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Culture Smart: What’s in a Baby’s Name?

by Sheron Long on October 13, 2013

Pregnant woman with blank name tag on her stomach, illustrating the upcoming choice of a baby name that may follow a naming custom

How will the new parents decide on their baby’s name?

Naming Customs Around the World

If you want to start a good conversation, just ask people from different cultures how they got their names.

Omekongo Dibinga is named after a warrior who saved his grandfather’s life in the eastern Congo. Like many, Dibinga’s parents chose a name to honor an older person. In China, however, this would never happen since a child taking the name of an older friend or relative would be a sign of disrespect.

Some names reflect what inspires the parents. Leticia’s parents took her name from laetitia, the Latin for “joy.” American parents inspired by Shirley Temple in the 1930s named their girls Shirley in record numbers, and today there are Shirley Clubs all over the USA.

Some parents want a popular name—In the USA, “Sophia” for girls and “Aiden” for boys topped the list in 2012. “Sofía” for girls and “Santiago” for boys were the most popular Hispanic names in 2011.

Other parents want to give their child a unique identity, as in this creative example: Ta-a, pronounced “Tadasha.”

One naming custom in India involves the horoscope and the mapping of the planetary positions at birth. In the south children are then named after the constellation they are born under. Each star is associated with a letter of the alphabet. In the north, a child’s name begins with the letter of a star in the constellation.

No matter how we got our names, we didn’t have a say in them. So, if you think your name just isn’t you, you’re not stuck with it. You can always choose a good nickname (an art in itself), change your name legally, or find solace is setting usernames!

Visit Pocket Cultures for naming customs in more countries.

The Baby Names Finder at Baby Center gives meanings, history, popularity graphs, and more. At Baby Zone, you can find origins, nicknames and international adaptations.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

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Culture Smart: What’s in a Baby’s Name?

Naming Customs Around the World

Image © iStockphoto

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