My fiancé and I are both white Americans, but really like the idea of a name where you can’t reliably guess the ethnicity of the wearer - so that you wouldn’t necessarily assume white, but you also wouldn’t be surprised by a white child with the name. Of course a lot of ultra-popular or Biblical names are used for children of every ethnicity, but we’re interested in names that happen to have multiple totally different ethnic origins with different meanings, not just Western names that became popular elsewhere. Here are the ones we came up with:
[name_f]Lila[/name_f] - Anglicized variant of the Arabic [name_f]Layla[/name_f] for “night”; [name_f]Indian[/name_f]/Sanskrit for “play, amusement”
[name_f]Mira[/name_f] - Slavic for “peace” or “world”; Sanskrit for “ocean”; in English from [name_f]Miranda[/name_f] or [name_f]Mirabel[/name_f], “wonderful”
[name_f]Naomi[/name_f] - Anglicized Biblical for “pleasantness”; Japanese for “honest beauty”
Can y’all think of any others like this?
[name_f]Sara[/name_f]
[name_f]Ayla[/name_f]
[name_f]Mona[/name_f]
[name_f]Amara[/name_f]
[name_f]Mia[/name_f]
[name_f]Maya[/name_f]
[name_u]Aydin[/name_u]
[name_f]Nia[/name_f]
[name_f]Alba[/name_f]
[name_f]Tara[/name_f]
[name_f]Alina[/name_f]
[name_f]Elena[/name_f]
[name_f]Una[/name_f]
[name_f]Dalia[/name_f]
[name_m]Esra[/name_m] - hebrew (male) and turkish (female)
[name_u]Kai[/name_u] - hawaiian and latin (and probably more)
[name_u]Asa[/name_u] - hebrew (male) and swedish (female)
[name_f]Lina[/name_f] - can come from [name_m]Linus[/name_m] (latin), [name_f]Eleanor[/name_f] (french), the arabic word for palm tree, the sanskrit word for united, or really any name containing “lina”
[name_f]Mila[/name_f] fits that criteria!
What about [name_f]Zara[/name_f]/[name_f]Zahra[/name_f], [name_f]Leila[/name_f], [name_f]Miriam[/name_f] or [name_f]Hana[/name_f]?
Thanks! I love [name_f]Alba[/name_f] for a girl and [name_u]Asa[/name_u] for a boy!
I love [name_f]Lila[/name_f]! (Although I would also consider using the [name_f]Lyla[/name_f] spelling.) I also suggest [name_f]Elina[/name_f], [name_f]Eliana[/name_f], and [name_f]Elena[/name_f] for you as well.
By the way, just so you know, mira is a frequently used word in Spanish. It means “look” (ex: “[name_f]Mira[/name_f]! There’s a bird!”) and comes from the verb mirar. So, [name_f]Mira[/name_f] would definitely get a lot of comments from Spanish speaking people about that. Definitely something worth considering!