Does your origin play a significant role in naming? For my family (and my extended one) it does. A lot. My family is of Norwegian and [name]German[/name] origin. You can see that in my family’s naming. Pretty much every cousin I have (they’re all on my Mom’s side) have Norwegian or Swedish names. And every single one is below the US top 500.
[name]How[/name] about you? I’m really curious to see if other people’s naming traditions are based on cultural origin or not.
My husband and I tend to choose Irish or [name]German[/name] names, as I have Irish heritage and he’s [name]German[/name]/Irish.
As for my family and extended family, they very much name based on what’s trendy at the time. I got the #1 girl’s name of my birth year, my brother got the #1 boy’s name of his birth year, and it’s the same with all of my cousins. My husband’s family tends to use only family names.
I’m mostly Greek and Cherokee. If I had been a boy, my mom was going to name me [name]Alexander[/name], a strong Greek name.
Since I was a girl, she named me [name]Angel[/name] [name]Starr[/name], which she said comes “part from you saving my life, part from the epidural”
All of my children will have a Greek name somewhere in there to honor my heritage and religion. A Norse name from my husbands side, and my mom and dad are going to be Alisi (grandmother) and Eduda (grandfather) to honor the Cherokee 
Well, I’m English, Irish and Welsh. My granddad is exceptionally English, we can trace his family back to the 1700’s and the 1500’s on different lines. I tend to like names from a variety of different cultures though; I wouldn’t feel like I actually had to honour any of the ones that I genealogically belonged to.
I’m italian, so I’d prefere an italian name for my child. If the baby’s father won’t be italian then i’d like the name to have at least latin/greek origins.
I’m pure Norwegian and I have a Norse name to match. Most people in my family have Norse/Nordic names, exceptions are very few and expected ([name]Anne[/name], the most common name in Norway.) or just Nordic variants of names from other places ([name]Lars[/name], [name]Hans[/name], [name]Bendik[/name], from [name]Lawrence[/name], [name]John[/name] ([name]Johannes[/name]) and [name]Benedict[/name]). I had a great-grandmother named [name]Lydia[/name] and a great-great grandfather named Fr@nts [name]Wilhelm[/name] and then there’s a [name]Magnus[/name], and another great grandfather had [name]Andreas[/name] as his second middle. My parents named all their second cousins for me the other day, and the non-Nordic names were a minority to say the least!
Nope, my family doesn’t have naming traditions. We were just given names my parents liked. So I guess my tradition is just to give my children a name I love
Granted, my mom is Chinese and my dad is American (mostly german, some irish)
Chinese names are hard to have in the U.S., so my mom didn’t bother with them. She even took on the name Clare and moved her Chinese name to the middle slot. My children will only be 1/4 Chinese so I decided I’m not going to bother with it. I have some cute Chinese nicknames in mind though
I’m half norwegian, half english, with lots of russian and polish ancestry. I’m also jewish. My boyfriend is english (bulgarian/czech/russian ancestry). Too many things to take into consideraton really! We like too many names to honour our heritage, we are going to choose names that are meaningful to us, but I love a lot of russian, scandinavian, hebrew and yiddish names so they might get thrown in there somewhere if they fit.
My parents chose to honour family with my name and my siblings.
My family is [name]German[/name] and British, but my first name is [name]Eva[/name], which is Hebrew, and my middle name is Japanese. My name had nothing to do with my ancestry, and when I have a child, their name probably won’t either.
I’m (at least in part) Swedish from my dad’s side and French from my moms side. I wanted to name my baby [name]Estelle[/name], which is French in origin, and there is a baby princess in [name]Sweden[/name] named [name]Estelle[/name]. DH vetoed the name, but that was one thing I really loved about it.
I’m English/Irish, and I suppose it’s somewhat reflected in my name, [name]Olivia[/name] [name]Sarah[/name]. [name]Olivia[/name] was first used outside of Greece in [name]England[/name] by [name]Shakespeare[/name], and [name]Sarah[/name] was my English great-grandmother’s name. My younger sister’s name is [name]Georgia[/name] which is very English. Her middle name is [name]Rose[/name] after my grandmother, is also English.
My parents always wished they’d given me an Irish middle name though (when I get my duel Irish citizenship, I’m possibly legally adding in my Irish great-grandmother’s name Máire) and I’ll probably give my own children an Irish or at least Celtic middle name.
I think if you have some interesting heritage you should take the opportunity to honour it.
My husband is Argentinian and I’m Cuban-Spanish. I appreciate the beauty and charm of names from across the world, but for our children, we always go for Spanish names and our countries’ naming traditions.
I have heritage from so many European countries as well as several Native American tribes that I can’t be bothered at all limiting myself this way. Most people in my family have names of Hebrew or Greek or Latin origin from the Bible even though we don’t have those ethnic heritages -we certainly have those cultural heritages.
I do like a lot of Biblical names and English word names, maybe for the reasons above.
The most recent immigrants were Finns and I like a lot of Finnish names, but on average they don’t work well in an English-speaking context.
I’m such a mix that no, not really. DH is from Poland though, so we just look for names that work well in both English and Polish and are familiar in both cultures.
I am French, Irish and Native and my hubby is French, [name]German[/name] and Polish. I have a Greek first name and it never bothered me that it doesn’t reflect my culture/heritage. We did end up giving my son a [name]German[/name] first name, but there are a lot of names we are considering for our next child that aren’t our heritage: [name]Elowen[/name], [name]Damian[/name], [name]Magnus[/name] and etc. I will have to wait and see. I rather go my the meaning of the name than the cultural background.
Nope. I’m black, and nearly all of my names are of European origin, mostly Greek.
It does in my family.
My mom is [name]German[/name] and went to College and Grad School in [name]France[/name] and the US so when she choose my name it was important that my name sounded good in all three languages. [name]Alexandra[/name] [name]Sophie[/name] M_____ LN. My second middle name is a fairly obscure name from an island nation where an ancestor left to provide for her family. (Sorry I know that’s a complicated description in order to keep some privacy but if you saw my whole name spelled out you’d understand why - it’s fairly rare).
I will definitely be keeping in that tradition. My SO is bilingual English-Spanish and I’m bilingual English-[name]German[/name] so when we have kids their names will have to sound beautiful in all three of the languages they will grow up speaking. (+ a second middle name that honors the ancestor mentioned above).
I grew up in [name]England[/name] and moved to the US when I was 18. I have always been a name fan, but my choices have changed a lot. Now that I live in the US, I find it’s very important for me to preserve my British heritage. Now my favorite names, such as [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]William[/name] and [name]Rosalind[/name], have a very British feel.
I’m Welsh, but my grandmother was English, but lived in [name]Wales[/name]. And my grandfather was half Irish, half Welsh. I would 100% use a Welsh name…whether it be as a first name or a middle name. My mother gave all her children children Welsh names some way or another, but I think she just liked them at the time.
Strangely enough all of my sister’s kids have Irish names even though neither her husband or herself have any Irish heritage. Guess she just liked them.
I guess my sister and my names are both traditionally English but that’s really no reflection on our heritage.