I see that “Dikshit” is a known Hindu family name. Depending on who you talk to, it’s pronounced “dixit” or “dick-shit”, the latter having uncomfortable connotations in English. Whichever way you pronounce it, try not to laugh about it.
In college I knew a fellow from southeast Asia with the given name “Dong.” Nice fellow, though his name was a source of snickering when he wasn’t in the room.
How about the other direction? Are there names common in America that have unfortunate translations in other languages? For the purposes of this thread, I’ll take “common” to mean that you’re likely to find that name in a rack of souvenir keychains sold at tourist locations.
Bob means bean in Russian. Not that unfortunate, but one time my friend called the wrong number in Moscow, trying to reach me, and asked (in Russian) if Bob is there and he answered, “we don’t have any beans, but we do have peas,” and hung up.
I’ve been told by Mexican friends that “Luke” or “Lucas” can imply “crazy” (loco), and that this has caused the Spanish equivalents to decline in popularity among parents of newborns, but I don’t know how true this is.
Not that it’s all that common of a name, but I worked with a guy who was American that had the name ‘Coy’, which was greatly amusing to some Laotian employees, because that name translated to ‘Penis’ in their language.
I can also remember growing up in the 1980s, there was a popular boxer named Gerry Cooney who was in the news quite a bit, which was also a source of great humor with some Iranian friends who explained that the word ‘Cooney’ translated to ‘Asshole’ in Farsi.
When I was in high school we got endless amusement from the fact that this name was listed in the Greater Baltimore Metropolitan White Pages (early 1970s). This is the first time I’ve seen it in print since then.
My wife works for Fannie Mae. You should have seen the look on our English friends’ faces the first time they asked her where she worked.
May be true for Mexico (never ran into it but hey, local slang is local) but right now in Spain you can’t enter a schoolroom between K and about 6th without finding three Marcos, two Lucas and a Mateo. Juanes have always been very common, either the name by itself or in combinations.
The name “Schwarzkopf” literally translates to ‘black head’ in German. I don’t think that that’s the German word for ‘blackhead,’ but it’s still a little amusing.
There is no mental connection to a blackhead in German (a blocked follicle is a Mitesser, literally a fellow diner). The name does look a bit strange in German only because Schwarzkopf is a well known brand of hair care products.
The word dick means fat or thick, so abbreviated Richards also get sniggers by German speakers.
Well, yes, but not too many generations ago Fanny used to be a quite common female name (or, rather, name contraction) in Britain itself, and although it is certainly not common in Britain now, I don’t think it is any more common, as a name, in America either. Indeed, it has a somewhat unfortunate, though different, alternative meaning in America too.
My impression, however, is that Americans will quite freely name their sons and even daughters “Randy”, and the U.S. Thomases would not think twice about naming their son “John” (whereas Hugh Johnson is probably right out).
I think Fannie Mae just sounds odd, to Brits, as the name of a major financial corporation, quite apart from any sexual double entendre it might evoke. Freddie Mac seems almost as silly, really. (Mind you, in Britain we have an insurance/financial company called Scottish Widows, so we should not be pointing the finger: “All my money is tied up with Scottish Widows,” as the bishop said to the actress.)
Don’t be mislead - the first time most people heard those names was when the housing market crashed. Most people were pretty wtf about those names - not really serious financial institution names. But then again, if some dude called Barack Obama was running for president, then a company can sound like the cousins of foghorn leghorn and yosimitie sam.
“Dole” is the Farsi word for “penis”, so this caused much amusement when Bob Dole was a presidential candidate. Never mind all the Viagra ads he did later on.
While we’re on that subject, the launch of Cialis was delayed by some months, not because of safety or efficacy issues, but because some people with the surname Cialis sued the drug company to change the drug’s name, even by just one letter. They obviously lost. :o
There’s the Vietnamese name Phuc, and thanks to the tsunami, we do know now how to pronounce the Thai city Phuket.