[name]Hi[/name] all
I have a son named [name]Kai[/name] and one reason I liked this name is that it is international. If he plans to live in the U.S., Japan, [name]England[/name], Denmark, etc. everyone will know the name. What other names (boy or girl) do you consider international?
[name]Ann[/name]/[name]Anne[/name]/[name]Anna[/name] is quite international, as is [name]Mary[/name] of course.
Honestly, most names of very popular celebrities/book/movie characters will travel well.
Shorter names are probably easier, though it doesn’t necessarily have to be used in that culture for it to be quite recognizable.
[name]Harry[/name], [name]Tom[/name], [name]Michael[/name], [name]Teresa[/name], [name]Jane[/name], [name]James[/name], [name]John[/name], [name]Louis[/name], [name]George[/name]
Thank you. I love the name [name]Anna[/name]. [name]One[/name] name I have also thought of is [name]Theo[/name].
I’m not sure about [name]Theo[/name], it’s a great name but I’m not sure that the -th- sound is even used in a lot of cultures, which might be problematic.
lol, they say the most recognizable word on the planet is taxi 
but that’s not a vote for using it as a name
A lot of the “[name]Saint[/name]” names are international and work well in European languages at least. That’s been what we’re going for with our kids’ names.
I agree with the pp that the /th/ sound is not very easily pronounced by speakers of non-English languages. But, [name]Teodoro[/name] is [name]Theodore[/name] in Spanish. So if you chose [name]Theo[/name], he might be called [name]Teo[/name], for example. So I don’t think /th/ names are necessarily out of contention.
[name]Lee[/name] is the only one I can think of.
I probably should have said multi-cultural instead of international. Same thing?
I’m not sure if you mean names that work in multiple cultures which would be multicultural and can be international or want to know the difference so I’ll go with a little of both
It’s not the same thing definition wise though it could be both, if you gave a child from the US an Italian name say: Sofia Maria then you’ve given them an international name. If you give that child a French and Italian name or say Jewish and Hispanic: Sophie Maria, Myriam Maria then you’ve given them a multicultural name. Technically if you give this child a multicultural name that is international than it would be the same thing or at least both though you could give a child a multicultural name than is not international.
Hope that makes sense and if there are any corrections hopefully someone else can correct me. I hope you find a great name and personally would recommend Marie or Maria because it’s common in many countries
I took the OP’s meaning to be that she wanted a name that is recognizable in most cultures and used in many. To me, international means crossing national boundaries.
You could name your American kid a very obscure Japanese name that no one would know anything about except that it was unique, and you could call that ‘multi-cultural’.
So I guess the question to the OP is, do you want something that sounds ethnic or something that is known/used in many places?
[name]Elizabeth[/name]?
@kala_way I see what you mean, a name that works in multiple cultures and not which is which…not sure why I didn’t think of this so I’m going to edit mine lol
[name]Hi[/name] all
Sorry for the confusion. I want something that can be used and recognized in many places/countries. [name]Kai[/name] is my son’s name and we liked it because of this. [name]Maria[/name] is a sweet name and so is [name]Anna[/name]. Stuck on any other male names…
Thanks!
[name]Kim[/name] and [name]Mio[/name].
My husband is [name]Robert[/name] and has always been thankful that his name translated well when he moved to the US from Eastern Europe (unlike his immediate family who use 2 different names).
Other names that I think travel well
[name]Amara[/name]
[name]Milena[/name]
[name]Amelia[/name]
[name]Alma[/name]
[name]Maria[/name]
[name]Nina[/name]
[name]Mark[/name]
[name]Peter[/name]
[name]Michael[/name]
[name]Simon[/name]
[name]David[/name]
[name]Sara[/name]/[name]Sari[/name]/[name]Suri[/name] are all fairly international. Also [name]Leo[/name] came to mind.
Well, that’s what I think I was getting at with suggesting [name]Saint[/name] names. Have you looked at a list of [name]Saint[/name] names yet?
[name]Lucia[/name]
[name]Sebastian[/name]
[name]Felix[/name]
[name]Paul[/name]
[name]Albert[/name]
etc., all saint names and easily recognizable in English, Spanish, [name]German[/name], some in French. I don’t know about how to get to [name]Asian[/name] languages like Japanese without just sticking to relatively simple names.
The babynamewizard website lets you search for saint names and for international names. Try looking there if you haven’t yet. 