Hey there!
Our baby #2 is due in October and we could use your help picking a name.
We are a Finnish family living in New York. We either want a Finnish name that won’t sound ridiculous in the US or a name that is used in both countries. We have some names on our list already, but could use your opinions to weed out those that are too difficult for English speakers to wrap their heads around. Also, if there are some very strong associations the names bring to mind, we would like to hear them - both me and my husband are fairly new to the US so we might not know them.
Boys:
Topi
Lari
Veikko
Hugo
Linus
Arvi
Oiva
Otso
Eino
Iivo
I think [name_m]New[/name_m] [name_m]York[/name_m] is pretty cosmopolitan, over all, so you won’t have the same trouble there as you would in a place where the population has fewer immigrants.
I’m unfamiliar with Finnish pronunciation, but just going by spelling, [name_m]Hugo[/name_m] and [name_m]Linus[/name_m] are the most familiar/American for boys. [name_m]Linus[/name_m] is the name of a comic strip/cartoon character, well-loved and overall positive; many or most people will know of the Peanuts comics but it’s not at the forefront of pop culture (I don’t know if it’s known internationally; the comic started in the 50s and continued until at least the 90s). [name_f]Lari[/name_f] seems close to [name_m]Larry[/name_m], which might be “un-cool” right now, as a dad name, not a baby name.
There are more girl names that look or that I think will sound familiar, even if the spelling is less familiar. [name_f]Iris[/name_f], [name_f]Meeri[/name_f], Miina, Sylvi, [name_f]Edith[/name_f], [name_f]Anni[/name_f], [name_f]Anja[/name_f], and [name_f]Leila[/name_f] are all familiar looking or sounding. I don’t know of any pop culture references for those names that would overshadow a baby.
But again, I think in a big city with a higher than average immigrant/foreign resident population, even a name that is completely unfamiliar here will be accepted as being a foreign name. Of course, kids don’t really care, in my experience; they just know who their friends are, they don’t care what the names are.
[name_m]Hugo[/name_m], [name_f]Iris[/name_f], & [name_f]Edith[/name_f] from your list are all stunningly beautiful and are personal favourites of mine!
[name_m]Linus[/name_m], Iivo, [name_m]Hugo[/name_m] and [name_m]Eino[/name_m] // [name_f]Iris[/name_f], Sylvi [name_f]Edith[/name_f], [name_f]Anni[/name_f], [name_f]Anja[/name_f] are my favorites but I think all your girl names and all your boy names ([name_f]Lari[/name_f] excluded, in NY I would expect to see it on a 50 year old) are usable!
So many awesome names on your list! These are the names that would be least familiar to me as an English speaker. I could sound them out, but I have no idea how they ought to be pronounced. That’s not a bad thing, but be prepared to spend some extra time helping folks with pronunciation if you use these.
I wouldn’t know how to say:
Veikko (vy-ko?)
Oiva (oy-vuh?)
[name_m]Eino[/name_m] (eye-no?)
Iivo (eye-vo?)
Miina (meena?)
Hilja (I would know how to say this, but I wonder if others wouldn’t. I asked my BFF about [name_f]Lilja[/name_f] once and she said she would pronounce the J. I’m not sure how familiar this is to the normal [ie. not name obsessed] American)
[name_f]Anja[/name_f] (same with Hilja
Tuuli (too-lee?)
Potential problems:
The only ones I would see potential issues with would be Miina and Arvi. My immediate thought when I saw Miina was the “Mii”, a little character primarily associated with the Wii console as well as other things. This is probably not going to be an issue in 10 or so years though.
Arvi might be an issue because, at least how I’m saying it, it sounds like an RV. People might assume that it’s RV.
I think Tuuli, Miina, Veikko, Oiva, [name_m]Eino[/name_m], Iivo, and Sylvi are most likely to be misspelled.