Dear Berries,
We are expecting a little boy in [name_u]June[/name_u] (yay!) and we are struggling with his name, as we did for his big brother’s, [name_m]Andrei[/name_m] [name_m]Alexander[/name_m], who’s just turned 2.
I am [name_m]French[/name_m], my husband is American but born in Romania, and we now live in [name_u]Sweden[/name_u], so we need a name that works in English, [name_m]French[/name_m], Romanian and Swedish – although to be honest, Romanian is not the priority as my in-laws have lived in the US for 35 years and the baby will have dual [name_m]French[/name_m] / American citizenship like his brother.
The middle name will be Elenio, which was my (Italian) grandfather’s name (and so rare and cool that it would be criminal not to use it!)
We like solid, classic names, nothing too trendy or too daring, but with our linguistic constraints, a lot of the names we would have been happy to use are off-limits because they would be butchered ([name_m]Beno[/name_m]ît, [name_m]Etienne[/name_m] …) or because they’ve already been used by family or close friends ([name_m]Paul[/name_m], [name_m]Thomas[/name_m], [name_m]Benjamin[/name_m], [name_m]Anton[/name_m], [name_m]Simon[/name_m], [name_m]Daniel[/name_m], [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m], [name_u]Tristan[/name_u], [name_m]Julian[/name_m], [name_m]Mathias[/name_m] - my brother- and [name_m]Marius[/name_m] - my husband … dammit, people have good tastes !).
So that leaves us with a list of three :
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[name_m]Victor[/name_m] Elenio : my husband’s favorite, already a contender when we had [name_m]Andrei[/name_m] (which is probably why I’m a little off it now). I find [name_m]Victor[/name_m] a bit too aggressive and it is very popular in our “circles” (well, mine : educated Parisian 30-somethings…), so a lot of friends of friends have used it (mind you, we don’t live in [name_u]Paris[/name_u] anymore so maybe I should not care so much).
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[name_m]Felix[/name_m] Elenio : my favorite, but DH thinks it’s not “serious” or “manly” enough ( I disagree!!!). It is also the name of a second-degree cousin I haven’t seen in 15 years, so it might raise a few eyebrows on my mother’s side of the family, but nothing I would beat myself up about.
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[name_m]Martin[/name_m] Elenio : I love the sound of [name_m]Martin[/name_m] in [name_m]French[/name_m] (it’s a perennial [name_m]French[/name_m] classic too but less given than, say, [name_m]Paul[/name_m], and less trendy than revitalized grandpa names like [name_u]Jules[/name_u] or, for that matter, [name_m]Victor[/name_m]). It works less well with [name_m]Andrei[/name_m], maybe, and people here in [name_u]Sweden[/name_u] find it a little bland (it’s something like the equivalent of [name_m]Brian[/name_m]: given to every other boy in the 80s and 90s), but we don’t know how long we’re going to stay here and at least everybody knows the name.
What do you think, wise ladies (and gents ) ? Any thoughts or suggestions ? Should we stop trying to accommodate all the language constraints and just go with a name we like (say, [name_m]Pierre[/name_m]), even if it may be mispronounced ? Or do the “translation” thing ([name_m]Pierre[/name_m] on his ID papers and in [name_f]France[/name_f], [name_m]Peter[/name_m] in [name_u]Sweden[/name_u] and the US, [name_m]Petru[/name_m] in Romania)?
Many thanks in advance !