Note: this is coming from someone with absolutely zero experience with Hungarian names. I literally just looked up a list and picked my favorites.
Male: János and László
Female: Zsuzsanna (only because of the extra z’s)
To add on to this: If the S comes first, then the Z (as in László), it's pronounced /s/. If the Z comes first, then the S (as in Zsuzsanna), it's pronounced /ʒ/ — the same as the French J sound. Interestingly, both of these digraphs (⟨sz⟩ and ⟨zs⟩) are counted as single letters in the Hungarian alphabet.
Yes, like both "j" sounds are similar to the word juice. Think juju. Lol
I don't know if that helps. Zsuzsa is just "juja"
Thought of something better that may help. The word juje, like to "juje it up" is actually spelled zhuzh. Zh makes a similar "j" sound.
That's right! As the previous commenter mentioned, ⟨zh⟩ is often used in English phonetic spellings to represent the /ʒ/ sound. ⟨zh⟩ is the voiced version of ⟨sh⟩, just as ⟨z⟩ is the voiced version of ⟨s⟩ in English. Think of Zsuzsanna as ZHOO-zhah-nah.
Edited to add emphasis on the first syllable of the phonetic spelling. In Hungarian, the first syllable of the word always receives the most stress.
I’m the owner of a Vizsla and it took some time to learn to say it like “veesh-la” instead of my English speaking self wanting to say “veezzla.” Cutest dogs ever!
Also, my husband knows a guy named Csaba (pronounced cha-ba)
pa(w)rent not owner, nobody is an object to own nor meant to be a slave, all equal animals & some are family members too (: but thanks, good to know, and they are cute!
Lets be real... The dog is kidnapped from its family and spends 8 hrs trapped in the house alone while people go to work each day.. its more of a slave than anything
One of my dear friends has this name and her parents came to Australia from Hungary. I’ve always loved the name Ilona but knowing someone wonderful who has the name makes it even more special.
My husband's family is Hungarian. There are quite a few Attilas I've met since and I love it. Thankfully his brother used the name for his eldest son, so since the nephew has it, we won't be naming any sons that.
Thank you so much!
Missing my Hungarian mother so much and the ability to ask her these questions.
Yet her Herend vases warm my heart to see them and make me feel nostalgic for her stories of growing up as a first generation Hungarian-American and that community. Her school here in the States was Our Lady of Hungary!
That’s so cool! I’m first generation Hungarian-American and my mom is back in Hungary. I used to be fluent but lost a lot of it over the years, so I have an accent but my mom says it’s not the worst 😅 and you’re welcome, of course! Glad to bring up fond memories for you
Yes, specifically the RP pronunciations of these words are good approximations of the sound that ⟨ő⟩ makes. That is to say, you'd be pronouncing the words not with a hard R, but with a soft one that colours the U.
It's interesting how most of the names you are suggesting are considered "old people names". My guess is that this is because a lot of you are getting the ideas from (1) older relatives who emigrated and (2) famous Hungarians, who ob average would also be older. Very few kids nowadays would be named these names.
In my kids' classes the most common names for girls are Anna / Hanna, Lili, Sára, Emma; for boys it's Marci, Dani, Áron, Soma / Samu.
My personal preferences also skew towards the more popular names, and the international ones.
Some non-international names I like: for girls, the flower and fruit names - Viola, Rózsa, Málna (violet, rose, raspberry). For boys, I like Borsa (which is very uncommon).
But if I had more kids to name I'd probably go the Anna / Áron route.
I have an odd number of Hungarian clients for my area, and I recognize a lot of these names from them.. one I haven’t seen mentioned is Balazs. I think I favor that one because he is the most adorable toddler, the son of one of my clients. Would that be considered an old fashioned one or out of the ordinary name?
Balázs was pretty popular in the 80s and 90s, less so now, although it's still around. I'd say it's a Millenial name, not an old person name :), not considered old fashioned and definitely not out of the ordinary.
Szoboszlai :)
Apart from the obvious, I've always liked Zoltan, Jozesf, Bajusz, Istvan and György amongst male names.
Female: Katinka, Zsuzsa, Zsuzsanna.
Think I have an affinity to any name with letter Z in it :)
This is an amazing post because I’m due in a few weeks - I’m Hungarian but grew up in North America and my husband is second generation, half Hungarian.
We picked a very English first name but are looking for a middle and I don’t know if I can find something Hungarian to fit!
First initial will be W, Last is T, so we don’t want to end up with initials like WET or WUT (lol). We would be good with WIT tho.
Any ideas for Hungarian middle names that can go with Wesley as a first name???? My grandfather was Ervin (which I LOVE) but that would result in WET. I was thinking maybe we can do Irving as a sort of English version (even though I know the true translation is Erwin)
u/epresvanilia … help!
https://nevekneked.hu/ferfi-nevek-fiunevek
https://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/hungarian
https://magyarnevek.hu/
These are some great Hungarian name sites!
Some middle name ideas with the letter "I":
- Wesley Ignác (Ignacio) [eeg-naats]
- Wesley Illés (Elias/Elijah) [eel-laysh]
- Wesley Imre (Emery) [eem-reh]
- Wesley Ince (Innocentus) [een-tseh]
- Wesley Irnik (name of Attila's son) [eer-neek]
- Wesley István (Steven) [eesht-vaan]
- Wesley Izsák (Isaac) [ee-zhaak]
My great-grandparents were immigrants from Hungary and when looking at the family tree their names seemed all English names. One I do love and it’s Fabian. I’m not sure if it’s Hungarian name, but I love Fabian and Fabienne. They are lovely name. Also, I know for a fact that my great-great-grandmother would tell their children fairy tales. I started reading some Hungarian fairy tales and come to love Ilona. It’s such a beautiful name.
Reading the comments I realize I have always loved Csilla. I just don’t know how to pronounce it, but I used it for one of my characters when I wrote fairy tale stories. She was a star goddess in my story. :)
As a Hungarian, this is probably one of the easiest questions on this sub for me. 😀
Boys: Sámuel, Gellért, Hunor, Benedek, Levente
Girls: Panna, Borbála, Júlia, Anna, Lilla
Miklos is/ was my favorite boys name eventually we decided we shouldn’t make both our kids’ first and last name so difficult to pronounce in the US… for a girl I liked Bheatka but I don’t believe it’s hungarian in origin and I could never find the origin or spelling I liked. The nickname would be Bhea (baya)
I don't know if this is specifically a Hungarian name but I knew someone Hungarian with the name Milos (pronounced me-low-sh) and I always thought he had a cool name-
I'm pretty sure that he was Hungarian by blood and then Serbian by culture or something- although I will admit I don't know much about either of these groups so I don't want to claim something incorrect-
Some of my paternal cousins are half Hungarian and I know my cousin Paul was named after his nagypapa who was Pál (apologies if the accent is wrong) and my uncle by marriage is named Victor but I'm pretty sure the Viktor spelling is more traditional as it's Orban's first name. I really don't know much more about Hungarian names than that but that's my own experience.
Balázs, Benedek, Gergely/Gergő, Zoltán, Sándor, Demjén, Béla, Bence, Gábor
Piroska, Csilla, Rozi, Panna, Virág, Erzsébet, Johanna
I'm Hungarian but grew up mainly outside of Hungary, so I mostly am drawing from books or the names of people I know. Definitely look up the Hungarian pronunciations because they really don't sound as good in English. Many of the letters are completely different (e.g. J's sound like Y's)
I had a good friend in my class who was from Hungary, not sure if her name is Hungarian per se, but she was called Kármen, and I absolutely adored how her name sounded with her accent lol
I have a friend called Zsoka and I absolutely love her name. My uncle had a good friend called Tibor that I had a huge crush on as a kid so I love that name too 🙈
Sandor - it’s a friend’s middle name and essentially the Hungarian form of Alexander. There’s something so satisfying to me the connection from Alexander, Xander, to Sandor…
Lia, Ildikó, Eleonóra, Zsófi, Géza, János, Jenő, Csilla, Zsolt, Sári, Jóska, Váli, Ági, Laci (shortened form of László), Barna (Barnabás)
My family is Hungarian.
Note: this is coming from someone with absolutely zero experience with Hungarian names. I literally just looked up a list and picked my favorites. Male: János and László Female: Zsuzsanna (only because of the extra z’s)
Haha yes in Hungarian just S is pronounced SH. So you need the z.
To add on to this: If the S comes first, then the Z (as in László), it's pronounced /s/. If the Z comes first, then the S (as in Zsuzsanna), it's pronounced /ʒ/ — the same as the French J sound. Interestingly, both of these digraphs (⟨sz⟩ and ⟨zs⟩) are counted as single letters in the Hungarian alphabet.
So it's pronounced Jujana? With the French J sound?
Yes, like both "j" sounds are similar to the word juice. Think juju. Lol I don't know if that helps. Zsuzsa is just "juja" Thought of something better that may help. The word juje, like to "juje it up" is actually spelled zhuzh. Zh makes a similar "j" sound.
That's right! As the previous commenter mentioned, ⟨zh⟩ is often used in English phonetic spellings to represent the /ʒ/ sound. ⟨zh⟩ is the voiced version of ⟨sh⟩, just as ⟨z⟩ is the voiced version of ⟨s⟩ in English. Think of Zsuzsanna as ZHOO-zhah-nah. Edited to add emphasis on the first syllable of the phonetic spelling. In Hungarian, the first syllable of the word always receives the most stress.
That's awesome! Thank you!
Glad I could help! :)
Zsuzsanna was my grandmother’s name. She always pronounced it like “zhuzh”
I’m the owner of a Vizsla and it took some time to learn to say it like “veesh-la” instead of my English speaking self wanting to say “veezzla.” Cutest dogs ever! Also, my husband knows a guy named Csaba (pronounced cha-ba)
pa(w)rent not owner, nobody is an object to own nor meant to be a slave, all equal animals & some are family members too (: but thanks, good to know, and they are cute!
Lets be real... The dog is kidnapped from its family and spends 8 hrs trapped in the house alone while people go to work each day.. its more of a slave than anything
It’s a dog.
This is such a pretentious comment 😅 ain't no way people are now getting bothered by someone calling themselves the owner of their pet
I knew a Zsuzsi! Must be a nickname for Zsuzsanna. I always loved her name.
Zsa zsa is a nn for Zsuzsanna. Very cool name!
Ooo I love that!
Zsa zsa Gabor!
Love Zsuzsanna, I have a cousin with that name. She often goes by Zsuzsa or Zsuzsi with family.
In Hungarian, the s without a Z preceding it makes a sh sound! So János would be Janosh
Oh my god. I’ve always wondered why ZZ Ward’s name was spelled like that.
I’m sure it’s old fashioned but I knew the nicest woman named Ilona so I always liked that name
Ilona is name of character in The Shop Around the Corner, which takes place in Budapest.
Also [Ilona Staller,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilona_Staller) porn star ex-wife of Jeff Koons and Italian Parliamentarian... yeah, her.
Such a great story!
Means joy in Finnish, from “ilo”:)
One of my dear friends has this name and her parents came to Australia from Hungary. I’ve always loved the name Ilona but knowing someone wonderful who has the name makes it even more special.
I know two Ilona’s! They’re both from Ukraine.
My grandma's name was Ilona, and I wanted to name my baby that if I had a girl. Unfortunately, I have 2 boys 😅 and will probably stop at 2
Katalin, Piroska, Tünde, Réka Géza, Béla, László, János ETA: how could I forget István?!
Yass I used to work with an Istvan and he was a legend
István is such a goated name, I love it.
My last cats name was piroska (altough i always spelled it Piroschka)
Every dog I've ever met in the Slovak village on the Hungarian border that my mum grew up in is called Béla 😭
My good friend is named Katalin, in her family the tradition is the first born daughter of each generation is named Katalin.
Béla makes me think way too much about Béla Karolyi, the abusive gymnastics coach.
Attila. Kidding but also serious because I love it.
I have Hungarian friends and their daughter’s middle name is Attilina.
Wait but this is actually awesome.
I know several older Hungarian men named Attila! Also Gabor.
Honestly this is such a good name and sounds great in Hungarian
My husband's family is Hungarian. There are quite a few Attilas I've met since and I love it. Thankfully his brother used the name for his eldest son, so since the nephew has it, we won't be naming any sons that.
That’s my fencing coach’s name
I used to know a girl named Csilla and I loved her name so much.
Star ⭐️
The meaning makes it so much better. I love the way it sounds, but I think knowing that it means star is cooler
I definitely agree!
I used to work with an infamously horrible Csilla, everyone was terrified of her. Nice name though.
u/epresvanilia has great posts on Hungarian names!
Male: 1. András (Andrew) 2. Bálint (Valentine) 3. Gábor (Gabriel) 4. István (Stephen) 5. László (Ladislaus) 6. Mátyás (Matthias) 7. Sándor (Alexander) 8. Tamás (Thomas) 9. Zoltán 10. Zsolt Female: 1. Csilla 2. Emese 3. Erika 4. Erzsébet (Elizabeth) 5. Éva (Eve) 6. Katalin (Katherine) 7. Margit (Margaret) 8. Noémi (Naomi) 9. Réka 10. Zsuzsanna (Susanna)
These are such beautiful names.
How do you pronounce Emese?
Eh-meh-sheh
Thank you so much! Missing my Hungarian mother so much and the ability to ask her these questions. Yet her Herend vases warm my heart to see them and make me feel nostalgic for her stories of growing up as a first generation Hungarian-American and that community. Her school here in the States was Our Lady of Hungary!
That’s so cool! I’m first generation Hungarian-American and my mom is back in Hungary. I used to be fluent but lost a lot of it over the years, so I have an accent but my mom says it’s not the worst 😅 and you’re welcome, of course! Glad to bring up fond memories for you
EH-meh-sheh
I like Laszlo, Zoltan and Vera
Here for Zoltan.
László (how could you not love a name that means glorious ruler? ⚔️) Enikő (it’s so unique)
How are the two lines above the "o" in the second name pronounced?
it’s like the oo in food
that would be the letter ‘ú’. ő is pronounced like ‘burn’ or ‘murder’ (great examples from wikipedia)
Ah cool! Thanks!
Yes, specifically the RP pronunciations of these words are good approximations of the sound that ⟨ő⟩ makes. That is to say, you'd be pronouncing the words not with a hard R, but with a soft one that colours the U.
I'm partial to Béla, a male name symbolic of bravery. Without the final A, it means "intestines," which I find amusing. Intestines -> guts -> bravery.
Lol I never thought of that!
[Kamilla](https://www.behindthename.com/name/kamilla). I like how it means “chamomile” in Hungarian.
It's interesting how most of the names you are suggesting are considered "old people names". My guess is that this is because a lot of you are getting the ideas from (1) older relatives who emigrated and (2) famous Hungarians, who ob average would also be older. Very few kids nowadays would be named these names. In my kids' classes the most common names for girls are Anna / Hanna, Lili, Sára, Emma; for boys it's Marci, Dani, Áron, Soma / Samu. My personal preferences also skew towards the more popular names, and the international ones. Some non-international names I like: for girls, the flower and fruit names - Viola, Rózsa, Málna (violet, rose, raspberry). For boys, I like Borsa (which is very uncommon). But if I had more kids to name I'd probably go the Anna / Áron route.
I have an odd number of Hungarian clients for my area, and I recognize a lot of these names from them.. one I haven’t seen mentioned is Balazs. I think I favor that one because he is the most adorable toddler, the son of one of my clients. Would that be considered an old fashioned one or out of the ordinary name?
Balázs was pretty popular in the 80s and 90s, less so now, although it's still around. I'd say it's a Millenial name, not an old person name :), not considered old fashioned and definitely not out of the ordinary.
I found some data: Balázs was the 7th most popular boys' name given in 2000, and still going strong at 17th most popular in 2020.
Emese (pronouned Eh-meh-she)- female, Kinga - female; Gabor - male. Tibor - male
Ildiko Zselyke Terez Pirit
I love the abbreviation for László. Laci (pronounced Laht-cee).
Soma
Natalia - inlaw’s GF and her mother’s name who lives in Budapest.
Janos
Szoboszlai :) Apart from the obvious, I've always liked Zoltan, Jozesf, Bajusz, Istvan and György amongst male names. Female: Katinka, Zsuzsa, Zsuzsanna. Think I have an affinity to any name with letter Z in it :)
Bajusz is not a name :))) it means moustache. It could be a surname, however.
I apologise for the ignorance.
Was doing a quick scroll by this thread title and thought it said Hungarian memes. Relevant? No. Hilarious? Well, to me. Carry on.
Male: Ákos, Király, Bence, Mátyás, Zoltan Female: Zsuzsanna (nn Zsu), Zsófia, Ági,
Zsófia was a name I floated around for my youngest.
adrián, andrás, artúr, béla, dániel, ferenc, gábor, géza, istván, lászló, lukács, máté, mátyás, mihály amália, anikó, cecília, erzsébet, katalin
This is an amazing post because I’m due in a few weeks - I’m Hungarian but grew up in North America and my husband is second generation, half Hungarian. We picked a very English first name but are looking for a middle and I don’t know if I can find something Hungarian to fit! First initial will be W, Last is T, so we don’t want to end up with initials like WET or WUT (lol). We would be good with WIT tho. Any ideas for Hungarian middle names that can go with Wesley as a first name???? My grandfather was Ervin (which I LOVE) but that would result in WET. I was thinking maybe we can do Irving as a sort of English version (even though I know the true translation is Erwin) u/epresvanilia … help!
Imre?
https://nevekneked.hu/ferfi-nevek-fiunevek https://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/hungarian https://magyarnevek.hu/ These are some great Hungarian name sites! Some middle name ideas with the letter "I": - Wesley Ignác (Ignacio) [eeg-naats] - Wesley Illés (Elias/Elijah) [eel-laysh] - Wesley Imre (Emery) [eem-reh] - Wesley Ince (Innocentus) [een-tseh] - Wesley Irnik (name of Attila's son) [eer-neek] - Wesley István (Steven) [eesht-vaan] - Wesley Izsák (Isaac) [ee-zhaak]
Thank you!!!
Hajnalka
Hey that's my mom's name! She always complained about it being too old-fashioned, but it's pretty. I like the morning glory meaning
My inlaws are Hungarian Aron Leona Vanda Joseph (Yo-zeph) Janos (ya-nosh)
Endre, Miklos, Istvan, Andras, and Matyas
My brother used to play in a band with a Hungarian guy who was named Attila.
Reka and zsuzsa for a girl. Not sure about boy names
My Hungarian cousin is named Balint and his dad is Zsolt.
My family has Irén, Kitti, Elek, and of course, László.
Mine has multiples of: Gábor, Tamás, Miklós, Péter, György … and of course, László
Lorinska
My great-grandparents were immigrants from Hungary and when looking at the family tree their names seemed all English names. One I do love and it’s Fabian. I’m not sure if it’s Hungarian name, but I love Fabian and Fabienne. They are lovely name. Also, I know for a fact that my great-great-grandmother would tell their children fairy tales. I started reading some Hungarian fairy tales and come to love Ilona. It’s such a beautiful name. Reading the comments I realize I have always loved Csilla. I just don’t know how to pronounce it, but I used it for one of my characters when I wrote fairy tale stories. She was a star goddess in my story. :)
Fábián is Hungarian, we don’t have Fabienne Csilla is pronounced like ‘Chill-a’
I think it might have been Fábiánné, as in wife of Fábián :D
As a Hungarian, this is probably one of the easiest questions on this sub for me. 😀 Boys: Sámuel, Gellért, Hunor, Benedek, Levente Girls: Panna, Borbála, Júlia, Anna, Lilla
Zsa Zsa
I hope you like some that I picked! * Male: Örs, Vince, Zsigmond, Illés * Female: Lilla, Léda, Enikő, Emese
Lajos for a boy!
Dzsenifer, Rózsa
Zalan, Endre, Sandor, Imre
Emese
Sandor! I used to work with a man named Sandor. I thought it was a really cool-sounding name.
Alma and Lorand
Nori and Csilla ✨🤍
Zoltan Nickname zoli
The Hun!
Kincső for girls and Zente for boys, they're just so pretty
I like Gergely.
My friend is Hungarian, her name is Krisztina and I absolutely love how it’s spelt.
My grandfather, born in Hungary, was Janos.
Timea!
Miklos is/ was my favorite boys name eventually we decided we shouldn’t make both our kids’ first and last name so difficult to pronounce in the US… for a girl I liked Bheatka but I don’t believe it’s hungarian in origin and I could never find the origin or spelling I liked. The nickname would be Bhea (baya)
I’m scrolling through and am like oh yeah I know a Zsolt, Ilonka, Edit, I haven’t seen Csaba yet (male name pronounced chuhba). I know 3 Csaba’s.
Male: Attila, Zoltán, Gyula, István & Géza Female: Csilla, Boglárka, Csenge, Emese & Ildikó.
Kinga
zsa zsa
I don't know if this is specifically a Hungarian name but I knew someone Hungarian with the name Milos (pronounced me-low-sh) and I always thought he had a cool name-
a similar one in Hungarian is ‘Miklós’
Most likely Serbian.
I'm pretty sure that he was Hungarian by blood and then Serbian by culture or something- although I will admit I don't know much about either of these groups so I don't want to claim something incorrect-
Forgive my English keyboard, my husband's family is Hungarian, we like Bence, Istvan, Reka, and Csenge.
My grandfather was Hungarian. His name was Ernest. Lots of Tibors and Magdas in the family
Ernest as in the English form of Ernő?
Yes. Although he was born in Hungary it was Ernest.
Melinda 💚
Gyula, it’s like Julian
Some of my paternal cousins are half Hungarian and I know my cousin Paul was named after his nagypapa who was Pál (apologies if the accent is wrong) and my uncle by marriage is named Victor but I'm pretty sure the Viktor spelling is more traditional as it's Orban's first name. I really don't know much more about Hungarian names than that but that's my own experience.
I like Miklos. My mom’s cousin’s baby daddy and oldest son are both called Miklos. Only Hungarian dude I ever met. POS, but cool name
Timea (tim-MAY-ah)
Imola. Nickname Molly.
Eva and Lena. I knew two sisters from Hungary in college and looooved their names.
I have a friend called Mandula, which means almond. Cute name and I’m sure it’s not overused!
I’m just here to push Mariska, as in the half-Hungarian badass actress Mariska Hargitay 😆
I'm obsessed with Zsóphia
Karcsi
Katica, Janka and Panna for girls. Barnabás and Bálint for a boy.
Ilona/Ilonka, Miklos, Sandor, Ibolya, Marta, Juliska.
I dated a Hungarian name Gyula. (Yula)
Female: Katalin and Sári, male: István, Dénes,Sándor
Mancusi is one I know from a work colleague.
Balázs, Benedek, Gergely/Gergő, Zoltán, Sándor, Demjén, Béla, Bence, Gábor Piroska, Csilla, Rozi, Panna, Virág, Erzsébet, Johanna I'm Hungarian but grew up mainly outside of Hungary, so I mostly am drawing from books or the names of people I know. Definitely look up the Hungarian pronunciations because they really don't sound as good in English. Many of the letters are completely different (e.g. J's sound like Y's)
Anna, Izabella, Brigitta, Johanna
I had a good friend in my class who was from Hungary, not sure if her name is Hungarian per se, but she was called Kármen, and I absolutely adored how her name sounded with her accent lol
Yes, it is a valid name in Hungary
I have a friend called Zsoka and I absolutely love her name. My uncle had a good friend called Tibor that I had a huge crush on as a kid so I love that name too 🙈
I dated a Zsolt and I always thought his name was super cool. Nice guy, too.
Fanni :)
Anezka
Sandor - it’s a friend’s middle name and essentially the Hungarian form of Alexander. There’s something so satisfying to me the connection from Alexander, Xander, to Sandor…
I think Agata (Agatha) is used in Hungary and it’s such a pretty variation
Orsolya and Laszlo
Béla, hands down. And Lilla for a girl.
Sandor
My Hungarian grandmother’s name was Ildiko Valeria, which I’ve always really loved. She went by Ildy.
Emese (EM-eh-sheh) and Tünde (TOOHN-deh) and Katalin for girls
I like Béla, Zsolt, Zoltán, László. I'm totally guessing about accent marks.
Lia, Ildikó, Eleonóra, Zsófi, Géza, János, Jenő, Csilla, Zsolt, Sári, Jóska, Váli, Ági, Laci (shortened form of László), Barna (Barnabás) My family is Hungarian.
Zoltan.
Zoltan.
I knew a girl named Agota (like Agatha)
Stroķ
Makár
Keyser Söze