Somehow forgot some names:
Jasher - hell no, it sounds like Friday the 13th. Your kid will be forever known as “Jasher, Jasher, he’s a slasher.”
Lela - okay but personally I’d spell it Leila or make it Lena or Laila.
I’d suggest skipping the whole Persian thing. They look nice but really shed and it can be a lot of trouble getting up all those stray floating hairs.
Don’t choose Rana if you live anywhere near a hispanic community.
Rana is Frog in Spanish.
From the list of names posted above, Zenda is pretty cool. I thought about the name Zelda but chose not to use it because of the game. Zenda is similar but no game conotation.
I have a friend named Roshan. I’ve always thought that was a cool name. (He pronounces it with the a as in father and a long o).
And his evil twin brother can be Hanoc and his sister Thalessa…
I vote for Zachary. But then I’m biased, as I have a little terror of a cousin named Zachary. No one is permitted to shorten it. People are going to do it sooner or later, despite what his mother wants. My name is very short, but people are always calling me “Kel” as if the other syllable is too much effort.
I’m not a fan of alternate spellings either. When it comes to names, I like traditional ones, or using last names as first names, if they sound right. Cinnamon Girl’s list has many beautiful names for girls on it. I am also partial to Farah and Lela. It is a lot easier for a girl to have an unusual name than a boy, unfortunately.
Other than rhyming with ‘smack’ or ‘crack’ I don’t think there’s much can be made of Zak or Zachary. But Zakary looks more ‘illiterate’ than ‘cutting edge’.
Darya? Daria is my name. Unless people make a really wierd twist of it to diarrhoea (and it really does take some work to do that) there’s nothing that can be made of ‘Daria’. Darya, on the other hand, does look like ‘dare ya’. My name is pronounced ‘DAR-ree-ah’ (long ‘a’ sound, like ‘father’, and 3 long syllables) because of regional vowel sounds, but I understand the norm is ‘darrea’ (short ‘a’ sound, as in ‘pan’) and 3 short syllables to rhyme with ‘farrier’.
Ajax is a cleanser. Yes, I know it’s also a good historical name. But in this day and age, it’s a cleanser. Milo, depending on your country of origin, is either an energy drink or the fuzzy animal companion of Otis. Jasher sounds like an amused sadist (jocular lasher) or a good name for a pet (like ‘dasher’). Erlyn… is that male or female? Either way, people are going to say ‘Merlin?’ every time they introduce themselves, which isn’t a good thing.
Xerxes is fine in the playground, since it doesn’t rhyme, but… how hard is it going to be for the kid once he grows up, with a name like that? It might be good in porn, or failing that, if the child grows up to be an antisocial scholar. Either extreme.
Keira’s fine, but with Keira Knightley getting famous I expect there’ll be a rush on that name.
My wife (who is Persian) and I had to make a decision like this 6 months ago for our new son. We thought about Persian names too but decided that it may cause trouble for him later on.
What we decided to do was give him and western name (Michael) and also give him a Persian nickname that we can use around the house and with the relatives.
Other Persian names that I think may work:
Masoud, Mansour, or Nassir for boys.
I really like Leila or Leilah for a girl (It’s what we would have named ours had he been a she). Zari and Farah are also very nice names IMO.
Of the names on your original list I would go with Lela, Zachary, or Darya.
Astro’s list brings up another name I think would be really nice: Jasmine!
Familiar but not trendy. Most people would be able to spell and pronounce it.
Zari and Farah are pretty good names too I think.
For a boy’s name frm that list, I like Cyrus.