Comments on: Naming my baby part 2 给宝贝起名之二

By: Rachel Wang

Rachel Wang — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:32:25 +0000

I pretty much googled myself and this came up, so I like the name Rachel

By: Abigail

Abigail — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:13:39 +0000

Readed

I call architecture frozen music

By: LW

LW — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 17:18:19 +0000

Lise: actually, that’s the exact name we gave our daughter, thank you for sharing.

By: Lise (pronounced Lisa)

Lise (pronounced Lisa) — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:07:24 +0000

I am partial to Lauren Alexandra Wang, my daughter’s name. She was born in 1985, our first child, and of course we knew of no other “Laurens” at that time. We liked the rhythmic sound and her first name was decided when I saw the name written in gold on the red glass Ralph Lauren perfume bottle. It looked so beautiful. The name Taylor was set aside for our second child (girl or boy… he was a son).

She is studying to be a Fashion Designer…is that a coincidence with Ralph Lauren!

By: Dave (白老漢)

Dave (白老漢) — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 14:50:34 +0000

Oh look, more racists, because only Asian parents can be overachievers; there’s not entire suburbs full of yuppies of all races who put their child on the waiting list for the fancy preschool before they’re even born.

As for the name, to continue Pearl’s idea, you would also want to avoid any situation where her English name could mean something weird and/or mean in Chinese… “Hannah”, for example, could be 蛤那 — probably don’t want your child to be names “seize the frog”… while you can get around that partway using a Chinese name, remember that she’ll have the English name on all her documents, birth certificate, passport, etc.

By: Great

Great — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 08:07:40 +0000

Another classic example on Asian parents being absurd overachievers.. wow, can’t wait for you to start pressuring your kid to go to HARVARD when she’s 4.

By: Gisela

Gisela — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 19:07:31 +0000

Suggestion: Emma Sophia….

universal wisdom???

By: Francis

Francis — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 01:41:07 +0000

It appears that Steven Levitt himself has picked up on this…

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2005/12/21/name-that-baby/#comments

Lucienne Aviva does sound like an awfully nice name, and may give the girl a subconscious cue to study jurisprudence, but I would prefer Sophie Aviva.

By: LW

LW — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:43:54 +0000

Pearl:

thank you very much for your comments, you obviously put a lot of thoughts into it. I thought I’d keep the Chinese name and English name phonically distinctive because trying to come up with names that work in both English and Chinese has been very difficult for us.

I think your comment on RAW is right on, I will probably take it off the list.

Thanks again.

By: Pearl

Pearl — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 17:44:52 +0000

Atara is a cool name, especially with Lauren or Hannah. She can choose whichever level or unique she wants as she ages.

It’s hard to strike a balance between a distinctive and a popular name. No one wants to be in the situation with a too popular name Jennifer, no, not Jennifer L, not Jennifer P, Jennifer W. I mean.

I vote against RAW too. Partly the short form, partly the beat ‘ ” / ‘ ‘ ” ‘ / ” isn’t as pleasing.

Is there any issue with anyone in the family who might pronounce any of the name “in a Chinese way” so that it would be unrecognizable to English ears? For example how Mary is pronounced as Moai Lee? Ignorant people chortle over how family can’t even pronounce their loved one’s name. Might be a consideration.

Lao Ren (person of the pen potentially?) or (respective title, person) would be a nice Chinese counterpart name for Lauren. I guess completely different Chinese and English name is a good route too.

Alexandra, Hannah, Sophie and Ella are timeless and don’t connotate to me any particular personality bias that might mismatch with a child. Rachel and Clementine strike me as girlier names while Lucienne and Lauren are nicely androgenous. I suppose that engenders a whole other aspect of debate.