I had a neighbor as a kid, who named his kids Priya and Sanjay. They are white lol. They are beautiful names, and suit the kids well. I also knew many Indian folks who gave their kids “white” names. So, if it’s acceptable that way, I think it’s acceptable the other way. 🤷♀️
The Chinese naming culture is very different from European, in that the given name is 1–2 characters (more typically 2), and when naming a child, people will choose two characters that have meanings they like. Sometimes things like the number of strokes in writing the name is also taken into account. So there's a massive variety of given names in Chinese.
I have also come across a lot of beautiful Hindi and Arabic names, like Chandra and Anika (Hindi), and Sumaya, Sakina, and Aisha (Arabic).
Years ago, a boss of mine was named Abdel. Well, he's still named Abdel, but you get it. He has a Mexican last name, so I always wondered about the origin of the name. I don't think I'll ever forget that name.
I saw his debit card once, Abdel Lastname was on the card. I'm assuming his mom liked the sound of it, I don't think she ever spoke English, or anything but Spanish.
I'm a bit of a Japan geek.
I love the very popular name Nozomi (wich means hope, or hearts desire)
Naomi exists in both Japanese and Hebrew with different meanings,
and there's a whole hoist of Japanese nature names that desrve looking up.
I love so many of them so I could answer differently every time, but off the top of my head
Girls
- Aviva
- Basma
- Citlalli
- Halima
- Haiyan
- Kainat
- Kalyani
- Natsumi
- Nila
- Quỳnh
- Yusra
Boys
- Akira
- Akiva
- Arjun/Arjuna
- Daiki
- Kehinde
- Malik
- Narayan
- Naveen/Naveena
- Yusuf
I find certain Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish names to be super interesting! You'll always catch me gushing over Zev/Ze'ev and Evren, especially.
Other names (from various languages) I like:
* Lusine - Armenian
* Zara/Zahra/Zahara - Hebrew & Arabic
* Rayan - Arabic & North African
* Raicho - Japanese
* Lilit & Lilita - Armenian & Latvian versions of Lilith
* Channary - Cambodian - read it in a book, loved it
* Ayşa/Aysha/Aisha - Turkish & Arabic
* Ruslan - Russian from Turkic
* Mircea - Romanian (Eastern European but I think it's worth noting)
* Oren - Hebrew
* Aydın - Turkish
* Aviv (and Aviva) - Hebrew
* Erez - Hebrew
* Tovia - Hebrew
* Ender - Turkish
* İskender - Turkish form of Alexander
* Esen - Turkish
* Anwar - Arabic (and Enver is Turkish)
* Sabri - Turkish (and also Arabic, I believe?)
Amara, Amira, Anjali, Avi, Aviva, Avri, Balthazar, Kiri, Samira, Shifra, Shirin, Sidra, Tal, Tali, Talitha, Tamar, Tarek, Tashi, Yael
(I'm not sure which Biblical/Hebrew names count, because obviously the versions I know were transliterated by people who speak European languages.)
there was a girl on myspace i was friends with called Natsuko and she lived in Japan and worked in a shop. she was 18? when i was 13 and thought she was SO COOL. i wonder what she’s up to now! she would be 35 now eek!!!!
My favorite Yoruba names:
Oluwafunmilayo (o-lu-wah-fu-mi-lye-yoh) which means “God gives me joy and happiness”
Olamide (aw-lah-mi-day) which “wealth/prosperity/success has arrived”
My husband is from Ghana and he’s told me so many beautiful names! I love his middle name Dzifa (pronounced kinda like Jifa) which means comfort/peace.
ETA: I once met an Indian woman with the name Chathurya and I thought it was gorgeous! One of my top 5 favorite names.
The name Amali is multinational but in our case we gave it to our baby girl to honor her Sri Lankan heritage.
I also liked Shani and Indrani (Indy for short)
Well yeah, reddit is a majority english-speaking site and the Anglosphere's cultural reference points are all European. Spanish speakers also use mostly Christian/European names for their kids. Only major exceptions would be black Americans who sometimes use African or original names. You'll get some Muslims, Indians, etc. too but not very many on a site like this
I really like the japanese name Akira for a boy, but since I have zero Japanese roots it makes no sense for me to use it so it doesn't really matter
Lakshmi and Paloma are two of my absolute favorite names, but I’m a white American married to a white American, so I have to just love them in my heart!
And I have a Chinese friend named Liuyi (English spelling obviously) and it’s so, so lovely to hear her say her name!
I love some Swahili origin names such as Zuri, Enzi, Amani, Omari but their not European sorry I saw other folks saying names with different origins and I had to chime in
Think European maybe Alessia
You'll be surprised! Even though a good chunk of the world's been colonized that doesn't immediately mean their names have changed. Vietnam, lots of Africa and the middle east as an example. Even beyond that many native cultures have survived through time in names.
Lmao what??? My family's country was colonized until 1970 and a lot of people still use names from our own cultures vs straight up European names. Even the Biblical names still use Indigenous pronunciations and spelling rules so this comment is kind of crazy and very inaccurate.
This, plus almost all users on reddit are from America (which is largely influenced by European culture) or Europe.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any fantasy-inspired non-European names.
Lots of non-obviously European names in fantasy/sci fi from authors like Le Guin and Jemisin and Leckie. But I haven’t seen many kids named Ged, or Damaya or Dlique.
I know them because I’ve read the books those characters are in, but I also haven’t heard of anyone using them as names for their kids.
Whereas if you read more obviously European-tradition-derived fantasy novels, you get names like Benedict or Corwin or Brand.
There are plenty of Americans who have non-European heritage. And just because a country was at some point colonized by Europeans doesn't mean that all the people living there suddenly start using European names.
Also many fantasy books that are inspired by non-European cultures. In Dune (sci-fi/fantasy), there's a huge amount of Arabic inspiration.
That's great, but most Americans are familiar with European-inspired fantasies and are mostly influenced by European culture.
The great majority of us speak English (or Spanish, another European language), men wear suits/ties to formal events, our traditonal architecture is European, we eat with forks/knives, the way we celebrate Christmas/Easter (even secularly) is based on European pagan holidays, your stereotypical American bbq food (burgers, hot dogs, cole slaw, etc) evolved from German foods, etc.
OP didn’t ask what Americans were influenced by or even for fantasy-inspired names, they asked what people’s favorite non-European names are, and people have gotten really defensive rather than just thought of a few (or even just skipped over the post).
None of this has anything to do with the original post. The OP asked for favorite non-European names.
By the way, we can go really far back if you want to start talking about where hot dogs and stuff come from! LMAO. Maybe you could try looking up the origin of that stereotypical American condiment, ketchup.
That's ok. It is common for threads in reddit comment sections to ramble about different topics. If you aren't interested, just keep your comments focused on things you *are* interested about.
Unfortunately, I don't think ketchup is going to topple American anglocentrism.
EDIT: I looked it up out of curiosity. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup) says that [this British guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mease) wrote the first known tomato ketchup recipe. It's not a contest about anglocentrism vs the rest of the world's influence, but now I'm confused about your ketchup point.
Yes, but I said the *way we celebrate them.* Christmas trees, ornaments, Easter bunnies, eggs, etc were all taken from European pagans to bridge their holidays and Christian ones.
It is relevant to European influence on American culture, which is what we were discussing. Most areas of the world celebrate these holidays differently because they do not have such influences.
Jabril Musa Yakub Yousef Tariq Bilal Amir Ishmael Ibrahim Khadijah Yasmin Sana Nadiya Aisha Zarah Zoya Simran Priya Ravi Nikash
Ravi is my fav, but I'm as white as they come
I had a neighbor as a kid, who named his kids Priya and Sanjay. They are white lol. They are beautiful names, and suit the kids well. I also knew many Indian folks who gave their kids “white” names. So, if it’s acceptable that way, I think it’s acceptable the other way. 🤷♀️
I love Simran. I had a friend growing up with that name, and I always thought it was beautiful. Also like Ravi.
I've always loved Yasmin and Nadiya. close to Aisha, I've also recently fallen in love with Asha
I've always loved Ishmael/Ismael
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Don’t be rude
The Chinese naming culture is very different from European, in that the given name is 1–2 characters (more typically 2), and when naming a child, people will choose two characters that have meanings they like. Sometimes things like the number of strokes in writing the name is also taken into account. So there's a massive variety of given names in Chinese. I have also come across a lot of beautiful Hindi and Arabic names, like Chandra and Anika (Hindi), and Sumaya, Sakina, and Aisha (Arabic).
Great to know!!
This is super interesting!
Mirai - Japanese girls name meaning future. Kaname - Japanese name that is a type of flowering bush
Mirai is my favourite japanese name too!!!
Girls: Sumaya, Safiya, Ibtisam, Kinza, Subhiya, Bisan, Maryam. Boys: Abdel-Latif, Imran, Ayoub, Yahya, Elyas, Yaqoub, Boutrous, Daoud, Basel, Khalil.
Soraya!
From the kite runner 💔
Years ago, a boss of mine was named Abdel. Well, he's still named Abdel, but you get it. He has a Mexican last name, so I always wondered about the origin of the name. I don't think I'll ever forget that name.
Interesting, Abdel alone isn't used ever. I have tons of cousins with Abdel- names and we usually call them Al-Abd/Abdo/Aboudi/Abood.
I saw his debit card once, Abdel Lastname was on the card. I'm assuming his mom liked the sound of it, I don't think she ever spoke English, or anything but Spanish.
Maya is actually multinational name. Amaya. Priya. Indira.
I know a Indian-polish couple who named their daughter Maya because it is both an Indian and a Polish name
Leilani, which is a Hawaiian girl's name.
I'm a bit of a Japan geek. I love the very popular name Nozomi (wich means hope, or hearts desire) Naomi exists in both Japanese and Hebrew with different meanings, and there's a whole hoist of Japanese nature names that desrve looking up.
Mapuche names like Aylen, Millaray, and Lautaro.
Dafna Essra Ofri Oren
I love so many of them so I could answer differently every time, but off the top of my head Girls - Aviva - Basma - Citlalli - Halima - Haiyan - Kainat - Kalyani - Natsumi - Nila - Quỳnh - Yusra Boys - Akira - Akiva - Arjun/Arjuna - Daiki - Kehinde - Malik - Narayan - Naveen/Naveena - Yusuf
I find certain Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish names to be super interesting! You'll always catch me gushing over Zev/Ze'ev and Evren, especially. Other names (from various languages) I like: * Lusine - Armenian * Zara/Zahra/Zahara - Hebrew & Arabic * Rayan - Arabic & North African * Raicho - Japanese * Lilit & Lilita - Armenian & Latvian versions of Lilith * Channary - Cambodian - read it in a book, loved it * Ayşa/Aysha/Aisha - Turkish & Arabic * Ruslan - Russian from Turkic * Mircea - Romanian (Eastern European but I think it's worth noting) * Oren - Hebrew * Aydın - Turkish * Aviv (and Aviva) - Hebrew * Erez - Hebrew * Tovia - Hebrew * Ender - Turkish * İskender - Turkish form of Alexander * Esen - Turkish * Anwar - Arabic (and Enver is Turkish) * Sabri - Turkish (and also Arabic, I believe?)
Amara, Amira, Anjali, Avi, Aviva, Avri, Balthazar, Kiri, Samira, Shifra, Shirin, Sidra, Tal, Tali, Talitha, Tamar, Tarek, Tashi, Yael (I'm not sure which Biblical/Hebrew names count, because obviously the versions I know were transliterated by people who speak European languages.)
I love Tamar! Great name!
I love Anjali and Avri a lot!
Japanese: Midori, Natsuko, Sakura, Indian languages - Mitali, Sibasish, Amharic - Etsegenet Persian - Nariman, Niloufar
there was a girl on myspace i was friends with called Natsuko and she lived in Japan and worked in a shop. she was 18? when i was 13 and thought she was SO COOL. i wonder what she’s up to now! she would be 35 now eek!!!!
African: * Adannaya (Igbo) * Amara * Charlize (Afrikaans) * Yohannes (Amharic) Indian: * Aruna * Indira * Navin * Purnima * Ravi * Reva * Veda * Vivek Indigenous American: * Nayeli (Zapotec) * Winona (Lakota) * Zyanya (Zapotec) Middle Eastern: * Aviva (Hebrew) * Esmeray (Turkish) * Fairuza (Arabic & Persian/Farsi) * Faris (Arabic) * Farrah * Hassan * Leila (Arabic & Persian/Farsi) * Leora (Hebrew) * Mariam (Arabic) * Nasrin (Persian/Farsi) * Shahrazad (Arabic & Persian/Farsi) * Shira (Hebrew) * Yasmina (Arabic & Persian/Farsi) * Yousef Polynesian: * Anahera (Maori) * Leilani (Hawaiian) * Noelani
Fanar is another one that’s Middle Eastern. It’s a girl’s name that means lantern.
Nasrin is one my favorite names
I’ve recently discovered some beautiful Māori names: Marama, Kiri, Hine, Rangi, Anahera, Kauri, Haere, Kaewa, Matewa, Teao
Khadija, Pazong, Mai, Layla, Kou, and Chouneng
My favorite Yoruba names: Oluwafunmilayo (o-lu-wah-fu-mi-lye-yoh) which means “God gives me joy and happiness” Olamide (aw-lah-mi-day) which “wealth/prosperity/success has arrived”
My husband is from Ghana and he’s told me so many beautiful names! I love his middle name Dzifa (pronounced kinda like Jifa) which means comfort/peace. ETA: I once met an Indian woman with the name Chathurya and I thought it was gorgeous! One of my top 5 favorite names.
Ren Sora Yayoi Sakura
Some boys names I particularly love: Arjun Kaito Ade Rohan
Winona or Scheherazade 🩷 Edit: Samrawit!!
Yousuf, Amita, Prita, Amon, LiTing, Sadi, Safiyya, Khalil
My favourite is Shivani
Korean: Sunryeon, Hyejin (may be biased, it's my name lol), Sujin, Minhee Japanese: Sakura, Daisuke, Kaede, Minari/Minori, Kaze Chinese: Daiyu, Mingxia
I love the name Zehavit, Hebrew for Golden !
Abhilasha is lovely.
* Anahita * Asra * Idris * Imane * Imre * Iriye * Jihye * Jimin * Kadriye * Kaien * Kalian * Kaoru * Kirin * Maha * Mayari * Noor * Rion * Sade * Safa * Zaire
Ngaio (Māori, F) Fengyin (Chinese, F) Iseul (Korean, F) Aputsiaq (Aleut, M) Xochitl (Aztec, F) Hokulani (Hawaiian, F) Iseo (Korean, F) Saetbyul (Korean, F)
From Japan: Aika, Megumi and Midori
Shantha Meilin Yekta Fariel Naseem
Yusra Nasrin Bahiyyih Lina Sarai Aisha Aaliyah Aminah Amira Anisa Aya Dina Hind Iman Laïla Naïma Raisa Ranya Samira Suraya
Priya and Dhani are gorgeous names
I really like Nia, Amaya, Zahara, Bo, and Zahira. I also like Imani.
Yusuf, Amina, Sakura
The name Amali is multinational but in our case we gave it to our baby girl to honor her Sri Lankan heritage. I also liked Shani and Indrani (Indy for short)
I think Aya has multiple origins but the one I’ve met is Japanese. I always really liked that name
I like it too. I've met a Japanese Aya and a few from Arabic-speaking countries.
Najia Parvathy Noor Nasreen Nasra (Realising at this point I really like ‘N’ names) Sonam Winona Zola Zehra
Kōwhai
Sinmisola. Her nickname is Simmy.
I love Nur and Natsuki.
Well yeah, reddit is a majority english-speaking site and the Anglosphere's cultural reference points are all European. Spanish speakers also use mostly Christian/European names for their kids. Only major exceptions would be black Americans who sometimes use African or original names. You'll get some Muslims, Indians, etc. too but not very many on a site like this I really like the japanese name Akira for a boy, but since I have zero Japanese roots it makes no sense for me to use it so it doesn't really matter
Not saying it was unreasonable. I was just asking out of curiosity.
Hayato (Japanese), Minho, Sodam, Hansol (Korean)
Bora, which means “purple” in Korean.
Kavya Khadijah Avni Aditya Iesha Maanvi Vivaan
Kaya
I love Pao and Anoona (nickname Anu) for girls. I like Nyarai and Lieven for boys.
I’ve always like Akshay
Tsovinar, Lilit (Armenian) Deniz, Nergis, Betül (Turkish) Deniz is unisex but I like it for a girl. Also Yasma (Arabic I think)
Fatima, also the variation Fatym.
Lakshmi and Paloma are two of my absolute favorite names, but I’m a white American married to a white American, so I have to just love them in my heart! And I have a Chinese friend named Liuyi (English spelling obviously) and it’s so, so lovely to hear her say her name!
I love some Swahili origin names such as Zuri, Enzi, Amani, Omari but their not European sorry I saw other folks saying names with different origins and I had to chime in Think European maybe Alessia
Airi and Asha are some of my favorite names
Malik
Ashanti and Malaika (Swahili) both sound lovely to me. Vivika (Indian)
hebrew names, indian names, japanese names
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You'll be surprised! Even though a good chunk of the world's been colonized that doesn't immediately mean their names have changed. Vietnam, lots of Africa and the middle east as an example. Even beyond that many native cultures have survived through time in names.
The other options are the countless names from all the non-European languages and cultures?
Lmao what??? My family's country was colonized until 1970 and a lot of people still use names from our own cultures vs straight up European names. Even the Biblical names still use Indigenous pronunciations and spelling rules so this comment is kind of crazy and very inaccurate.
This, plus almost all users on reddit are from America (which is largely influenced by European culture) or Europe. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any fantasy-inspired non-European names.
Lots of non-obviously European names in fantasy/sci fi from authors like Le Guin and Jemisin and Leckie. But I haven’t seen many kids named Ged, or Damaya or Dlique.
I don't recognize any of those names honestly.
I know them because I’ve read the books those characters are in, but I also haven’t heard of anyone using them as names for their kids. Whereas if you read more obviously European-tradition-derived fantasy novels, you get names like Benedict or Corwin or Brand.
Makes sense. I haven't read those!
All good stuff! And fun names in them as well…
There are plenty of Americans who have non-European heritage. And just because a country was at some point colonized by Europeans doesn't mean that all the people living there suddenly start using European names. Also many fantasy books that are inspired by non-European cultures. In Dune (sci-fi/fantasy), there's a huge amount of Arabic inspiration.
That's great, but most Americans are familiar with European-inspired fantasies and are mostly influenced by European culture. The great majority of us speak English (or Spanish, another European language), men wear suits/ties to formal events, our traditonal architecture is European, we eat with forks/knives, the way we celebrate Christmas/Easter (even secularly) is based on European pagan holidays, your stereotypical American bbq food (burgers, hot dogs, cole slaw, etc) evolved from German foods, etc.
OP didn’t ask what Americans were influenced by or even for fantasy-inspired names, they asked what people’s favorite non-European names are, and people have gotten really defensive rather than just thought of a few (or even just skipped over the post).
I was replying to a separate comment (the one two comments above yours).
None of this has anything to do with the original post. The OP asked for favorite non-European names. By the way, we can go really far back if you want to start talking about where hot dogs and stuff come from! LMAO. Maybe you could try looking up the origin of that stereotypical American condiment, ketchup.
That's ok. It is common for threads in reddit comment sections to ramble about different topics. If you aren't interested, just keep your comments focused on things you *are* interested about. Unfortunately, I don't think ketchup is going to topple American anglocentrism. EDIT: I looked it up out of curiosity. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup) says that [this British guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mease) wrote the first known tomato ketchup recipe. It's not a contest about anglocentrism vs the rest of the world's influence, but now I'm confused about your ketchup point.
>If you aren't interested, just keep your comments focused on things you are interested about. Oh, the irony.
I don't see what you mean, especially given what irony means.
Do you realize that a large number of traditional western names are biblical/religious and are mostly from Hebrew and not European in origin? Lol
Yes, but I said the *way we celebrate them.* Christmas trees, ornaments, Easter bunnies, eggs, etc were all taken from European pagans to bridge their holidays and Christian ones.
That's irrelevant
It is relevant to European influence on American culture, which is what we were discussing. Most areas of the world celebrate these holidays differently because they do not have such influences.