I recently stumbled upon a funny post on Hebrew names at the blog Zabaj. Here’s a snippet:
So my family and I love to play this game – try and come up with as many names we can think of that sound great in Hebrew but hilarious in English. Some of them just look funny as they’re written and mispronounced, others are funny simply because of how they sound.
Some of the names mentioned in the post were:
- Osnot (pronounced Oh Snot)
- Oded (pronounced Oh Dead)
- Amit (pronounced Ah Meat)
- Ramit (pronounced Raw Meat)
- Mangina (pronounced Mahn Gee Nah)
- Dudu (pronounced Doo-Doo)
Just imagine having to live in small-town USA with a name like Mangina. Yikes. (Sorta reminds me of that Seinfeld episode in which Jerry comes up with names that rhyme with parts of the female body…)
2 Comments
Yes, this is a perfect example of what not to do. Parents must be cognizant not only of how the name sounds in various languages, but what it means as well. What may seem cute in English may be offensive or slang in another language.
Magina, where did you get the information about the hebrew name ‘Dudu’? Please provide me with some more information of this name in hebrew. Thanks ;)