Choosing a name for your baby might be one of the most heatedly discussed topics amongst the prospective parents!
If on top of that you and your partner are from different countries, it may get even trickier – you may want to make sure that the name is easily pronounced in all relevant languages, that it's clear whether it's a boy or girl and/or that the name is easy to spell for everyone.
We asked some of our Kietzee Community members (all international couples living in Berlin) how they came up with their baby's names:
Dina (Indonesian) and Théo (French) on how they chose the name Kaia for their daughter:
"For us we wanted a name easy to pronounce in Indonesia, France, and when going places. We used OpenAI’s chatGPT to generate list of girl names fitting that criteria and Kaia was one of the names that popped up.
We also did away with respective traditions in our families in respect to last names: in Dina’s family in Indonesia, every sibling has a different last name, different from the last name of the parents. We did away with that and just used my last name, for ease of use in the future. We didn’t hyphenate both of our last names as for us this was a way of just punting the problem down to the next generation.
Also, in France traditionally kids get a first name which they are called by day-to-day (e.g for my father, Thierry) and 2 other first names (e.g Claude Patrice). Those second and third names are usually used to make the grandparents happy, but they only make the life of the kid more difficult in our view (all names on passport, required to book flights, apply for all admin documents, enter official exams, etc. ). So we just called her Kaia, no second or third name."
Zoe (Irish) and Yago (Spanish) on how they chose the name Noah for their son:
"For us we wanted a name that was pronounced the same in both languages (English and Spanish) and almost the same in German. Irish names are a mystery to most people and Spanish names are butchered by my Irish family. We also had the added bonus that I love unusual names whereas Yago loves classical names.
Noah satisfied almost all criteria, easy to pronounce, the same name in most languages and a little earthy (that’s what I tell myself at least) while also classical in the biblical sense I guess."
Ewa (Polish) and Jesus (Venezuelan) on how they chose the name Milan for their son:
"We both had our names (Ewa and Jesus) misspelled and mispronounced in every possible way when living abroad so we wanted our kid to have a name that is difficult to butcher. We also wanted a name that is quite unique but is an existing name.
Milan is a Czech name, and we met and lived together in Prague and it’s an important chapter in our respective biographies, so we loved this being reflected in our baby’s name. Some people seem to think he was named after the Italian city but the name has nothing to do with the capital of fashion (the accent in the Czech name is placed on the first syllable)."
Carolina (Spanish) and Tim (British) on how they chose the name Nova for their daughter:
"We wanted a name that would work well in Spanish & English, ideally with few syllables. We made a shortlist, and the first name that went on the list was Julia or Jules for short. We both had grandmothers named Julia & Julie so this was part of the name we felt pretty clear about. Julia H. on its own is nice but we wanted to find an element that made the name feel more unique and carried extra meaning. We thought of of topics that we shared an interest in and started listing names that felt right and had meaning.
In our early days together we’d nerded out about astronomy, and the name Nova came to us. It’s got a beautiful meaning: the last phase of the lifecycle of a star, a state where gold and other precious metals come from and how nebulas where new stars are born get formed. It’s poetry of the universe, an incredible force of creation. The origin of the word nova also means “new”. We liked the thought that by calling her Nova Julia she’d carry the spirit of both of our grandmothers."
Some more names from our community
We asked our followers on Instagram what names they picked for their babies and here's what they said. (They also agreed with me that boy names are way harder than girl names!)
Girl's names:
Daisy
Eleanor
Iyla
Jarrah
Julia
Lenni Mae
Lue
Manya
Nalu
Willa Agnes
Zoé
Boy's names:
Adam
August
Gregorio
Harrison
Kaspar
How did you choose your baby's name? Send me an email (lisa(at)kietzee.com) if you'd like to share!
