names that mean something in another language

rhythm_blues wrote:There were a number of Japanese students at the school, and many of the young women had names that ended in ko.

This was in Sweden. I used to work with a Singaporean-Chinese girl whose name was Ko. She changed it Juliette. Ko in Swedish means cow.

"Ben" means "I" in Turkish

"Obama" means "peach" in Hungarian

Randy is of course an American man's name, and has certain other meanings in other English speaking countries!!

I met a very nice bloke called Randy when I was backpacking in Chile. When he introdiced himself, and even before the smirk had fully formed on my face, he just said "I know, I know"...I wasn't the first Brit he'd met...not to mention the Aussies and Kiwis he'd met who'd all smirked just like I did.

In Israel:
Dudy - common nickname
Nimrod - boy's name
Osnot - unfortunate girl's name

Pines - common last name, pronounced "penis". There was a guy that lived down the street from me, Dudy Pines... couldn't walk past his mailbox without smirking.

"Kim" means "who" in Turkish.

When a school I was working at hired a Kim, the students had a lot of fun with her name:
"Yeni öğretmeniz kim?" "Evet, yeni öğretmeniz Kim."
(Who's our new teacher? Yes, Who's our new teacher.)

Hamill means pregnant in Indonesian ("hamil")
Janine means fetus in Indonesian ("janin")

I found out when I went to Japan that my name (Ari) means "ant" in Japanese.

There are quite a lot of common Swedish names that English people would find quite odd, Love and Fanny being two...

It's also very common to have Swedish names that also mean something in Swedish, like Björn (bear) and Sten (stone).

It's "barack" that means peach in Hungarian, or so I am led to believe by my magyar-english dictionary...

Still, awesome. President Peach. The Hungarians must giggle a little. I know I would. And am, in fact. But that's because I'm immature and find dumb things funny.

Oh, wait. A giggling Hungarian? What kind of foolishness is this? LIke that would ever happen.

My last name is Krebs, which I have been told means Cancer in German. But Cancer? Thats weird. Then again, what is the zodiac sign for cancer? The Crab, of course. Thus Krebs.