People talk about "Muslim" names, which I guess for most people means rooted in Arabic. But there are plenty of Muslims out there who don't speak Arabic, right? What do people in Malaysia name their kids? Indian Muslims? Well, whatever - there are semi-wavy lines in these name things, is all I'm sayin'.
For us, the names have to be Pakistani. Which mostly comports with Arabic-sounding names, I guess. But the idea that the kids in a multicultural relationship will be named after the most-recently-immigrated spouse, or the one who was raised closest to his or her culture of descent, is not an uncommon one. I don't actually know any half-desi couple who have children with non-desi names, (I don't think.) I'm not sure why this is. (Other non-desi wives feel free to chime in!)
Personally, I never had any problem with this Paksitani-names only idea. I don't remember if there was ever any specific discussion (M: "My children will only have PAKISTANI NAMES!" Me: "Who the heck do you think you're talking to, Mister?") I actually had already picked out names for my kids and they were Capital-W Weird. So marrying M just meant legitimate access to a whole NEW brand of weird baby name. So I was on board with naming my kids with Pakistani names even before said kids were even a figment of my imagination.
I did have constraints though. I wanted the name to be pronounceable by white Americans, and easily spelled. But I didn't want a name that was already normal in America (Layla, Jamal) because while they are perfectly lovely names, I still wanted the Weird-name aspect. And actually, I wanted it to start with the same letter as M's name. It's such a good letter! I love that letter!
We had a short list of names. We were 100% agreed on baby girl names, but we both had a boy name picked out that we loved. We liked each other's boy name fine, but we were both pushing for our #1 boy name pick. We decided that we'd wait until the baby was born and we actually MET the baby and knew the gender (we were waiting to find out - SURPRISE!) and we'd pick them.
People - the kid wasn't named until he was FIVE (5) days old! We both held pretty tight to our first-choice name. Eventually M won, only because everyone in the family jumped on his side of the boat - yes - EVEN the white people!
I guess it kind of matter that my first choice was the name of a brutal dictator in Pakistan's not-to-distant past...
19 comments:
aaaaaaarrrrrrgh! Don't remind me! T - 28 days and counting!
You're the reason I was thinking about this! Thanks for the inspriration!
assalamualaikum, i just stumbled on ur blg and wanna have a say. actually, in Malaysia, most of the malay muslims have arabic names as in names that we take from Quran. for example, Munirah, Huda, Mawaddah, Amirah and lots more.
Musharraf???????????????????????????
**openmouthed**
hi i usually read ur blog when i have time, its funny. im asian but bought up in britain so i can understand why you feel the way you do aboutr certain things. when i had my kids names were the hardest part because the whole family have to agree especially the Mil. she kept choosing really long wierd sounding names. for me it had to be islamic, easy to pronounce and something people wouldnt make fun of. it was really hard fighting my corner and she still brings it up to this day. we took so long that the registry office sent us a letter saying if we didnt do it in a number of days we would get fined!
0mg...not Musharraf! -gasp-
btw...my first time here.
LOL so funny when I got to the end. I think I will give my kids a pakistani name and a name from my language as 1st and middle name. Which one will be the 1st depends how it just sounds better. I say this because in my culture which is Non-Muslim we all have 2 names 1st and middle name + 2 last names one from our father and one from our mother. I think that system is fair.
I think generally "Muslim" names would be Arabic, Persian, or Turkish in origin---as are Pakistani names, although really there is no such thing as a Muslim name or a Pakistani name, I guess. Both of my girls have names that mean something in more than one language, but are Islamic by their Arabic root. They are also unique names, plus I think they sound good for the goras. Although both desis and goras mispronounce their names. Can't always win, I guess.
Lol ... Musharraf :O
What? You don't think Musharraf is a good name for a baby? We could get a little baby military uniform!
Oh.. naming the baby. I'll just say this is one reason why I don't want more children!!!
Gahhhh! Naming the babies! I wanted something "Muslim" but not so odd sounding to my family. His family wanted the same from their side I guess. One of our friends (Pakistani) was tossing out names one day and hit on one we both really liked! Then the second little girl came around and I had a book of Muslim names and picked her name, hubby liked it so we went with it......'cept he suddenly wanted to spell it different and pronounce it different. Sigh. I won that battle, heh, heh.
Not an easy thing in any culture!!
half-desi couple here with a non-desi named son.
so now u know one :)
i am thinking more on the lines of persian and iranian names for my babies [if and when they plan on coming]
arabic yes !!! has a charm...
but MUSH????
Dang! There goes my chance of telling people I know 'Musharraf'!
Similar to Hadah, I'm hailing straight from Malaysia here. Besides having Arabic names *or I prefer to say, Arabic derived names*, muslims here do have names derived from the Chinese i.e. Teh, Malay i.e. Puteri and various others that may just be western i.e. Aaron or Kristina. And it doesn't have to be a mixed parentage marriage for them to come up with these.
this is a HUGE fight for me and my fiance. i want to go half and half, he is determined that they will only have pakistani/muslim names....driving me crazy...why can't he compromise as well???
and i am the same about weird names. lol.
We have already started talking about this, even though children are not imminent. He thinks it is weird to give a child with one Indian and one American parent a totally "American" name (not that there is such a thing, but he's thinking Steve, Jennifer, etc) and at the same time, I want something that still sounds kind of like a possibly American-ish name to me and that my family won't have to work for months and months to pronounce properly. We've now been looking for those sorts of crossover names (well, mostly I have, and he gives the yay or nay interspersed with "Why are you STILL looking at baby names??")
The list is short, but there are some out there, i.e. Deven or Maya. All I know is, I want some good options on the table before I am actually faced with the decision!
It was easy for our girl, we pick his grandmothers name and my grandmothers name Aliza Elaine
Our son was a nightmare we couldn't decied. He came home from haaj 4 days b-4 and still couldn't agree. We deciede Zayn Rahman.
I love both of their names and it is easy for Americans to pronounce most of the time.
Me and my fiancé will definitely have troubles with this. We NEVER agree on names, when we are talking about it. I want our potential, future children to at least have a western sounding middle name, so they have the option when they grow up how they present themselves depending on the situation. Problem here is...my favourite boy's name, Adam, is a apparently a no go as is Gabriel (because of some reason you can't name children after angels...). We'll see. :)
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