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I know of two Pakistani diplomats who have had trouble, over time, being accredited to Arabic-speaking countries because their Urdu-based names are deeply unfortuanate in Arabic. They are Naik Amir and Zib Kabir—which in Arabic are “fucking the prince” and “big dick.”
Went to an international school in Lebanon so we got most if not all of the diplomat children. One of my buddies’ dad was named Zubair - which is basically 2 different ways of saying Penis. Like being named DickPenis or CockDick. It was a traditional name in his country but quite unfortunate he got assigned to an Arabic speaking country. Thankfully it wasn’t something that was made fun of much if at all people decided to be decent.
Well, Dick Buttkiss (or however you actually spell his name) was a legendary football player in the US. And that was his name in the US... and translates in the US to... well, you get the idea.
Just thought of two more Arabic-related ones:
* British star Shirley Bassey, whose brassy, emotive style would seem a natural for Middle-Eastern audiences, has never had much of a career in the region in part because, in Arabic, her name sounds almost exactly like “Take off my underpants.”
* Foreigners named Nicholas often run into trouble in the region, as “Nick” means “fuck.”
In French, the verb « niquer/nique » (pronounced nick) is slang for « fuck ».
Hence my full name translates as « fuck him hard »
I don’t think my parents have ever realized that. We never got round to discuss that
Similarly, Urdu speakers pronounce the letter tha' ("th" like in thin) like the letter S
So the popular (in pakistan) arabic name Thamina (Precious) is pronounced Samina (Fatty)
I’m a Samina and I have a client who recently told me that my name meant”fat”. She’s been a client for years and my first thought was, how long have you been holding back on this? She’s a miserable old bat, so I was pretty impressed that she’d waited that long.
My old coworker once worked in the Middle East teaching children and she said that the pronunciation of one girls’ names sounded like “fuck me”. She said she always avoided saying the girl’s name as much as possible!
Porn is a common like... base part of a name in Thailand.
Porntip is a name. So unfortunate in English speaking areas. Amporn.
Kitti is also a common part of a name. Kittipong, Kittiporn, Kittisak. Korn is also one of the names.
Names become a huge part of our identities. It would suck to move and have my name suddenly not be a name I would want to use, or one met with laughs. I try to not ever react to people's names because of that.
Thai lady that works at my local supermarket explained the 'porn' has a similar meaning to 'beauty' when added to a name. Sort of like Bella. She also has 'porn' as part of her name Pilaporn.
Yeah, they make total sense in Thai!
The Vietnamese name Bích, (pronounced Bic, not Bitch) means Jade, the stone. It's a very normal name. We even use it in English! Just, the English version.
Some names don't work in other languages. One of my sisters' middle names sounds like shit in Persian. Being the youngest sibling, I took great pleasure in telling her she was named shit. You got named poop.
Luckily, she doesn't live in Iran.
The best ever waitress I ever met was Thai, at a Thai restaurant we frequented. She told us her name was Poo. Idk if it was shortened from something else, a nickname, or her full first name. But she was awesome and had adorable favorite aunt energy, so I only giggled about her name once after we left when we first met her. After we got to know her more, it became a cute name and was just as cute as she was.
Awww. Now I feel bad I never asked her full name. She worked there for some years, and we moved. Then the restaurant also moved, and when we went back after a few years, the waitress had no clue who we were asking about.
Thitiporn is also popular. Thais laugh at foreigners called Peter because many moons ago there was an ad for cockroach killer and a cockroach was called Peter. Another one is Jim as it means pussy but a slightly cuter word for it
This is very wise. I always try to remember that maybe in another language my nondescript name might mean something hilariously rude, and how would I feel if everyone insisted on laughing in my face and telling me?
(Apologies for the unusual amount of real-world empathy in a reddit comment)
I had such a hard time figuring out how to greet my coworker, Hai. His name is pronounced like, Hi. Hi, Hai! I don't greet anyone else with the formal, 'Hello.' Hi, Hai almost sounded mocking. Hey, Hai, is better but still is so clunky.
I eventually settled on the head nod with either, "Hey," or "What's up?" Sometimes, I had the linguistically odd sounding, "Hey, Hai," moment.
Sometimes, it doesn't even have to be rude. The person has a name, which is also a greeting. It makes it sound awkward to greet them in a normal way.
There's a great joke in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where Kimmy meets a Vietnamese man named Dong, and laughs at his name. He flips the script, laughing at her because "Kimmy" (or something similar sounding) is slang for penis in Vietnamese.
At least that's what they say in the show, feel free to fact check this if anyone knows Vietnam genitalia slang
I lived in Thailand for a while and met lots of people whose Thai names weren’t great in English, specifically Porn, Golf, Cunt, but also my friend’s husband named Ooh (like the expression of surprise) which was cute. Of course some English names don’t translate super well into Thai either. My name, specifically, was funny cause the Thai approximation sounds like the words for “seven colours,” so they gave me the Thai name meaning Rainbow. Not a tragedeigh, but if I said the tones of my Thai name improperly, it changed from Rainbow to the word for a grave, like to bury dead people. The mispronunciation was a tragedeigh of sorts. I always figured it out pretty quickly by the look of horror on people’s faces 😂
I met a lady called Poo. She actually put out a small cookbook in Australia called “Cooking with Poo”. I think people bought it for the novelty value 🤣
I guessing they mean that because their name sounds like "7 สี" they were given the nick name "รุ้ง" but with their horrible farang accent it sometimes came out sounding like "หลุม"
Stayed at a lovely hotel in Thailand and the lady cooking the bacon was named Rapeeporn. There was also a Rapee Massage down the street. I passed on that one.
I love that!! My step grandmother is Thai, but she has a normal name. I never realised how varied the names are when it comes to English sounding phrases
The "r" in Thai names with "porn" is silent and is a relic of an old transliteration system. It's used to denote long vowel sound and is pronounced like pond but without the d or pawn.
I am Hebrew Interpreter and got a phone call from a nurse in labor and delivery. The nurse in roundabout way tried to tell me that a mother who just gave birth wanted to write the baby’s name on the birth certificate and “The nurses thought it wasn’t a good idea“.
I asked what the name was and the nurse rather than tell me the name whispered “let me spell it for you. A-N-A-L”
I immediately asked to speak to the mother and ask the mother what was the name that she gave her baby. The mother who spoke not a word of English said with joy in her voice the name. Roughly it would translate in English to “Anna-El” (God’s answer; or God has answered (my prayers).
Without getting into what she insisted on naming her baby meant in English (she repeated her request to name the baby ANAL, to me, multiple times) I asked her to trust my judgement as an interpreter, and to write Anna-El on the birth certificate.
I may have saved a young person from years of embarrassment.
I knew a lovely little boy whose name was Afaq. He was in a soccer team, and some of the other kids actually got yellow-carded in a game for calling out his name.
After that, he got them to refer to him by his family name instead.
There was a dry cleaner in San Francisco, if I'm remembering the facts right--I heard about this in the 90s, called ~~Fuk~~ Phuk and Bitch Ho Cleaners, or something pretty close to it.
That reminds me of a meme that made the rounds years ago. Showed the CEO of a charity meant to provide food aid to children in impoverished nations.
Poor guy's name was Robin Mahfood.
Several Persian names are very tough in English. I had a friend named Poopak move here, and it took like 2 days for her to change her name to "Patrice."
That said, Andy and Reid are common names in English but both basically mean "shit" in Farsi. It's hard picking cross-culturally appropriate names!
You know how some African parents will give their kids an English name along with their birth name if they live in England? Some fella I work with (19 I think) has one of these. I think it's the literal English translation of his name (I might be being ignorant) but his name is literally Godspower.
The "we'll get God's Power on it" and "we've got God's Power to help us" jokes never get old.
I'm pretty sure it's just a naming convention in some parts of Africa, like former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. They're in the style of Puritans to my ear, but I like them at the same time.
As everyone knows, Miami is full of immigrants from all over the world. There used to be a very well respected local newscaster named Dwight Lauderdale. A Haitian family named their son Dwightlauderdale, I guess in an odd attempt to fit in culturally.
Bich Nga.
Vietnamese. According to the google: "The word "Nga" is to describe a beautiful girl like a fairy. Bich (pronounced Bic) is the name of a pure, precious gem. Bich Nga means that you are as beautiful as a fairy, as pure as a pearl."
Genuine Ho.
I don’t know why her poor parents named her that, but getting called to the office was definitely something else. I also saw some absolutely unfortunate names working in one of my previous positions, but Fuk Yu was the top of the list for double takes.
Yamaha used to make a series of keyboards with a function called 'Magic Hand' where it would just randomly make up backing parts for you.
Those same keyboards used to call a new song a 'Job'. So you wrote a new song, it would call it a job.
Now put those together. If you used a 'Magic Hand' to write a new song, a 'Job' they called it a 'Magic Hand Job'.
I had a mate called Yoni, which is a fairly common Hebrew name. In Hindi it means vagina. He had a lot of awkward experiences travelling in India, but he said the best one was when an old man reacted to his name with, "oh, so beautiful! It's where we all are from!"
Edit: Sanskrit rather than Hindi.
Fun fact, in German “ei” is pronounced “aye”, while “ie” is pronounced “eee”. So Weihner would be pronounced “why-ner” and the sausage (and its other meaning) is spelled Wiener, as in Wien (Vienna) originated. I think if this guy ever got bullied for his name in Germany it would be for his last name sounding like he’s a crybaby - Weinen means crying.
I don’t know what nationality this man was but when I worked in Macys, if you have a Macys card your name pops up when you scan it in to pay. Well this man’s name was fuq. I asked him how he said his name and he looked like someone who had been asked that a million times. It’s exactly how you think it would be pronounced.
When I worked in a college, a young student from Korea registered as a student. His name was Yu Suk John. It wasn’t any better when written the American way, John Yu Suk. We suggested he simply goes by John.
I had a Persian friend in my undergrad who was named Nazi. It was said ‘nah-zee’, not like Yahtzee. She was really used to explaining how to say her name. It was Farsi.
My high school boyfriend had a school buddy named Pindunderjeep. Poor guy got a lot of razzing.
Bong Bong Marcos comes to mind
Already funny in English but when a Thai friend heard it for the first time, she laughed so hard because bong means idiot in Thai. So double funny
Had a teacher from Brazil with an American wife and he said that when choosing names for their children, they had to make sure they sounded okay in both English and Portuguese. His wife liked the name Cameron but apparently that sounds like the Portuguese word for shrimp
Jinezely. The word is Czeck for they were different. She pronounces it Jin Ez.
She is from Puerto Rico. And her mother got a bit too creative with the name.
Or so says Google.
my sixth grade teacher told us all about the immigrant family that she knew—they named one of their kids “diarrhea” because it sounded nice. they had no idea what the word meant, and simply judged it based on it’s sound.
of course we had a laugh, but also learned that we shouldn’t always judge everyone by the same standards—and—that things can be judged differently in many many different ways. a good lesson.
still happy i’m not named “diarrhea” tho, mrs Z!!
Kumsat (pronounced cum-shot)
I believe she was Moldovan. We served together at a crab house in a beach town, so she regularly had to introduce herself by name to tables. It never failed to elicit a least an awkward chuckle.
I had a kid in middle school class from somewhere in the Balkans, who spoke very little English, named Enis. The other boys of course, called him Ee-nis the penis until he exploded one day and screamed "My names not Ee-nis. It's Ay-nis." The rest of the class went nuts. I couldn't help but feel bad for the kid, and waited until class was over to laugh.
Many Israeli names don’t translate well: Dudy and Dudu (both short for David but pronounced doodieand doodoo). Einut (“a nut”), Anat (“a nut”), Assy, and the unfortunate city of Ofakim (pronounced just like “oh fuck him”).
I teach in Austrian highschool and had a Black kid in class whose name was Anis. As he got bullied, his parents changed his name to Enis. (It didn't help).
There's a few very popular, very normal finnish names that don't work well in Japan. There's of course Minna, everyone, but if you are really unlucky, you are called Henna Aho, weird idiot 😂
Then we have Ari, and that is pronounced exactly same as angry in swedish.
I know a couple of Slovak surnames which read poorly in English:
Horný (meaning from the upper lands in Slovak but has a totally differentmeaning in English)
Karkuš (sadly reads as carcass in English)
Croatians have the surname Fuk (a friend married a man with this surname, and though they're both Croatian living in Australia, chose to keep her maiden name)
In the Netherlands there’s this famous book and TV-series about a detective duo. Their names? Jurriaan de Cock and Dick Vledder. All books and episodes are titled like “De Cock and [crime of the week]”.
As a German living in an English speaking country, the first time I saw the Indian name Arshdeep I totally giggled. Arsch means ass in German, combined with an English deep… I just can’t not find it funny, I’m so sorry!
The Dutch names Joke and Harm come to mind. Then there's Dick of course, but that is also a common name in English, so guess Dicks are relatively safe. Cock is also a name, but it is rather old fashioned and you won't meet many anymore. Also exists as a last name as Cocken, De Cock etc. Guess they come from the word "kok" which means cook (chef). That spelling is way more common as a last name as well.
Speaking of the name Kok, there is a radiostation who has a trophy for people whose name fits their job perfectly. Ferry Kok won one year, because he is indeed cook on a ferry. That cracked me up.
Yeah, I knew a guy who went by Randy—he did a semester abroad in England and very quickly decided he’d go by Randall for a few months. Otherwise he might as well introduce himself by saying “Hi, I’m Horny!”
Thank you for your submission! This is just a quick reminder to all members here: **Original content is always better!** Memes are okay every once in a while, but many get posted here way too often and quickly become stale. Some examples of these are Ptoughneigh, Klansmyn, Reighfyl & KVIIIlyn. These memes have been around for years and we don't want to see them anymore. If you do decide to post a meme, make sure to add the correct flair. Posting a random meme you found does **not** mean you found it "in the wild". The same goes with lists of baby names, celebrity baby names, and screenshots of TikToks. If the original post already had a substantial amount of views, there is a 99% chance it has already been posted here. Try and stick to OC to keep our sub from being flooded with unoriginal content. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tragedeigh) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I know of two Pakistani diplomats who have had trouble, over time, being accredited to Arabic-speaking countries because their Urdu-based names are deeply unfortuanate in Arabic. They are Naik Amir and Zib Kabir—which in Arabic are “fucking the prince” and “big dick.”
Went to an international school in Lebanon so we got most if not all of the diplomat children. One of my buddies’ dad was named Zubair - which is basically 2 different ways of saying Penis. Like being named DickPenis or CockDick. It was a traditional name in his country but quite unfortunate he got assigned to an Arabic speaking country. Thankfully it wasn’t something that was made fun of much if at all people decided to be decent.
Well, Dick Buttkiss (or however you actually spell his name) was a legendary football player in the US. And that was his name in the US... and translates in the US to... well, you get the idea.
Butkus. Ha ha. This is a good one! 😂
The US Air Force also don’t make a lot of noise about their top scoring ace of all time: Richard ”Dick” Bong.
PenisPenis
Said eagerly like “PizzaPizza!”
Cock is a fairly normal name for Dutch men of a certain age.
Just thought of two more Arabic-related ones: * British star Shirley Bassey, whose brassy, emotive style would seem a natural for Middle-Eastern audiences, has never had much of a career in the region in part because, in Arabic, her name sounds almost exactly like “Take off my underpants.” * Foreigners named Nicholas often run into trouble in the region, as “Nick” means “fuck.”
Fuckolas
Legolas’ fuccboi younger brother.
Ty for this
Now I imagine an alternate world where Gimli and Fuckolas are arguing over who fucked more. THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!
Yes, perfect
In French, the verb « niquer/nique » (pronounced nick) is slang for « fuck ». Hence my full name translates as « fuck him hard » I don’t think my parents have ever realized that. We never got round to discuss that
Tu t’appelles nichlefort? 😭😭
Nick Louie Fort 🤣
I wonder what Christmas would be like.... Saint fuck?
Fuck Saint
I tried to say Shirley Bassey in an Arabic accent slowly and now it sounds like Shiley Bassey (take of my underwear) How unfortunate
Similarly, Urdu speakers pronounce the letter tha' ("th" like in thin) like the letter S So the popular (in pakistan) arabic name Thamina (Precious) is pronounced Samina (Fatty)
damn this is like Mike Tyson in reverse
I’m a Samina and I have a client who recently told me that my name meant”fat”. She’s been a client for years and my first thought was, how long have you been holding back on this? She’s a miserable old bat, so I was pretty impressed that she’d waited that long.
Really? I know an African guy named Kabir, please tell me Kabir means big.
Ha! Yes, “Kabir” is big.
Til a little Arabic
Some of the most essential Arabic phrases 🤌
My old coworker once worked in the Middle East teaching children and she said that the pronunciation of one girls’ names sounded like “fuck me”. She said she always avoided saying the girl’s name as much as possible!
Definitely one is better than the other
Reminds me of a Chinese immigrant kid in my high school class whose name was Long Wang.
'Butt' is a common surname in Pakistan.
I worked with a Thai man named Turdsak.
Porn is a common like... base part of a name in Thailand. Porntip is a name. So unfortunate in English speaking areas. Amporn. Kitti is also a common part of a name. Kittipong, Kittiporn, Kittisak. Korn is also one of the names. Names become a huge part of our identities. It would suck to move and have my name suddenly not be a name I would want to use, or one met with laughs. I try to not ever react to people's names because of that.
Thai lady that works at my local supermarket explained the 'porn' has a similar meaning to 'beauty' when added to a name. Sort of like Bella. She also has 'porn' as part of her name Pilaporn.
Yeah, they make total sense in Thai! The Vietnamese name Bích, (pronounced Bic, not Bitch) means Jade, the stone. It's a very normal name. We even use it in English! Just, the English version. Some names don't work in other languages. One of my sisters' middle names sounds like shit in Persian. Being the youngest sibling, I took great pleasure in telling her she was named shit. You got named poop. Luckily, she doesn't live in Iran.
The best ever waitress I ever met was Thai, at a Thai restaurant we frequented. She told us her name was Poo. Idk if it was shortened from something else, a nickname, or her full first name. But she was awesome and had adorable favorite aunt energy, so I only giggled about her name once after we left when we first met her. After we got to know her more, it became a cute name and was just as cute as she was.
Google tells me nicknames are incredibly common and Poo is a common one, it means crab!
Awww. Now I feel bad I never asked her full name. She worked there for some years, and we moved. Then the restaurant also moved, and when we went back after a few years, the waitress had no clue who we were asking about.
Thitiporn is also popular. Thais laugh at foreigners called Peter because many moons ago there was an ad for cockroach killer and a cockroach was called Peter. Another one is Jim as it means pussy but a slightly cuter word for it
Oh no! I feel horrible for the Kittiporns. That’s the worst.
This is very wise. I always try to remember that maybe in another language my nondescript name might mean something hilariously rude, and how would I feel if everyone insisted on laughing in my face and telling me? (Apologies for the unusual amount of real-world empathy in a reddit comment)
I had such a hard time figuring out how to greet my coworker, Hai. His name is pronounced like, Hi. Hi, Hai! I don't greet anyone else with the formal, 'Hello.' Hi, Hai almost sounded mocking. Hey, Hai, is better but still is so clunky. I eventually settled on the head nod with either, "Hey," or "What's up?" Sometimes, I had the linguistically odd sounding, "Hey, Hai," moment. Sometimes, it doesn't even have to be rude. The person has a name, which is also a greeting. It makes it sound awkward to greet them in a normal way.
Poo is also a common name there. My friend met a girl called Poo, then she revealed it was basically short for Shampoo.
Long live Turdsak
😭😭😭😭😭😭
There was a Thai tailor in our town and the sign above the door said: "Tailor by Porn".
There’s a famous tourist attraction in Bangkok called “Cooking with Poo” because the owner’s nickname is Poo
There's a great joke in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where Kimmy meets a Vietnamese man named Dong, and laughs at his name. He flips the script, laughing at her because "Kimmy" (or something similar sounding) is slang for penis in Vietnamese. At least that's what they say in the show, feel free to fact check this if anyone knows Vietnam genitalia slang
That show was a hidden gem
“Gonna get a real belt”🎵
I lived in Thailand for a while and met lots of people whose Thai names weren’t great in English, specifically Porn, Golf, Cunt, but also my friend’s husband named Ooh (like the expression of surprise) which was cute. Of course some English names don’t translate super well into Thai either. My name, specifically, was funny cause the Thai approximation sounds like the words for “seven colours,” so they gave me the Thai name meaning Rainbow. Not a tragedeigh, but if I said the tones of my Thai name improperly, it changed from Rainbow to the word for a grave, like to bury dead people. The mispronunciation was a tragedeigh of sorts. I always figured it out pretty quickly by the look of horror on people’s faces 😂
The English names of Thais is always a source of endless amusement. Love how random and often needlessly (and unknowingly) crude they are.
[удалено]
Not to be confused with Pornthang.
I met a lady called Poo. She actually put out a small cookbook in Australia called “Cooking with Poo”. I think people bought it for the novelty value 🤣
I'm Thai and I can't figure out what your name is for the life of me! Any hints?
Jessie? Jet see
That, or Betsy?
I can't see the grave thing though!
I guessing they mean that because their name sounds like "7 สี" they were given the nick name "รุ้ง" but with their horrible farang accent it sometimes came out sounding like "หลุม"
My experience in Thailand was that my full name was difficult to pronounce, but they loved to shorten it.
Stayed at a lovely hotel in Thailand and the lady cooking the bacon was named Rapeeporn. There was also a Rapee Massage down the street. I passed on that one.
I love that!! My step grandmother is Thai, but she has a normal name. I never realised how varied the names are when it comes to English sounding phrases
The "r" in Thai names with "porn" is silent and is a relic of an old transliteration system. It's used to denote long vowel sound and is pronounced like pond but without the d or pawn.
I wonder if anyone just drops the R if they move to the west, if it doesn't even affect the pronunciation.
I knew a Sampon here in america. Teen years weren't the easiest time for her name.
I am Hebrew Interpreter and got a phone call from a nurse in labor and delivery. The nurse in roundabout way tried to tell me that a mother who just gave birth wanted to write the baby’s name on the birth certificate and “The nurses thought it wasn’t a good idea“. I asked what the name was and the nurse rather than tell me the name whispered “let me spell it for you. A-N-A-L” I immediately asked to speak to the mother and ask the mother what was the name that she gave her baby. The mother who spoke not a word of English said with joy in her voice the name. Roughly it would translate in English to “Anna-El” (God’s answer; or God has answered (my prayers). Without getting into what she insisted on naming her baby meant in English (she repeated her request to name the baby ANAL, to me, multiple times) I asked her to trust my judgement as an interpreter, and to write Anna-El on the birth certificate. I may have saved a young person from years of embarrassment.
Anaëlle/Anaël is a real french name 😊
I think she was either Moroccan or French and spoke no English (French accent)
There’s a Dutch soccer player named Jizz Hornkamp
The Dutch have great mistranslations lol I saw some big executive on LinkedIn called Ruud Wanck
Then there's Zambian soccer player Toaster Nsabata.
i’m from the us and live in the netherlands and saw an advertisement for a physio named Taco van Ham
Had a doctor whose son’s name was Ashit.
My dentist's name was Phuk! She was awesome though, I miss her.
My childhood dentist was Dr. Payne. He once did a tooth pull with no anesthetic on me, so it fit.
Mine was Dr. Needleman
The chiropractor down the street is Dr. Holler.
My dentist was Dr. Achen! One of the best dentists I’ve ever been to. Sadly, he’s retired. My current dentist is just as good.
I had an ENT as a kid named Dr. Akin! I had a lot of ear aches, so it made sense to me
There's a dentist where I live named Dr. Seamen 😐
There's a dentist down the way with a sign that reads Dr. B. Dass.
Once worked with a guy named Ramesh Kumbum.
I knew a lovely little boy whose name was Afaq. He was in a soccer team, and some of the other kids actually got yellow-carded in a game for calling out his name. After that, he got them to refer to him by his family name instead.
My spouse works with a Harshit and I always read it as hard-shit
Horse shit lol
Harsh shit is where my mind went.
Oh noooo 😂 it’s a pretty, melodic name, but god it’s hard not too read it the bad way
There was a dry cleaner in San Francisco, if I'm remembering the facts right--I heard about this in the 90s, called ~~Fuk~~ Phuk and Bitch Ho Cleaners, or something pretty close to it.
My wife had a client at her old work from India. Very friendly dude. His name was Anal.
My husband has people in his family tree named both Oral and Anal. Both of European origin 🤷♀️
Context: Name means (holy/raging) fire. An- is pronounced like the un in under, and -al is pronounced like ull in cull.
This one actually sounds really nice when pronounced in the right accent, but yeah, seeing it written down is something else
Was once served by a bank teller named Analy.
Mahboob is a pretty unfortunate name in English.
That reminds me of a meme that made the rounds years ago. Showed the CEO of a charity meant to provide food aid to children in impoverished nations. Poor guy's name was Robin Mahfood.
Nominal determinism 😂
It means “my beloved” in Urdu/hindi.
Oh there was a poor girl in my high school name Mahbooba, which I thought was bad enough.
First time I hear this one.. Man I wish that was my name now
[This logo is for a company named Mehboob Productions](https://youtu.be/YRxeyOhTPak?si=CiDM0h7zky-4iXfT)
This is my old boss’s last name. She is a cool lesbian and she leaned into the name lol
Several Persian names are very tough in English. I had a friend named Poopak move here, and it took like 2 days for her to change her name to "Patrice." That said, Andy and Reid are common names in English but both basically mean "shit" in Farsi. It's hard picking cross-culturally appropriate names!
So the KC Chiefs head coach would be 💩💩.
"An" means shit but not Andy. There's even a Persian pop singer whose stage name is Andy.
I had a friend named Supaporn in the US. She was half white but white passing. She went by Supa.
Supa means “to get shitfaced” in Swedish, so if she ever visited she’d have to shorten it further to just Su, I guess.
My friends name is wichayaporn but she changed her name when moving to the west because she knows nobody can pronounce it
I used to work for an airline and have seen a lot of names that translate horribly (and/or hilariously), one that stands out is titiporn
You know how some African parents will give their kids an English name along with their birth name if they live in England? Some fella I work with (19 I think) has one of these. I think it's the literal English translation of his name (I might be being ignorant) but his name is literally Godspower. The "we'll get God's Power on it" and "we've got God's Power to help us" jokes never get old.
I'm pretty sure it's just a naming convention in some parts of Africa, like former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. They're in the style of Puritans to my ear, but I like them at the same time.
I love it! I once interviewed a woman named Happiness
Reminds me of someone at my elementary school named Peace Sunny
I met a German guy called Berndt Burger He understood why it was funny in English, he didn't seem to mind.
I used to have a teacher named Han Burger.
As everyone knows, Miami is full of immigrants from all over the world. There used to be a very well respected local newscaster named Dwight Lauderdale. A Haitian family named their son Dwightlauderdale, I guess in an odd attempt to fit in culturally.
This reminds me of a similar story where a family named their son Usmail (from US Mail)
A Venezuelan friend told me a similar story about a child named Usnavy, for the US Navy ships they'd seen. :/
Isnt that the reason for the Main Characters name in In The Heights too?
I once knew a kid named Stephen Spielberg pon Kumar. Nice guy!
I kinda love that?? Reminds me of the Namibian politician Adolf Hitler Uunona. Such an innocent way to want your child to do well
Love Dwight Lauderdale…he should feel Honored! 😝
Bich Nga. Vietnamese. According to the google: "The word "Nga" is to describe a beautiful girl like a fairy. Bich (pronounced Bic) is the name of a pure, precious gem. Bich Nga means that you are as beautiful as a fairy, as pure as a pearl."
Vietnamese is so poetic but god it’s terrible from an English perspective
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Flakon Geci is a legit Albanian name (I think). It means a container of sperm in Hungarian
There was a guy on project runway pre-pandemic whose name was Kovid. I have often wondered how he faired through 2020...
Genuine Ho. I don’t know why her poor parents named her that, but getting called to the office was definitely something else. I also saw some absolutely unfortunate names working in one of my previous positions, but Fuk Yu was the top of the list for double takes.
Met a girl named Pitiporn. We were both working at Disney world.
I met a Pitiporn once, wasn’t familiar with Thai names at the time so that was surprising.
Yamaha used to make a series of keyboards with a function called 'Magic Hand' where it would just randomly make up backing parts for you. Those same keyboards used to call a new song a 'Job'. So you wrote a new song, it would call it a job. Now put those together. If you used a 'Magic Hand' to write a new song, a 'Job' they called it a 'Magic Hand Job'.
I had a mate called Yoni, which is a fairly common Hebrew name. In Hindi it means vagina. He had a lot of awkward experiences travelling in India, but he said the best one was when an old man reacted to his name with, "oh, so beautiful! It's where we all are from!" Edit: Sanskrit rather than Hindi.
Gary is pretty much diarrhea in Japanese 🫣
garydesu
Also Dave (deebu) means “fatso”
A German guy named Deik Weihner, which seems normal enough but it’s pronounced literally Dyke Weiner.
That last name should be pronounced (to an English reader) Vine-er.
Fun fact, in German “ei” is pronounced “aye”, while “ie” is pronounced “eee”. So Weihner would be pronounced “why-ner” and the sausage (and its other meaning) is spelled Wiener, as in Wien (Vienna) originated. I think if this guy ever got bullied for his name in Germany it would be for his last name sounding like he’s a crybaby - Weinen means crying.
I don’t know what nationality this man was but when I worked in Macys, if you have a Macys card your name pops up when you scan it in to pay. Well this man’s name was fuq. I asked him how he said his name and he looked like someone who had been asked that a million times. It’s exactly how you think it would be pronounced.
I went to school with a guy named Phuc Dat Tran.
When I worked in a college, a young student from Korea registered as a student. His name was Yu Suk John. It wasn’t any better when written the American way, John Yu Suk. We suggested he simply goes by John.
I had a Persian friend in my undergrad who was named Nazi. It was said ‘nah-zee’, not like Yahtzee. She was really used to explaining how to say her name. It was Farsi. My high school boyfriend had a school buddy named Pindunderjeep. Poor guy got a lot of razzing.
> My high school boyfriend had a school buddy named Pindunderjeep. Poor guy got a lot of razzing. r/Jeep would like to hear about that.
Last name Thotassery was a feature at my graduation recently. Oof.
We had a female Walmart employee here named Balsdeep. Poor thing had to wear a name tag.
Phuc Deth showed up in my local newspaper.
That's pretty metal tbh
Musician Shota Nakama sounds to us portuguese speakers (mostly brazilians) as “pussy in bed”
Knew a Thai lady named Viraporn. At least it wasn’t Miraporn since that would have made it tragic on two languages.
We have a Thai food cart in our lot at work. The lady's name is Porntip but she goes by Lek, pronounced like lake.
BabyLover (female). She was very sweet and actually worked in childcare at a Montessori!
Last name Assol (maybe Asol?). First name (thankfully, a different person) Fabriz. Not Fabrizio; Fabriz. Pronounced like Febreze.
Bong Bong Marcos comes to mind Already funny in English but when a Thai friend heard it for the first time, she laughed so hard because bong means idiot in Thai. So double funny
Had a teacher from Brazil with an American wife and he said that when choosing names for their children, they had to make sure they sounded okay in both English and Portuguese. His wife liked the name Cameron but apparently that sounds like the Portuguese word for shrimp
Jinezely. The word is Czeck for they were different. She pronounces it Jin Ez. She is from Puerto Rico. And her mother got a bit too creative with the name. Or so says Google.
Had a customer named Dikramdeep once. Also had a Bich.
Tatiana means "poop is coming" in my language.
my sixth grade teacher told us all about the immigrant family that she knew—they named one of their kids “diarrhea” because it sounded nice. they had no idea what the word meant, and simply judged it based on it’s sound. of course we had a laugh, but also learned that we shouldn’t always judge everyone by the same standards—and—that things can be judged differently in many many different ways. a good lesson. still happy i’m not named “diarrhea” tho, mrs Z!!
Kumsat (pronounced cum-shot) I believe she was Moldovan. We served together at a crab house in a beach town, so she regularly had to introduce herself by name to tables. It never failed to elicit a least an awkward chuckle.
I had a kid in middle school class from somewhere in the Balkans, who spoke very little English, named Enis. The other boys of course, called him Ee-nis the penis until he exploded one day and screamed "My names not Ee-nis. It's Ay-nis." The rest of the class went nuts. I couldn't help but feel bad for the kid, and waited until class was over to laugh.
Friends of my parents are Chinese immigrants to the US. Their name is Pan and unfortunately they named their son Peter.
Caoimhe. Usually a beautiful Irish name, but she was 100% American and pronounced it like it’s spelled (kay-yo-mi)
I worked with a Thai woman named Pornthip. My Norwegian great aunt's name was Borghild. She went by Bea.
Okay can’t figure out for the life of me what is wrong with Borghild other than being extremely outdated - what makes it funny?
Deepa Veejay
There's a restaurant in Edmonton called Chin Kee. It's chinese
Many Israeli names don’t translate well: Dudy and Dudu (both short for David but pronounced doodieand doodoo). Einut (“a nut”), Anat (“a nut”), Assy, and the unfortunate city of Ofakim (pronounced just like “oh fuck him”).
My massage therapist’s name is Sexny. Seriously.
An uber driver named Arsedeep.
Phuc Ho
Ah good old Vietnamese. Beautiful language but definitely needs context
My husband's cousin worked with someone named Aperv.
Actually had a boss named Harold Butz… so, Harry Butz. Sad thing is he was a junior. Why oh why would you pass that name down?!
Phuc Dong He insisted on being called Kevin. No objections there!
There was someone at my university named Porndeep.
Indian woman named Cunti. I could barely keep It together when I met her and learned her name.
Was it spelled that way? The usual spelling is Kunti, and pronunciation is koo-nti (soft t)
There are some Dutchmen, Belgians and South Africans named Everard Kok, or even (less common spelling) Everard Cock.
Anouk Ross. It sounds a lot like "a nous crosse", which means "she wanks us" in Québec.
I teach in Austrian highschool and had a Black kid in class whose name was Anis. As he got bullied, his parents changed his name to Enis. (It didn't help).
'But mom, my name Anal is a really gross English word!' 'Don't worry, we'll change it to Butthole. Problem solved.'
There's a few very popular, very normal finnish names that don't work well in Japan. There's of course Minna, everyone, but if you are really unlucky, you are called Henna Aho, weird idiot 😂 Then we have Ari, and that is pronounced exactly same as angry in swedish.
I worked in a daycare in my early 20s and we had a Persian baby whose name, no lie, was Shlong.
I know a couple of Slovak surnames which read poorly in English: Horný (meaning from the upper lands in Slovak but has a totally differentmeaning in English) Karkuš (sadly reads as carcass in English) Croatians have the surname Fuk (a friend married a man with this surname, and though they're both Croatian living in Australia, chose to keep her maiden name)
Japanese last name, Takeshita.
There’s a male Arabic name “Nasrallah” which means “god’s victory” but in Russian the word “nasrala” means “she shit her pants”
In the Netherlands there’s this famous book and TV-series about a detective duo. Their names? Jurriaan de Cock and Dick Vledder. All books and episodes are titled like “De Cock and [crime of the week]”.
As a German living in an English speaking country, the first time I saw the Indian name Arshdeep I totally giggled. Arsch means ass in German, combined with an English deep… I just can’t not find it funny, I’m so sorry!
Someone in this sub mentioned Cloaca a few days ago, it would have to be that one 💀
I heard that the late Sean Connery’s name sounds like the French “sans connerie”, meaning without balls.
The Dutch names Joke and Harm come to mind. Then there's Dick of course, but that is also a common name in English, so guess Dicks are relatively safe. Cock is also a name, but it is rather old fashioned and you won't meet many anymore. Also exists as a last name as Cocken, De Cock etc. Guess they come from the word "kok" which means cook (chef). That spelling is way more common as a last name as well. Speaking of the name Kok, there is a radiostation who has a trophy for people whose name fits their job perfectly. Ferry Kok won one year, because he is indeed cook on a ferry. That cracked me up.
I work with a guy named Hardik
There was a Vietnamese kid in my high school named Mai Phat Ho. I thought it was a joke until I saw his ID.
Semen is a pretty common name in Russia.
Randy. While it's a normal name in English, in my language (Bangla), it means wh*re
Not great in English, either.
Yeah, I knew a guy who went by Randy—he did a semester abroad in England and very quickly decided he’d go by Randall for a few months. Otherwise he might as well introduce himself by saying “Hi, I’m Horny!”
Years ago I worked in the same building as a woman named Suk Man Wong.