (that’s the terminology they used) their names. For example, one who is named @m!r@ became Amy. They then Arab-ized my name the best they could (Eman, hoping I spelt that right). That gave me a inspo for this post.
Calling all berries of different nationalities, let’s switch the cultures of our names. Just comment your name if you would like yours to be done, and expect a few people from different cultures to come up with something similar from where they live.
I know a few older people (50-70) who have changed the name they go by to be a bit more Americanized. For instance, I know of a Stanislava who goes by “Stella”, an [name_m]Ansgar[/name_m] who goes by “Al”, and a Zdzisław who goes by “Jerry”. It seems pretty common in older generations, but thankfully the younger people I know all seem to go by their given name. I’m sure this has to do with changing perceptions and associations with names that don’t have your standard Latin / Hebrew / [name_f]English[/name_f] origins.
[name_f]My[/name_f] name already leans more towards “international” as I’m a [name_f]Patricia[/name_f] who goes by [name_f]Pia[/name_f], but I’d be interested to see if anyone can think of another form or similar name!
The only other language I sort-of speak is Spanish and I don’t know enough to find the equivalent of every name so I’m going to just say what the pronunciation would be
[name_u]Jaden[/name_u] - Hah-den but I’m not 100% sure
I don’t know what would happen to Liss as every letter in Spanish is pronounced including double letters. Maybe they would change the sound like the double l?
[name_f]Elise[/name_f] - Eh-lee-seh
[name_f]Julia[/name_f] - Hoo-lee-ah (like julio, the word for [name_u]July[/name_u], but with an a)
[name_f]Stella[/name_f] - Steh-yah
[name_f]Patricia[/name_f] - Pah-tree-kee-ah
[name_f]Kristine[/name_f] - Kree-stee-neh
[name_u]Marian[/name_u] - would be pronuncies like [name_f]Marianne[/name_f] is in [name_f]English[/name_f] (Mah-ree-ahn)
[name_u]Carson[/name_u] - the same but the o is pronounced like in continue or bottle
[name_u]Vesper[/name_u] - Beh-sper (the ‘sper’ part pronounced kind of like spare)
my name is [name_u]Haley[/name_u] if anyone wants to try mine?
I am part French-Canadian, so I speak [name_u]French[/name_u] relatively fluently, here’s the [name_u]French[/name_u] forms or names that are similar in [name_u]French[/name_u] for the names so far;
[name_f]Elise[/name_f] - this is already a [name_u]French[/name_u] form of [name_f]Eliza[/name_f] technically!
[name_f]Julia[/name_f] - likely would become [name_u]Julie[/name_u].
[name_f]Kirsten[/name_f] - [name_f]Christine[/name_f] seems the most likely, but also [name_f]Christiane[/name_f] could be an option.
[name_u]Marian[/name_u] - would become [name_f]Marianne[/name_f] or Marie-Anne.
[name_f]Patricia[/name_f] - would likely become [name_u]Patrice[/name_u]
[name_u]Carson[/name_u] - I’m fairly certain that [name_u]Carson[/name_u] is already used in French-speaking areas (only because I had a relative with the name born in [name_m]Quebec[/name_m] who spoke only [name_u]French[/name_u] back in the 1910s?).
[name_u]Vesper[/name_u] - since this is also a word, the translations in [name_u]French[/name_u] don’t really make for a nice sounding name, however, [name_f]Vespertine[/name_f] is an offshoot of [name_u]Vesper[/name_u] and is also [name_u]French[/name_u] in origin.
[name_f]Alessia[/name_f] - my first thought was [name_f]Alice[/name_f], however there is a French-Catholic saint named [name_u]Alix[/name_u], who was also known as [name_f]Alessia[/name_f], so I’d say [name_u]Alix[/name_u] personally fits best
