• howrar@lemmy.ca
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    14 hours ago

    I know someone with relatives in China where they gave their kids nicknames that roughly translate to “first baby”, “second baby”, etc. They’re all middle aged adults now and they’re still addressed by the same nicknames. So you have kids listening to their grandparents talk about “second baby” and imagining a baby, but then you meet them and it’s an old man.

    • stray@pawb.social
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      12 hours ago

      A number of traditional names the world over are literally “first son”, etc. Not to mention all the names that mean “so-and-so got me pregnant with this one.” Normal names are only normal because we’re used to them, not because they aren’t made-up bullshit.

      • Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it
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        11 hours ago

        70% of the names have a meaning usually, at least the most used names in Italy have a meaning in a way or another, so i suppose it’s the same for all the countries

        • stray@pawb.social
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          11 hours ago

          I think people in English have lost the connection between their name and its original meaning. No one thinks about the fact that naming your kid “Peter” is the same as naming him “Rock”, or that a brook(e) is a little river.

          • blarghly@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            I think everyone knows what Brooke means. Brooks (the rivers) are nice. And it is now a common name. So Brooke is a reasonable thing to name a girl. Similar to Rose or Ruby.

          • Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it
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            11 hours ago

            I think it’s for all languages, if the name is not very similiar or the same to the original word or meaning it’s hard for someone to make a connection. So yeah, i agree

            • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
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              9 hours ago

              We don’t teach meaning of names anymore that’s the big one. My coworker just had a kid and ran a list of like 5 names past me. When I pointed out what each one means and their origin he firmly threw all of them out the window and was horrified.

              It was mostly random bullshit names with weird spellings.

              He ended up naming his kid Herma. Which he claimed sounded nice, when I asked him if he knew what the word ment he said no.

              His new daughter has a very unfortunate name.

              His kid but like man… That’s goanna suck later in life.

              • Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it
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                4 hours ago

                In my family (and some friends families too) sometimes we came up with a name and think about the meaning of that meaning too, idk how much common is it tbh.

                I think it really depend on the culture

                • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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                  42 minutes ago

                  From what i gather herman is germanic for “army/warrior man” and herma is a feminine version. Both derived from the greek god, Hermes.