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Funniest Cultural Names?

ok, so in setswana, and most bantu languages, names translate literally. take my name for instance. “warona” literaly translates to “ours” or its actually 3 words: “o” meaning “she/he/it”, “a” meaning “of” and “rona” meaning “us” so my name means “she who is of us” but the “o a” sound basically becomes “wa” some people in botswana write my name as “Oarona”.

other examples, names like “lorato” (my sister’s name) mean “love”. Motlalepula means “bringer of the rain” etc.

now when i say literally translated, i mean it. like i will hear people talking and they’ll say my name and sometimes i’ll turn, only to realise they were just saying “our..something” you get me? like the name “hope” in english, or “rose” or “grace”.

but of course now a lot of people want to give their children “english” names. and no, i don’t mean ones like “mary” or “alice” or “paul”. they want the names to have the meanings that the setswana ones would have but in english. so what ends up happening is people with names like “innocent” or “lucky” or “beauty”. those are some very common ones, and actually in english they don’t sound TOO bad. but some of the names come out all weird. like the name “staffnurse” is quite popular, basically the child was named in honor of the “staff nurse” who delivered him/her. and then some parents have just gone for names they felt “sound” nice, so you have people named “takesure” or “verynice” or “lovedom” my mom’s first boyfriend was called “lovington” we tease her about it all the time.

they get weirder, names like “elastic” or “broom” or “desk” or “chair”

and then, there is a tradition in botswana where if a woman has had a few miscarriages/still borns or her babies have died when very young, they say she should name the next one to be born an ugly name and thus it will survive. whether the superstition is true or not, SOME of the babies are bound to survive and grow up with said ugly name. i know a guy called “mathatha?” which mean “trouble” or “problems”. my sister went to school with 2 sisters named “gabanthatha” and “gabampatle” meaning “they don’t love me” and “they don’t want me” respectively. the name “matlakala” is quite popular. it literally translates to “garbage” or “rubbish”

ok, does this happen anywhere else?

Popularity: 5% [?]

  • That's an interesting article. I just wondered if you could tell me where to find more info on this topic ?
  • My best friend (until she was married off at age 9) was name M'ben-m'ben. It means "cockroach" and she was named that because her parents said she moved like a cockroach. You have to understand...they don't name their kids right away (infant mortality was very high there), but wait until they show some kind of characteristic(s).

    My friends could not pronounce my real name (Margie), so came up with the best substitute, which was Mati. No problem..until the Indonesian gov't took over the island. All of a sudden my name of "Mati" means dead!

    Sorry - but I am still very much alive! :-)
  • This might not be a cultural name but the name Dimple is quite popular in India and I never understood why.
  • Mayling
    I've heard of people named Sandia, which is watermelon in Spanish haha
  • Uncle Dan
    A Korean-Canadian TCK friend of mine recently had a baby, and wanted to give his son the English name of Gabriel. He was in Switzerland finishing up his bachelor's degree while his wife was in Korea to give birth.

    So for the last month or two he'd been telling us his intention to call the baby Gabriel. But after birth, his wife's parents called him up to say "Look, I know he has a Korean name... but we can't really pronounce Gabriel. Is there something else you could call him?"

    I'm not sure what they decided, haha. I think they might've stuck with Gabriel though.
  • Caitlin
    My brother married a Korean girl, and they wanted to name their first daughter Sophie. They told all the family in advance, they knew it was going to be a girl, and they had loved that name from the beginning. Well, Sophie was born, and they brought her to the Sophie's Korean great-grandparents' house to introduce her. Yeon tells her grandmother (as she's handing her the baby), "This is Sophie!"
    Grandmother looks up at her, completely bewildered and slightly sad and asks, "Why would you name her that?!"
    Turns out, in Korean, there's no 'F' sound, so the only way any native-Koreans can say her name is "So-pee", which means "One who pees."
  • LOL AYAKO

    "But I'm glad my parents didn't name me: Taeko.
    This means: my shit, in Tagalog..lol"
  • Ayako
    Some names are just a bad idea when you leave your native country.

    Ayako is not a good name to have in the Philippines because Ayoko means: I don't want to - in Tagalog. It's so similar that people don't notice the difference.

    But I'm glad my parents didn't name me: Taeko.

    This means: my shit, in Tagalog..lol
  • Cultural_Mut
    I know a girl in Jordan whose name is sarsoora. It literally translates as female cockroach.
  • In South Africa, there were a few nice ones (for ladies) like Precious, Glory, Faith, etc. For men, there were some...dodgy ones.
    There was Boy Man, and Guilty.
    My dad had a colleague who named his children Cyber something and I forget the other name but it had a lot to do with computers. :P
  • Uncle Dan
    "Major Major Major Major had had a difficult time from the start.

    Like Miniver Cheevy, he had been born too late - exactly thirty-six hours too late for the physical well-being of his mother, a gentle ailing woman who, after a full day and a half's agony in the rigors of childbirth, was depleted of all resolve to pursue further the argument over the child's new name."

    - Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
  • Brice
    LOL, who names their kids "Audio Science"? I'm a geek, but there's no way I'll name my kid "iPhone" or "Lolcat"

    Actually... hmm...

    Lolcat Royer... I like the sound of that..
  • camilla
    wow, there are definitely some interesting names out there huh? I know a few Zimbabweans with interesting names:
    Beloved
    Promise
    And I knew a Tanzanian named Good Luck. I think its great how optimistic and happy the names can be. I mean, to name your kid Good Luck, its kind of wishing them good luck for the rest of their lives right?
  • Clarita
    I have (Nigerian) family members named Glory (my husband), Peace, Precious and Innocent.

    Spanish nicknames are great: Palo (stick, for skinny people) gordo (fatty), chancho (pig, also for a chubby person) and mijo ("my son," even if the person is the same age or older than you) are very common.

    American celebrity baby names are the funniest. My theory is that celebrities are desperately seeking attention (that's why they try to become famous in the first place), so this is another way to get attention. Hey celebrities sure have their own wacky culture! Here are some names that famous Americans have named their children, and I am absolutely not making this up:
    - Audio Science
    - Banjo
    - Denim
    - Moon Unit
    - Fifi-Trixibelle
    - Dweezil
    - Tigerlily Heavenly Hiraani
    - Moxie Crimefighter
    - Betty Kitten
    - Pine
    - Calico
    - Diva
    - Anastasia Beaverhausen
    - Jermajesty
    - Apple
    - Peaches
    - Pilot Inspekter
    - Cannon
    - Kal-El (this is Superman's birth name)
    - I.P. Freely (this is not a joke)
    - Tabooger
    - Daisy Boo
    - Rocket
    - Satchel
    - Belle Marmalade

    This is cracking me up so much I should make it it's own post.

    URL: http://www.rateitall.com/t-21102-strange-celebr...
  • Brice
    LOL, so does that mean Indonesia we'll soon have people named "iPhone"? Awesome...
  • Caitlin
    Who wants to be John Darling when you can be Tinkerbell? I mean, after all, he really was a useless character...
  • AlastairS
    In Batak Culture of North Sumatra, Indonesia, parents are supposed to name their kid after the first thing they see when the child is born. Thus there are many Meja's (Table), Kursi (Chair) and other pieces of furniture. My favourite is Obeng (Wrench) hahaha... oh and there was also an Errikson that my dad knew.. seeing as thats not a very Indonesian name my dad asked why he was named that. Apparently as soon as he was born, his dads phone rang... hahahaha....
  • Brice
    Heeey, my name's Gaelic too! Hooray!

    But yeah, I also want to know why so many Chinese get the weirdest English names? What's wrong with "John"?
  • Happens in Haiti too, more so than in Dominican republic, unless you're in a very remote part of the country. Happens too in tribal Venezuela--it would happen in most ancient cultures: in biblical Israel children were always named "literal names"...

    Some from Haiti (these are literal word-for-word translations):
    *Vexemoi - curse me. we gave him a new one, one that meant "breaker of curses"
    *Dyepifo - God is stronger
    *Lovelace, Baby, Love, Sweety,
    *Kayla (my name) - the house. sometimes they'd pronounce it the English way, which means 'tail tail'... they soon resorted to just "K"
    *a white woman who came to teach English for a few months there was soooo tiny they nicknamed her "little bone"
    *most 'school names' are French, but nicknames are very 'African'--literal phrases
    *there was bitter, garbage, and a whole of others I can't remember. Not an extremely positive society.
    *in Ven, there were things like "talk to me tomorrow" (literally means don't talk to me ever, as tomorrow never comes... it's always today!)

    the funniest phonetic story was when someone came to Haiti to teach some Bible understanding and was going into the Hebrew word for something. He spoke in English and spoke the word (which has to retain Hebrew pronunciation), and the translator went silent. Paled--if blacks can pale. Eyes got big. He asked the speaker to repeat the sentence. Speaker repeated. Translator doubled over in gales of laughter. He had to translate it, so he spent about half a minute translating this one sentence, explaining that this word was in Hebrew and explained its meaning, and then said the word. Laughter everywhere. Tears. Hands smacking together. Hands smacking neighbors. Ten minutes explaining that this word had to be used a lot and they had to remember it was Hebrew, not Creole. The speaker asked the the translator what was going on--he's said a small sentence and it took fifteen minutes to translate, and no one had ever laughed during a session on Hebrew vocabulary. The translator asked him if there wasn't another pronunciation for the word. No. Why? What's it mean? Shuffling, eyes wandering, laughing... a man's *. That story gets told over and over again... then the tears and the smacking come back.
  • Angelic
    haha..yeah i had a good friend called chicken in thai...another one named frog, even one called "moo" which means pig!!
  • Those names just sound strange to us westerners.Some of our names sound totally strange, some even rude to Thai people.... In Thai its normal to give nicknames like 'chicken, little, big, number. one..' so its not far fetched to use the English name instead of the Thai version...
  • Brice
    Hi Dom! I haven't seen you here before, so I thought I'd say hi and give you the special Engrish welcome

    <img src="http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/34920/2000476336739993615_rs.jpg">

    WELCOME FOR COMING! :)</img>
  • Domitille
    My nickname is Dom , i should probably change my name to "lovedom" if i go to setswana !

    when i was working in Shanghai one guy at the office was named Mario, I understood why when i heard his ringtone which was the Mario Bross song, he was very fond of mario bross. It made me smile everytime his cellphone rang ...
  • Heather
    :) Cynthia, I can definitely relate to the Chinese propensity for choosing hilarious English names.

    When I first arrived in China, I worked at a flight school with about 100 students. The students decided to take on English names to use with their foreign flight instructors. Some of their choices:

    Wolf, Fox, Chopper, Airbus, Shrek, Sky, Cloud, Tree, Bird, Longmen, High Sea (He was from Shanghai) and I am not joking, Seamen. When I asked Seamen why he chose that name, he told me because it seemed very strong. To this day I am not sure exactly what definition he was talking about. The kid was a legend in the school. Not to be confused with Legend, one of the students in the 3rd class.

    Now at my second flight school, my students have normal names. The two exceptions are Nydepp and Ryuk. Nydepp you ask? He is a fan of Johnny Depp. Ryuk is actually a name from Japanese anime. I think his Chinese name is probably easier to pronounce.

    Seriously, names are a lot of fun. If I could choose my English name, you better believe I'd be Strawberry Shortcake. (I'm a redhead.)
  • Cynthia
    Wow Warona this is very interesting! Unfortunately I haven't met someone who's culture has an interesting way of naming kids :(

    But like Brice I have seen the news about a married couple in China wanting to name their kid @. The Chinese government had to tell them to rename the kid.

    Also, another story. My friend told me that some couple (not sure if this was news from the States) wanted to name their kid "4real", yes with the number "4". I mean, seriously! This might be a typical conversation:

    A: Hi, I'm ___ what's yours?
    B: I'm 4real.
    A: ...Are you for real?
    B: Yes I am 4real.
    A: ...Are you 4real, for real?!
    B: Yes, my name is 4real...

    Imagine where this is going...Or if someone calls for this person they will ask: Hello, is this 4real?

    And still on the subject of names, as China is getting close to the 2008 Olympics games and the 2010 World Expo, many Chinese are eager to name themselves in English. Well, there are quite a few interesting ones. I stole this from an Expat group on FB. And here is the truncated list:

    Dirty Jeff, General, Aronix, Total, Margin, Bamboo, Fleming, Haze, Eight, Vno, Tintin Ding, Hygenia/hygiene, Easy, Kinki, Elf, Ping Pong, Wammie, Blade, Cloud, Blackie, Yo, Dis, Play, Uranus, Saturn, Bloodbear, Bloodwolf, Bloodeagle, Darling, Swallow, ABC, Cream, Happy, Sunrise (a guy in his forties), Cannon (a girl who's got some brand loyalty), Red Sun, Teletubby, Lemon, Bobo, Autorou, Eleven, Beaver, Forrest, Steal, Seven & Eleven (two people that worked in the same office), Blur, Spider (a girl)...and the list goes on! Also I recently met 2 ladies at an event, one is called Dream and another is called Orange (because she likes the color orange, I do too but I wouldn't name myself that).

    Not kidding guys. If you're in China long enough you would believe it! LOL Unique? Totally. Appropriate? Um, not quite sure.
  • Brice
    LOL hahaa, wow that's interesting. So Warona is "one of us"!

    Do you know anyone named "elastic" or "broom" or "desk" or "chair"?

    To be honest, I think there's a trend for weird and literal baby names, I remember hearing a Chinese couple wanting to name their baby the 'at' sign "@" symbol. Yup, the one you use in email...

    If they have another baby, I think they should name it & (ampersand). @ and his brother &.

    My name "Brice" is really boring. It's Gaulish, and it means "speckled" or "dotted". Hi, I'm speckled, nice to meet you. :P
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