cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1361025
Idk, something chill like Hakim Shaoqi… or Mikhail Sorensen
Each in different scripts (arabic et chinese) or (Cyrlic and Roman)
Eg. 少奇 حكيم (for completely foreign name) or Михаил Sörensen
They’d have to spend their lives explaining their parents are dumb or weird, then eventually they would either grow to like it or they would go by a nickname that didn’t draw as much attention.
You’re setting them up for a lifetime of being unable to fill out online forms (because supported characters ,minimum field lengths, &c &c always seem to be implemented poorly client side or in the DB). Some required by the government or bank or airline or police. Forcing them to go through a long manual process, if it even exists.
Then staff will make a typo in the name every time, and be locked out of their own bank account / government portal / hospital records because it doesn’t match their ID. It will take months to fix each time, and half the time they will make the same mistake again, or a different one.
I go through this enough as an immigrant, and my name is 4 letters long and they are all on every keyboard. Having a name foreign to your country of residence sucks.
Also, many places have restrictions on what names they will accept. For example, I work in IT at a university. We have a fairly limited set of characters because other characters are known to cause issues with vendor products. Unfortunately, we just don’t really have much of a choice.
Haha yeah. Supply chains for software are a mess (just like most supply chains), and the product with the worst character support will define the limits of everything else :(
Yup. One time we had some person try changing their name to the dragon head emoji. Some systems handled it fine, but a lot of them broke in different and interesting ways. That’s what prompted the restrictions.
I once knew a Thai national with a legal name, through some quirk of the system, legally became Mr. Smith.
First name Mr.
Last name Smith.
Getting him through airports was always an… experience. He was a talented guy though!
Sure, if you want your child to hate you until they are old enough to petition for a change of name.
Teacher: …uhhh…
少奇 حكيم : Yep, I’m here.
Teacher: Got you. Where is that from?
少奇 حكيم : …uhhh…
Teacher: Got it. Is Ashley Berkenstein here?
Urumqi enters the chat
If it’s your culture? Absolutely go for it. Not about to tell someone from another culture what they should or shouldn’t name their kid, and it they get bullied then it’s something you can take up with the school.
If it’s not your culture, then it’s a weird mix of “we’re just so random” parenting that is going to set them up for a lifetime of ridicule, which in the end is selfish because you’re not really thinking about how that will affect them. Imagine introducing yourself as Mohammed to your new Arabic boss, when you have zero ties to that culture or the importance to that name.
Alright then, I’ll stop it.
Do it, but make their name something like “your mom is a ho” in Esperanto
“Via panjo estas putino” doesn’t roll off the tongue too well.
what’s your stance on getting tattoos in languages you don’t speak
Kids spend a huge amount of time at school. A good kid’s name needs to be yellable across the playground, (I knew a kid named Garfield, who went by Gar. Fine for conversation but you couldn’t call him without sounding idiotic.) singable for Happy Birthday, (my own is awkwardly long and off-meter) and not an obvious rhyme for any embarrassing body parts or functions. (Mulva?) It helps if it is spelled in a way that supports correct pronunciation, or at least doesn’t suggest an awkward mispronunciation. Kamylia (pronounced like camellia) works, Cameltoe doesn’t. A foreign language name, like an heirloom, should have a provenance or family story. Not just random appropriation. “I named my kid Shanghai because he’s how his mom Shanghaied me into marriage.” Terrible, but at least it’s better than nothing.
Since when exactly do we give people names in a script? That’s not how that works…
You know that you too are writing in a script, right?
Still: you cant go to the authorities and say “I give my kid the name XY, but you have to write it in arabic/latin/cyrillic script”. They will use the script that’s officially used in your country.
On second thoughts, I should probably rethink that…
Why ? What’s wrong with using Latin letters ? Calling your child with the name of a character from a “current popular media” isn’t new, which may includes foreign names or outright made up. For exemple : A lot of people called their children Daenerys based on the character from game of thrones or the Turkish name Eren from the character on attack on titans. Using a combo of scripts almost nobody can read is meaningless.
Idk why… I was high on my own ego supply…
It’s okay. We all have weird ideas in our heads that we think are good but once we share them with see how flawed they are. It happened a few time with me too.
Bruuuh Shaoki being 少奇 is brilliant. That aside don’t, it ain’t worth it.
