Which is your favourite English name?

[liszta]

I'm want to change my name!
Which one do you think is more beautiful: Clarice or Melody?
Any other suggestions are welcomed

[quasimodo]

I'm want to change my name!
Which one do you think is more beautiful: Clarice or Melody?
Any other suggestions are welcomed

Try Frantzia 

[pianistimo]

what about rose?  you know, english rose?  (sorry to be so quaint).  of course diana is a very 'goddessish' name.

i always look for softness in the consonants even.  clarice has some harshness in it - a little harsher than annabell or melody.

also, what would the name mean?  here's a site that gives the names and meaning:

www.world-english.org/girls_names.htm

never heard of 'sirena' before.

[prometheus]

Clarice is french. Melody is greek. Diana is latin. Rose is latin as well. But I guess it also origins from greek. Sirena is greek.

I guess Frantzia is a female version of Franz, with an added t, which is a germanised version of the latin 'Fran'.


But sometimes different cultures produce names with the same phonetics. And then the meaning can become confused.
I once had a very long list of japanese first names that mached western names.

I don't think there aren't that many names that are english. Most common names we use are either bluntly latin, greek or hebrew or they are based on them.

There are some like Ash, Arwen, Bernard, Erwin, Rob, Ted, Willow, etc.

[thalbergmad]

The most popular English name is Gupta.

My favourite is Cyril.

Thal

[barnowl]

Middlesex.

Sometimes I wonder what a person was thinking when s/he
came up with that one.

Okay, it's not a person's name, but it's still a (place) name.

[barnowl]

The most popular English name is Gupta.

My favourite is Cyril.

Thal

Isn't Gupta an Indian name? (India, as in the subcontinent.) When I was selling,
every person I met whose last name was Gupta had a distinct Indian accent and came from that country. When pronounced the first syllable sounds like th double 'o' in hoop. GOOPta.

Are you saying there are people in England whose first name is Gupta? Shame on them!  When uttered, it sounds like a digestive malfunction.

[Kassaa]

The most popular English name is Gupta.

My favourite is Cyril.

Thal

Gupta? What the hell?

James is my favorite. Some people might disagree with me, but I like the name Apple for a female.

[prometheus]

It's Thalberg's parody on his own xenophobic self.


Middlesex is a county in England.

[jre58591]

james is one of my favorite names. not just because its my middle name.

[sharon_f]

I've always loved the name Vanessa. Interestingly, I have never personally known a Vanessa.

[pianistimo]

i like vanessa, too. 

thanks, prometheus, for explaining all that.  i don't know why , but i am attracted to greek names i guess.  our middle daughter's middle name is 'macrina.'  i never heard it before my husband's novel (which he was reading the day she was born) - and loved it from the moment i heard it.  forget what it means. 

[mikey6]

you could do the gweneth paltrow thing and go along the fruit line!

[prometheus]

It's kind of interesting that we have all these names from asia minor, near-east and the mediterranean area that we all view as being part of the core of our culture while at the same time we are affraid of names like muhammed and Gupta 'attacking; that same cultural core while both names are actually just as alien.

Granted, both Mohammed and Gupta are ugly names. But in general I find that Indian, Arab and persian names are really interesting. I guess it is just that they sound interesting, or rather exotic, to my ears.

Last night there was a all british antropologist on National Geographic who was in love with India. He named one of his daughters Lakshmi.

I always found Lakshmi a strange name, phonetically. So I named one of my fictional character. Eshmidhar, derived from the male Lakshmidhar. And then of course on of my favorite musicians is named Lakshminarayana Shankar, the violinist.

[pianistimo]

the only problem is remembering the name.  my neighbor across the street is indian and her name is 'alpa' (she might have a longer name - but declines to use it).  you'd think it's an easy name - but i couldn't make an association at first.  now - i think alpha (like first letter of alphabet).  sometimes you accidentally say the association, though - and then the cat's out of the bag. 

for a long time my sons best friend, shams, was simply sham to me.  i never heard a name have an 's' on the end.  i asked my son how many of him there were.  he laughed and said - 'yes.  there's an 's' at the end of his name.'

[baron_von_heimlich]

What about Nigel.  Or Cornelius.  Or Brighton.  Or Percy.

[brewtality]

I find most English names horribly banal. I really love the name 'Ava' and if I ever had a daughter I'd call her that (after Ava Gardner), but apparently its suddenly become super popular. It's like George's 'Seven', suddenly not so special

[quasimodo]

I find most English names horribly banal. I really love the name 'Ava' and if I ever had a daughter I'd call her that (after Ava Gardner), but apparently its suddenly become super popular. It's like George's 'Seven', suddenly not so special

I don't agree with "banal". Just on the tip of my mind, names like Meredith or Gwyneth put me in a state close to sexual arrousal...

[brewtality]

I don't agree with "banal". Just on the tip of my mind, names like Meredith or Gwyneth put me in a state close to sexual arrousal...

Well, it depends on where you live I guess, though granted the names you like are not examples of the overly common names I was referring to. You are french aren't you? (correct me if i am wrong) I think the names Adeline, Magalie and Gaëlle are really pretty but to someone who hears them all frequently they might lose their charm. The same applies to English names.

[quasimodo]

You are french aren't you?

No, thanks god, I'm not 

[musik_man]

I much prefer Clarice, whether or not it's technically English or not.

[thalbergmad]

I find most English names horribly banal.

Not always. An English girl I used to work with was called Adibah Suliman Aziz Said.

Lovely eh?

Thal

[Floristan]

I knew a lovely, ginger-haired English girl named Veronica once, a long time ago.  There's a good name.

Jane is about as English as they come.  So are Mary, Anne, and Elizabeth.  Amelia, Clara, Catherine, Judith, and Mercy as well.  There's a selection!

[prometheus]

Jane is hebrew. Mary too of course.  Anne is hebrew. And so is Elisabeth. Amelia and Clara are latin. Catherine is greek. Again, Judith is as biblical as names get, so hebrew.

Now, Mercy is english. BTW, Veronica is latin as well.

Or were you talking about the girls themselves?

[pianistimo]

they're all russian.  just kidding.

[prometheus]

Boris and Sasha are russian names.

[brewtality]

No, thanks god, I'm not 

ah bon? francophone at least?

[quasimodo]

ah bon? francophone at least?

Huh huh. 
Well technically I could be french though, was born in Paris. However I couldn't care less about having a french passport.

[tds]

LUKE!! yup, its english.

or TDS, u know...

[liszta]

whether the name is originally English or not
in fact it doesn't really matter
as long as the name sounds & looks nice 

btw what do you think of this one: Valdace

[musik_man]

whether the name is originally English or not
in fact it doesn't really matter
as long as the name sounds & looks nice 

btw what do you think of this one: Valdace

Not sure how it's pronounced, so you need to ask yourself, will new people mispronouncing my name bug me.

[lau]

at a carnival i won a stuffed dog and called it celeste. But my favorite name is

female: claire

male: Tyson ( which conveniently happens to be my own name)

[pianowolfi]

Sloane (sloanie), very rare name I guess. I once had a female student with that name.

[trunks]

Kevin is my No.1 favourite name.
Ben/Benjamin comes No.2.

Others include Ray/Raymond, Ivan, Calvin, Ricky, Devon, . . .