We recently looked at girls’ names popular around the world yet exotic-sounding in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries, and today we turn to the boys’ version of this kind of name.

If you’re looking for a name for your son that has an international flavor yet is not too obscure or difficult to understand and pronounce, you might want to consider these choices.

ALESSANDRO – A top name in Italy, makes Alexander both softer and sexier to the American ear.

ALEXEI – Russian spin on Alex or Alexander popular there, pronounced Alex-ay or (less popular) Alex-ee. Down side: Its similarity to the very popular girls’ name Alexa.

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If you look at the list of most popular names in the state of Hawaii, you won’t find them very different from others, with Chloe, Isabella and Madison, Ethan, Noah and Isaiah at the top.  It isn’t until you get quite a bit futher down the list that you find names more reflective of the distinctive native nomenclature, such as Kai, Leilani, Malia, Kainoa, and Kalena.

In the past, names have  held deep significance in the Hawaiian culture, especially prior to the arrival of English-speaking missionaries in the late 18^th century.  Before that, the choice of a name involved the whole extended family, and was believed to have been  sent by the family’s ancestor god, either via a dream, a spoken message or some other sign, and to ignore it could mean illness or death to the baby.  Another  old tradition was for several words— of particular significance to the parents– to be joined together into one long name, which would then be shortened into a nickname.  Much of this came to an end in 1880, when King Kamehameha IV enacted a law mandating that all citizens follow the standard European system of naming—that is using a Christian name followed by a surname–which didn’t exist before.   

There are few families of names as lilting, rhythmic, and romantic as indigenous Hawaiian names.  In both sound and meaning, they evoke pleasant images, many of them related to nature—flowers, the forest, sky and water.  Part of this flavor derives from the fact that there are only five vowels and seven consonants in the language, making the names rich in vowel sounds, each of which is pronounced as a separate syllable.  Many English names have been “Hawaiianized,”  to accommodate the missing consonants. (see below to translate your own name to Hawaiian)

Many, if not most, traditional Hawaiian names are used interchangeably for girls and boys, but here are some that are more or less gender specific, with their meanings and/or English equivalents.  Note that the accent is always on the next to last syllable.)

 GIRLS

 AKELINA  –  noble (form of Adeline)

ALAMEA –  ripe, precious

ALANI  –  orange tree

ALEKA –  nobility ( form of Alice)

ALOHI  –  shining, brilliant
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There are some names that are not quite English, or American, but not quite not English either.  These include international variations of classic English names – such as Katarina for Katherine – and names that are widely heard around the world but remain unusual in English-speaking countries.

The list below – we’re just doing the girls today – is taken from the most popular names rosters throughout Europe and South America and, in a few cases, further afield.  If you want an exotic name for your daughter that sill feels familiar, this list is a good place to start.

ADI – Israeli favorite meaning jewel, pronounced ah-DEE and used for boys as well as girls.

ALBA—Pronounced AHL-bah, this means dawn and is popular in Spain.

ANNI – Anne diminutive used as a full name in Finland.

ANNIKA – Golfer Sorenson has made this one more familiar in the U.S., but it’s most popular in Denmark.

AURORA—This lovely name meaning dawn is growing in popularity in the U.S., but is most widely used in (odd pair) Finland and Italy.

BEATRIZ – Form of nameberry favorite popular in Portugal and Brazil.

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A few years ago I met a couple named Anoush and Harout, (who, predictably, had a last name ending in ian, the Armenian patronymic meaning ’son of”) and was immediately intrigued by the rich sounds of their names.  That, plus the lingering memory of the characters in William Saroyan’s My Name is Aram–Arak, Dikran, Jorgi, Garro–piqued my interest in Armenian names.  It’s an ethnicity that has made few inroads into mainstream American nomenclature, but, while most of these names are destined to remain confined to the Armenian community, there are definitely some candidates eligible for wider circulation.

Many of these names date back to antiquity, some coming from the Bible (eg. Sahak for Isaac) or relating to nature (Shoushan, meaning lily), and there are a number that are close cousins to more familiar appellations, such as Hanna, Rouben, Ester, Yulia–variations with their own distinctive charm.  (And note that since Armenia does not use the Latin alphabet but has a 36-letter alphabet of its own, transliterations bring about wide variations in spellings.)

Here, some of the most appealing Armenian choices:

GIRLS

ANNIG, ANI

ANOUSH (means sweet)

ARAX, ARAXI, ARAXIA, ARAXIE

ASTINE

CAROUN

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Maybe they didn’t have voices then, but lots of the silent screen stars did have intriguingly exotic looks and equally exotic names–even if many of them were invented by studio publicists.  Theda Bara, for example, the quintessential vamp, was not the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor whose name was an anagram of Arab Death, as the PR people proclaimed to the public, but was actually Cincinnati-born Theodosia Goodman, daughter of a Jewish tailor. Likewise,  Nita Naldi’s real last name was Dooley, Olga Petrova was born Muriel Hardy and Alla Nazimova’s birth name was Miriam Leventon.

But real or concocted, these names–primarily short, with two-syllables and heavy on the vowels–still retain vestiges of that sultry  1900’s-1920’s glamour, and  could have  some vintage appeal today:

ALLA

ASTA

GRETA

ISA

JETTA

LEDA

LEILA

LINA

LITA

LOLA

LYA

LYDA

NEVA

NITA

OLGA

ORA

ORMI

POLA

RIA

THEDA

TORA

VALLA

VILMA

VOLA

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