I was watching the movie "Life of Pi" the other day in which the main character is named after the French word for swimming pool, "Piscine." It didn't occur to his father, who appeared to be fluent in English, that that name would sound a lot like the word "pissing", which would of course lead to the boy being ridiculed by other children at school. Still, it makes me think of other names that sound totally fine in one language, but mean something humorous in another language. Here's a few that come to mind.
Rhonda - As in, "Help me, Rhonda." It apparently comes from Welsh, being the name of a valley, and is a lovely enough name in English. But in Hungarian, it sounds a lot like the word ronda, which basically means "incredibly ugly." I used to share this with my students to get a laugh out of them. If I wanted to say "Hi, I'm Rhonda" in Hungarian, what they would hear would be, "Szia, ronda vagyok", meaning "Hello, I'm incredibly ugly."
Matt - I asked my Arab students if they could think of anything like this, and the first one they come up with is Matt, which sounds a lot like the Arabic word "ميت", which means dead. So then أتا ميت, meaning "I am Matt" would just sound like "I am dead."
Kaya - I first heard this name in the movie "Willow", but my wife once told me it was a name she liked one day when we were discussing baby names. I had to immediately shoot it down, however, since it sounds exactly like the Hungarian word kaja, which is a somewhat slang word for food. I told her that we could not knowingly name one of our daughters "grub."
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. What about you? Feel free to comment if you know of any others.
Rhonda - As in, "Help me, Rhonda." It apparently comes from Welsh, being the name of a valley, and is a lovely enough name in English. But in Hungarian, it sounds a lot like the word ronda, which basically means "incredibly ugly." I used to share this with my students to get a laugh out of them. If I wanted to say "Hi, I'm Rhonda" in Hungarian, what they would hear would be, "Szia, ronda vagyok", meaning "Hello, I'm incredibly ugly."
Matt - I asked my Arab students if they could think of anything like this, and the first one they come up with is Matt, which sounds a lot like the Arabic word "ميت", which means dead. So then أتا ميت, meaning "I am Matt" would just sound like "I am dead."
Kaya - I first heard this name in the movie "Willow", but my wife once told me it was a name she liked one day when we were discussing baby names. I had to immediately shoot it down, however, since it sounds exactly like the Hungarian word kaja, which is a somewhat slang word for food. I told her that we could not knowingly name one of our daughters "grub."
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. What about you? Feel free to comment if you know of any others.
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