Recently, I have been thinking about names that are used in multiple cultures.
I was wondering what names do you think are used in the most countries?
I feel like [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] and its variants have to be used in most of Europe. What other names can you think of?
A lot of these are European, I’m afraid, but [name_m]Oscar[/name_m], [name_m]Louis[/name_m], [name_m]Isaac[/name_m], [name_m]Ruben[/name_m], [name_u]Benjamin[/name_u], Nico/Niko, [name_u]Gabriel[/name_u], [name_m]Raphael[/name_m], [name_u]Leo[/name_u], [name_m]Bruno[/name_m], [name_m]Theodore[/name_m]
I think some of these would have different spellings however
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I mean, a lot of Biblical names are used in different variations across cultures, like [name_u]John[/name_u], but I wouldn’t really call these international since the variations can sound very different!
I think the Biblical names that do sound very similar across languages are [name_u]Daniel[/name_u], [name_m]Peter[/name_m], [name_m]Filip[/name_m], [name_m]Thomas[/name_m], [name_u]Michael[/name_u] and [name_m]Theodore[/name_m]!
Other names used across many cultures include [name_u]Leon[/name_u], [name_u]Luka[/name_u], [name_m]Marko[/name_m], [name_m]Emil[/name_m], [name_m]Valentin[/name_m], [name_m]Erik[/name_m], [name_m]Nicholas[/name_m], [name_u]Max[/name_u] / [name_m]Maxim[/name_m], [name_u]Jan[/name_u], [name_m]Jonas[/name_m], [name_m]Josef[/name_m] / [name_m]Jozef[/name_m], [name_m]Kristofer[/name_m], [name_m]Stefan[/name_m], [name_m]Ben[/name_m], [name_m]Oskar[/name_m], [name_m]Anton[/name_m] & [name_m]Roman[/name_m]!
All these are mostly from a European perspective, because I think it’d be hard to impossible to find a name that works in, say, [name_u]French[/name_u], [name_m]German[/name_m], [name_f]Indian[/name_f] and Chinese.
[name_u]Sean[/name_u] comes to mind. It’s an [name_u]Irish[/name_u] name but it’s used in many countries. Americans, I find, typically spell it [name_u]Shaun[/name_u], or [name_u]Shawn[/name_u].
It’s probably one of the most internationally used [name_u]Irish[/name_u] names
I suppose Mohammed (and spelling variations) is super common among muslims, and Islam exists in many parts of the world so it would cover a lot of countries (similar to how others brought up biblical names).
Names in the Bible are typically international with versions of some Old Testament names used in all countries with significant proportions of people that follow any of the monolithic religions. Examples:
Adam - the quintessential cross cultural name
Aaron
Abraham
Benjamin
Daniel
David
Gabriel
Isaac
Jacob
Joachim
John
Joseph
Michael
Noah
Samuel
Soloman