u/ronirrosen

My girlfriend and I (lesbians) love talking about baby names. Both of us are white and, for the sake of making sure a baby wouldn’t grow up without the representation and cultural belonging it should have, would plan on using a mostly white sperm donor.

Both of us speak Spanish, took courses in college, and have spend time in Spain and Puerto Rico. I’m also a Spanish teacher. Additionally, we’re interested in potentially living abroad in a Spanish speaking country at some point with kids.

For this reason, but also just because I love some of these names and think Latino people are really good at naming their kids, we have several Spanish sounding names in our list. I don’t know for sure if the kids would grow up fluent in Spanish, but we’ve thought about using immersion to teach them from a young age. I’m sure they would at least speak a little bit, even if I don’t commit fully to one parent only speaking Spanish.

Anyways, the main question is, would it be offensive to use these names or too much like we would be “trying to act Latina”?

The list of a few of our favorites:

Marisol (Mari/Sol)

Mayreli (May)

Elio

Luz

Milani (Millie)

Esmeralda

Violeta

Nayeli

Also to keep in mind that their white family members who speak no Spanish would need to be able to pronounce the name or nickname.

Romesco

This isn't the worst I've seen by any means, but there are just so many parts of this that amuse me. And as a side note, have we forgotten what continent the country of Spain is in?

I've heard that one of the most common symptoms of lymphoma is night sweats, where someone with lymphoma will sweat a lot at night and wake up with wet clothes and wet sheets.

But what I don't understand is that why these are specifically called night sweats, why they occur most commonly at night. What about the body and the type of cancer that it is causes this to mostly happen at night, and not any time of day? If anything, shouldn't it be happening when you're more active?

I used to be in nearly all of the name subreddits, but I didn't realise how sick I was of them until I actually don't have to see them anymore.

It's just the self-righteous nature so many of them seem to have, thinking that they have such good taste and they're so educated about names and so open minded to names from every culture.

Yet there's the constant whining about how it's apparently inappropriate and weird to give a white baby an Indian or Japanese name while suggesting names like Liora and Aviva to anyone under the sun. I just can't understand how they can't see the hypocrisy.

They practically have an aneurysm about the idea of someone using a Native American name and rant about how only Native Americans should have a say on whether it's appropriate and white people need to stop speaking for them, but for some reason they seem to think that they're all Jewish and can decide for Jews about how they should feel about someone using a Jewish name.

And so many of them don't even have a clue about Hebrew names, Yiddish names, where they come from, what they mean, and they'll just spew incorrect information like they're some kind of expert. And they don't seem to have a clue about antisemitism either. Probably because a lot of them often seem quite antisemitic themselves.

I'm really glad this subreddit exists, because it seems like the only place you can actually talk about Jewish names without people calling them weird or making snarky comments about them. And you can actually learn things as well! I've heard about names on here I haven't even heard. I think it's a shame that this kind of environment can't exist on a wider scale so that people could actually discuss names from other cultures and learn about them.

And if you feel the same way as I did, I really would suggest just leaving them. You can never change their ignorance and their mindset, so it's better just not having to see it at all. It's never-ending otherwise.

I saw a birthday cake posted on the subreddit for a kid and their name was written on it, so it inspired me. I wrote a list of the names written on all the birthday cakes I saw posted on the subreddit. Pretty much all of them were for children, because usually the cakes were made and posted by the parents.

Frankie, Quinn, Ripley, and Rowan were girls, and Baker, Charlie, Hayden, Joah, and Taylor were boys.

Amethyst and Brian were twins, as were Lucy and Luke.

Addison

Amethyst

Amira

Aoife

Arlo

Ashton

August

Axel

Ayaan

Baker

Beau

Beckett

Brian

Calix

Caoimhe

Charlie

Dahlia

Daisy

Damien

Delaney

Eli

Elijah

Emily

Eva

Ezra

Finn

Frankie

Gwen

Harriette

Hayden

Holden

Ivy

Jacob

Jade

Jasmine

Joah

Jonah

Kayleigh

Lana

Layla

Lilith

Lilly

Lily

Lorenzo

Luca

Lucas

Lucy

Luka

Luke

Lyra

Makayla

Merryn

Michael

Nova

Novah

Oliver

Olivia

Penelope

Quinn

Ripley

Roman

Rowan

Sofia

Sophie

Talia

Taylor

Theodore

Violet

Zoey

For example, someone will post asking for name suggestions for their baby, and they'll say me (23F) and my husband (25M) are expecting a baby.

I feel like it's something I've only noticed recently and I'm really confused as to why it's a thing. Like your ages are entirely irrelevant as to what name you give your baby.

And it always seems to be when they're younger than thirty? Like are they trying to show off how they're young parents or something and tell everyone how youthful and cool they are?

It seems especially weird when they include surnames as well and all this personal information, are you trying to tell everyone who you are and dox your child before they're even born 😭

I'm really curious to know if there's an actual reason people are doing this, because it's been confusing me.

My baby sister is about a month old. And she has a LOT of hair. I give her baths, she has a baby bathtub, but I don't really know how to wash her hair.

Her baby books have good instructions about how to give them a bath, but there's nothing about their hair. And because I hold her head, her hair doesn't get wet, so I don't know how you'd wet it, and how you'd rinse it out as well. Her hair stays pretty clean overall but I still think it should be washed.

I've looked it up but there's a lot of different ways and I'm not sure what the 'right one' is, and I don't want to try doing a way and it turns out it's actually totally wrong and bad for them or something.

Her parents are named Maya and Tali. So what was the logical step from there for them when it came to naming their daughter?

It was to name her Meital. Which also can be translated as Maytal, if it wasn’t already obvious enough!

The funniest part for me is that Tali means dew, or my dew, and Maya is aligned with water. And then Meital means dew drop, so it's like the little version of both of their names, both in sound and meaning 😂

I did think that at least they were a bit more subtle about it because it is a real name on its own, but then it's super obvious when you know what her parents are named. Kind of funny.

I'm very curious about this. Consistently, when anyone from a different country or culture asks about names that are from their culture and language, there will be people who call them stupid, made up, say that they hate them, say that they'll be bullied, and tell them to give them a 'normal name', meaning a white American name. And often, if they're called out for it, they'll get really mad and say that it's just their opinion. They're almost never names that actually have something 'wrong' with them, like sounding like something in English or things like that, they're just names from other cultures.

Like have they just not been exposed to diversity? Do they think it's edgy or something to behave like that? I think what's really strange to me especially is the lack of self-awareness, and not realising how they actually sound. And the fear of names that are anything other than the standard white American names like Violet or Felix is just so weird. Like what is actually so scary about them to them?

To be clear I don't mean literally born in the building, that would be unfortunate, but to families who live there 😭

I thought there were some quite nice names among them.

Adam Itamar

Alma

Ariel

Gaya Tahel

Karni

Lavi

Libi Miriam

Nili Eden

Noga

Shiri Hadas

Yotam

I have always wondered this. It seems to me that in English, a lot of names that are nouns seem very strongly gendered. For example, Fern, Dove, Summer, Ruby, or Faith.

And a lot of them seem to be considered very feminine, and even names that are theoretically gender neutral still tend to be feminine. Especially nature names.

And I am curious as to why this is. I can see that for some names like types of flowers would be quite associated with women since flowers are seen to be feminine, but why is Fern gendered? Wren? Sky? Is there a reason for it?

I was told in school that period cramps aren't supposed to be painful. And now I have had my period a few times, honestly I'm not sure if that's correct. Like, maybe I'm just kind of weak but it feels like I've tried to bend my back in half, and then someone has decided to start poking me from the inside. And all my friends will complain about cramps as well.

So now I'm questioning if they just don't actually really know what they were talking about or if it's actually true and you're not actually supposed to feel pain. And if so, how does that actually feel instead?

First of all, I am admittedly biased, because where I am from, those types of names that end with the E sound that are automatically called too cute and childish here are very common, and not just for younger children. I’ve had classmates with names like that, their parents sometimes will, doctors, teachers, anybody really. Like my doctor is named Tzipi, as in that is the name she used for literally everything. Could it not be her legal name, maybe, but no one would know that. And I’ve also had doctors named Fraidy and Esti, and my mom has friends who are lawyers named Miri and Zissy.

So when I see people freaking out over quite normal names and saying you have to use a longer form, even if you don’t like it and will never use it, because otherwise they will never be taken seriously as adults in professions, it confuses me, especially when those names are becoming more popular for children.

So I decided to look at how many popular names at the moment are ‘cute’. I looked at the US specifically since most people here are American. I also included names that are not diminutives but are called too childish, cutesy, or too much of a nickname, like Sophie for example.

The names were Mia, Ellie, Lucy, Lainey, Sadie, Sophie, Millie, Daisy, Josie, Hallie, Elsie, Scottie, Charlie, Bella, Callie, Annie, Molly, Stevie, Gracie, Rory, Maisie, Evie, Lola, Sylvie, Rosie, Gia, Poppy, and Maggie.

All together, that is 75,386 girls who were given those names in 2025, or 4.3284% of girls who were born that year.

And then if you compare it to twenty years ago, 2005, where the names Mia, Gracie, Katie, Molly, Daisy, Lucy, Sadie, Ellie, Abby, Carly, Bella, Maggie, Jamie, Allie, and Julie were in the top 300, there were only 39,626 girls given those names, or 1.9522%.

So to me, that just seems like times have changed, and now, people are preferring names that were originally diminutives for babies at the moment. And after all, there was a big thing about old lady names coming back, and if you look at what was popular in the 1920s for example, it was names like Annie, Elsie, Nellie, Lucy, Daisy, Rosie, Susie, etc. So is that not just another example of that, vintage revival?

And because of this, I am curious about why people are still so resistant towards that. After all, over 4% of girls with those names, that is quite a lot, and if you include all the other names like that which did not make it to the top 300, it could even be close to 5%, or one in twenty girls. That’s definitely a lot, and I find it hard to believe that when they are that common, employers will be rejecting them or people will not be taking them seriously, which are responses I see all the time.

And I’m sure people twenty or thirty years ago were saying that about names like Juniper or Sage, and those are very popular now too and I see people suggesting them here all the time. So what is it about this specific change that makes people so resistant? Is it just that they simply don’t like it? It just seems very rigid for people who are supposedly interested in names.

I thought that this would be an interesting list to people because they are names that I don't really ever see spoken about. I think it is because a lot of Hebrew names that people are usually familiar with are religious, and I went to a non-religious state kindergarten, which meant that the parents were the kind of people who would be less inclined to name their children Rivka or Yosef, for example, and prefer something that is often more modern.

I've also added the genders, in case you weren't familiar with the names. However, some of these names can be used for both genders, as gender neutral names are quite popular to use.

Alma (F)

Ariel (M)

David (M)

Eden (F)

Eitan (M)

Ella (F)

Gaya (F)

Heleni (F)

Itamar (M)

Lavi (M)

Maya (F)

Noa (F)

Omer (M)

Ori (M)

Roni (F)

Shaked (F)

Tal (M)

Yael (F)

Yahav (M)

I wasn't sure if this was an okay thing to ask, but this seemed like the most appropriate place to do it. My mom suffered from a complication after giving birth to my sister. She is still in hospital with problems with her breathing and her heart. My sister is healthy, but she is only a week old and has been without her mother for her whole life now and she is struggling.

My mom hasn't been that religious for a while now but I know that she's a good person, and if you would be able to pray for them as well, I would be really grateful. I am just hoping for them both to be okay.

These are their names:

Eden Yehudit bat Shoshana Chaya Rivka

Shiri Hadas bat Eden Yehudit

Her name is now Shiri Hadas.

Hadas is after my aunt, Hadassah, as well as following the tradition that we have of giving a second name after a inspirational women, mine being Devorah and my mom's being Yehudit. I thought Hadas was perfect for that without sounding very religious because my mom isn't like that. And Shiri, I just liked, I think it is very pretty and I like the meaning.

Of course, I'm sure not that many people would care that much but given I asked a few times, I thought that I should share. I am personally very pleased with it. And yes, phone on Shabbat, I am just not very good 😭

My mom is 37 years old. She had never had problems with birth before, every time she had always been healthy and never had complications.

But around five days ago, she gave birth to my baby sister. This was when it was supposed to happen, it wasn't early or late, and my sister was born before any of it started and she's fine too, I don't think it affected her.

But they said that afterwards, she became really unwell really quickly, she couldn't breathe, it affected her heart, and she lost a lot of blood. And that was because of the amniotic fluid embolism, I don't really understand it that well but I know that it's really rare and a lot of the time, they die.

I guess that we're lucky because of that but she still seems really sick. She doesn't breathe by herself, not enough anyway, and we've seen her and she doesn't really do anything.

And I'm scared because I've been reading about it and they say that even if you do survive it, often you're not the same again because it's so bad for your body and you often end up brain damaged because you can lose oxygen to the brain. And the people looking after her, they don't say anything about it, not really, and I'm worried she's going to be really different and unwell and not like she was.

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question and there is no way to know or something like that.

Kinneret would be after the lake, rather than the musical meaning. Golda is likely after Golda Meir, and Lilach after my aunt, who's favorite color was purple.

We live in Israel so pronounciation doesn't need to be considered.

Golda

Halleli

Keshet

Kinneret

Lilach

Nili

Shiri

Thank you for the helpful comments last time. I looked at lots of things, I asked my friends, I asked my grandparents, her brothers, her father, and also the responses I got. So now we have a much smaller list. I have also included some more information that I think seems to be useful.

A little bit about her as a person so far is that so far she is very lively. She likes to move a lot and her favorite thing to do is be a starfish. She has a lot of hair, a lot of curls because it is like mine too, and she has a very cute face. She also likes to cuddle a lot, she likes being held.

I don't want this to be cringey but I also had two ideas for a connection between our names, one is Golda because then it would be after two important women who were the first in some way, and then the other is either Shiri, Halleli, or Nili, because then our names both end with an i, and since none of her brothers do, it is a special thing between the two of us. But if it is cringey I won't do it.

Also the reason I included Kinneret even though it wasn't very popular is because it is the name of a very large lake that is very special to my mom and she would always take me there as a child.

This is the list now. Although I liked Yaara, Hadas, and Sapira a lot, they don't feel like her so I removed them. I also felt like Ayala felt a bit different, and also with it, 3/6 of my mom's children would have an A name and that's too much.

Golda

Halleli

Keshet

Kinneret

Lilach

Nili

Shiri