Names That Are Used Across Cultures

General Name Discussion
1

What are some names that you can think of that get a lot of use throughout different cultures? Basically, a name that if someone saw it on paper paired with an ethnically ambiguous surname they wouldn’t be able to geuss the bearer’s origins at all?

One that came to mind for me right away is [name]Hana[/name], which I believe is used in Japan and amongst Arabic speakers in addition to being used as a variant of [name]Hannah[/name]. [name]Iris[/name] is another name that seems to get a fair amount of use amongst speakers of many different languages, although I don’t think that it’s quite as good of an example as [name]Hana[/name].

Can you think of any names like this? [name]Do[/name] you think that an ethnically ambiguous name could be an asset to someone in the future? Opinions on the whole concept?

This is all just hypothetical, but I’m really curious!

2

[name]Maya[/name] and [name]Tori[/name] have been brought up on the girls’ side. Interestingly, both also count Japanese among their users.

I can’t think of any male names with multiple unrelated origins.

3

[name]Naomi[/name] is used in both Hebrew and Japanese. But I mean, if I see the name in the Anglosphere I’d probably assume whatever country is as their country of origina.

[name]Anna[/name] and [name]Nina[/name] are both pretty widely used, although probably only among IndoEuropean languages?

[name]Kai[/name] I think for boys?

[name]David[/name] to some extent.

[name]Mara[/name] maybe.

I’m sure there are more but maybe not tons?

4

[name]Caterina[/name]/[name]Katerina[/name] (and various other spellings)
[name]Elena[/name]
[name]Johanna[/name]
[name]Maria[/name]

[name]Johan[/name]
[name]Matthias[/name] (and various other spellings)
[name]Stefan[/name] (and various other spellings)
[name]Tomas[/name]

5

[name]Lucia[/name] & [name]Daniel[/name]
They aren’t pronounced the same in every language/ country, but these are used in a lot of languages and countries, imo.
I’m biased in my [name]Lucia[/name] opinion, but when I changed my name to this, I took in to account that it’s English, [name]German[/name] and Romanian (my family is from [name]Austria[/name] and Romania.) I’ve lived in a Catalan-speaking area of Spain and currently live in the Basque Country, I travel a lot and it has served me well. I have super English and super Hungarian last names and it works equally well with both, imo. I really like being able to travel and still have my name recognized in most places, even if the pronunciation isn’t the same everywhere.
I’ve tried to make my list very internationally-friendly. I have [name]Iris[/name] and [name]Edmund[/name] at the top of my lists which work pretty well in many places.