Sayali Sadiqova, deputy chairperson of Azerbaijan’s Terminology Commission, has been in the news twice recently talking about baby names.
In the first article, she mentioned that the top baby names in Azerbaijan are Ali, Hasan and Huseyn for boys and Fatima and Zeyneb for girls. She also noted that Azerbaijani parents tend to prefer religious baby names to non-religious baby names.
In the second, she said that the government had been receiving requests to use “strange names” such as Newton, Galileo, Ingilis (meaning “English”), and Frunze (refers to Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze). She stated that there was “a definitive ban on these names,” and that hundreds of such names had been banned already.
In the past, the Terminology Commission has also taken issue with Russian baby names, Russian-sounding baby names, baby names influenced by Soviet ideology, Armenian baby names, and so forth.
Sources: Parents prefer religious baby names in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan bans strange baby names ‘Frunze’, ‘Newton’, ‘Galileo’
Image: Adapted from Flag of Azerbaijan (public domain)
