EU: even less in common with them than I thought

[Tim Streater]

and it's not just Iceland, Denmark, and Germany where they have these ludicrous rules. The French have them too.

[harry]

Could do with it here I think. Kevins and Karens to be the first to be banned.

[tim.....]

And Poland

tim

[polygonum]

Seem to remember that countries which have name days tend to have at least some pressure towards choosing names which are associated with those days. IYSWIM.

E.g. Russia and Latvia (and, I suspect, others).

Aha!

more...

[tim.....]

This never worked in Italy.

I have an Italian "name" day, yet this didn't stop most Italians looking at my name in surprise and asking "is that a name!"

tim

[Brian Gaff]

But how many of the other countries care or actually do anything about them. I think the French tend to just igore anything they don't like.

Brian

[Martin Brown]

So does Japan and plenty of other first world countries. There was a big fuss in Japan about naming a child Akuma (literally Devil) that went through all the courts in 1993 BBC have picked up on it.

UK & USA are pretty unusual in allowing non-standard new names.

[Tim Streater]

It's the mindset I'm talking about. Can you imagine what would happen if any political party suggested introducing such rules? They'd be finished

- toot sweet.

It's the old "you're guilty until proved innocent" and "everything is forbidden except that which is explicitly authorised" mindset.

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 01 February 2013 13:43 polygonum wrote in uk.d-i-y:

And Latvian only "works" if you can twiddle the noun endings, eg

Riga - the place Rigu - "motion towards" Riga, eg "going to Riga".

(I know there's an accent missing on the i).

and lots of others. anyone who did Latin will understand.

This logic applies to proper nouns too, so female names have to end with -a or -e and blokes -s, -sh[1] or -is IIRC

"sh" is a single letter s with a v-thingy on top, can't type here...)

However, foreign names can be largely adopted in, eg:

Tom would be "Toms" and the grammar rules would follow, and Arthur becomes "Arturs".

A great many girls names in english pretty much just work or have direct equivalents, eg Mary -> Marija, Julie -> Julija so noone is likely to want to use Mary as a first name.

I believe Russian does something similar as do a number of other grammer intensive eastern european languages.

[Jethro_uk]

It's isn't a question of "allowing" them. Simply in the absence of law, anything goes.

This is such a fundamental distinction, I feel the need to challenge it whenever it's misrepresented. In other countries, you may be "allowed" to do certain things. And if that's how they like to think it, fine. But in the UK, you are "allowed" to do anything at all. Anything you like. Whatever. Your choice. You choose. Except where prohibited by law.

[Java Jive]

Names get Anglicised, Russianised, etc, as appropriate ...

The Russian poet Lermontov was of Scottish descent: Learmont -> Lermontov

The last name of former WTA player Elena Dementieva (pron: Deme'ntyeva, not Dementi-e'va) may have originated from French (I don't know, just guessing): De Ment -> Dementieva

Similarly for American singer Iris Dement.

D'Arcy -> Darcy

Mac Pharlaine (son of Bartholomew) -> Macfarlane

Etc, etc.

One of the things that rater amuses me driving round Wales is seeing 'Golf Course' in Welsh all over the place, which is of course pronounced pretty much exactly the same, seeing as it's an English name. I'm quite happy for Swansea to be called Abertawe (I think I've got that right), but when words come from English in the first place, why not just use the original English spelling?

I once heard The McGarrigles' beautiful and well-known love song "Heart Like A Wheel" sung in Welsh to an English speaking audience by an oh-so-determined-to-be-Welsher-than-Welsh singer, who apparently saw no irony or idiocy in what she was doing, or the fact that she was married to a Scot, so it would have been just as (in)valid to sing it in Scots Gaelic!

Julie Fowlis, who s>

[polygonum]

I'll have to adopt Roderiks on 25th September. :-)

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Because there's a limited amount of material in sheep, coos, heather, red-haired temptresses.... oh, hold on. Plenty in that last one.

[bert]

Which helps differentiate between what is moral as opposed to not illegal.

[geoff]

In message , Grimly Curmudgeon writes

"Oh the brooooom the bonny brooooom, the broooom of the cowdenknowes fain wouuuud I beeee in ma ain counteree haerdin' ma faathers Cooooows ... nya"

[jgharston]

That's ok, Samurai Jack will be on the case ;)

JGH

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

[harry]

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Which would be gwesty. All these bilingual road signs cost a fortune. There is a gov. department that will translate any proposed sign into Welsh.

[harry]

Don'y forget the pointy hats. In Cardiff most Welsh are hostile to the Welsh language.