What's in a name?

The art and science of multicultural baby names

Here’s a word problem for you: you meet a couple, with one spouse a native French speaker and the other a native English speaker. They have a daughter. What is the likelihood that said daughter will be named either Charlotte or Margot?

Answer: only slightly less likely than George Foreman naming a son George Foreman.

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Naming children has always fascinated me. Do parents go the traditional route? Do they lean towards family names? Do they use a creative spelling or completely make up a name? What about nicknames — are they a no-no or will you call them by a nickname from day one? What sneaky, unintended nicknames might there be? Do the initials spell something weird?

Naming kids is tough, and everyone approaches it differently. And when you add living abroad into the mix, the naming math gets even more complicated.

Here’s a short story for you:

A friend invited us over for a Danish Fastelavn party this past weekend. Similar to Mardi Gras, Fastelavn marks the start of a fasting period leading up to Easter. There’s special cake involved, and the kids dress up in costumes and beat a piñata to celebrate as a nod to the medieval tradition of [trigger warning] beating a barrel with a black cat inside. While the holiday no longer involves cats, the carnival-like spirit remains.

And while it was fun to learn about Danish traditions, another thing stood out to me even more. Of the 5 kids in attendance (my own included), two of them were named Viggo.

In one afternoon, I went from knowing exactly zero Viggos in my 4+ decades of life to knowing two. And I couldn’t help but laugh, because while I didn’t expect the name, the overlap truly didn’t surprise me. If you’ve never lived in another country, you might not understand how easily this could happen.

So what’s going on?

It’s one of the byproducts of being a bicultural family. When the parents have different native languages, they have to play the game of what names work in both languages. Does a name sound roughly the same in both languages? Is it spelled the same in both? Is it actually a name in both?

Apparently Viggo hits all three marks for Danish-French couples.

Cara, on the other hand, misses the mark in all the places I’ve lived outside of the US:

Let’s play “Is it a name?” Cara (Care-uh) Edition

It’s not to say in Japan or France people don’t know that Cara is my name…it’s more that it’s immediately identifiable as not Japanese or French. As someone who is clearly foreign and is married to a fellow foreigner, it doesn’t bother me that we don’t have names that are passable in multiple languages. But if you’re a mixed-culture family, having a name that works in both languages creates a sense of belonging in both cultures. For kids who are already inherently different from their monocultural peers, this sense of belonging through a name can help bridge differences.

I’ve notice a few common denominator names across English/French and English/Japanese families after living and having a child abroad. There are more, but these are the ones that I’ve heard recently:

So basically if you’re a French/American/Japanese couple, you can have two children and they will be named Noah and Anna.

As a dual-American couple, we didn’t really have to take this into consideration. We considered giving her a Japanese middle name since she was born in Japan, but in the end it felt like cultural appropriation. So we gaijin-smashed the name and went with what we liked. She’s an American, and she has an American name. We don’t know where she’ll live for the rest of her life, but as a kid growing up outside of America, at least her name will help her bridge that divide.

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P.S. Thanks for reading Crumbs from Abroad! Is there anything that you’ve been wondering about living abroad, especially in France, Japan, or the UK? I’d love to cover topics you’ve been curious about or answer any questions you might have.