Baby Names To Avoid?!

A few decades ago a South Indian friend of mine with a beautiful South Indian name - Gayathri, came back after a couple of years of her dad's deputation in Bombay with a brand new name. It seems she was mercilessly teased in school as "Gaay" - cow. Hence the name change! Kids could be cruel like that.

Now that many of us are spread out all over the globe, searching for pronounce-able, yet ethinic names seems to be a nightmare.

I've known of people going through the urban dictionary to ensure they weren't naming their child inappropriately! (And they dropped "Shiv" from their shortlist!)

Having lived in different countries, I've seen the "J" in Indian names pronounced like a "Y" or a "H" too.
Letters "D" and "T" in English part of the world have the hard sound and not the soft one like in French. Our Indian "TH" again is very different from how native English speakers say it. Don't even get me started on letters "U" and "R"!

Plus the stress could easily be on a different syllable changing the sound of the name completely inadvertantly giving it an uncomplimentary twist.

I hate to think of the plight of any child named "Kshiti" or "Kshitij" and I do, rather uncomfortably, seem to know more than my fair share of current babies named so.

Yes, we can teach our kids to stand tall and clarify the right pronunciation. I've done that with my first born whose name is always mispronounced but luckily doesn't inverdently have any unfortunate shortforms/ meanings.

What names would you advice ought to be avoided?
And out of curiosity if you are not in an English speaking part of the world, are there any such trouble causing Indian ethnic names you would avoid?

 

@MalStrom ah! Poor child! I knew a child too who would resignedly introduce himself as Tehas as that's how everyone in his nursery called him!

@daksh , very tough indeed. There seem to be an alarming number of indian names with that word...

@aspha didn't realise those two names could be offensive. I feel quite desensitised to the name as Arya / Aryan has been quite rampant in the last decade and a half. Is it the invasions / Nazi connections? The nazi connection made me blanch, I remember the first time I heard a friend name his son that around 15 years ago.

@Halosandwings good list! Poornima would've completely missed my radar!

 

@anika987 whoa! I didn't know that about Rhea. It was on my safe list.

Indeed people can learn and in my child's case have learnt to say it beautifully. However I'd rather choose names like Sahana which people can learn rather than a name which could make than the child a butt of jokes. While it is the parents' prerogative, it also becomes their responsibility to give it sufficient thought for the sake of their child. Kids on any playground anywhere in this world could be really cruel. And no one really has control over it - the child suffers unless the parent has been thoughtful enough.

Ganga was a name which caused grief (gang-a followed by another rude word) I loved the name Laya but it could become lay-a which again could be made to sound seedy! Not an easy task to pick a name apart in different languages!

 

@Rihana - no name with a J is safe! Sigh! I heard of an Aarti whose name was constantly written as RT by many.