Romanian baby names - what saint are you named after?

Choosing Romanian baby names is a very serious thing. Most Romanians will choose traditional Christian names. The chances are, if you did pretty well in battle, beat back the Turks or Hungarians, built a few monasteries, you could be recognized as a saint and Romanians will call their babies after you.

Lots of popular modern names in England, especially with 4 letters or less, and with no clear religious connotations, generally caused me problems when it came to naming baby Victor. Romanians love to use short English sounding names for their dogs and cows - so obviously cannot name their precious child in the same way.

As we need to keep in mind two nationalities and their cultural sensitivities, it was even harder as a word in one language could mean something completely different in the other. So I threw in the gauntlet that the name had to be the same in both languages.

Little Victor came out top as much because there was so little to choose from. I only have `Adrian` left in the t for baby 2 - and I am not keen on it, so I hope we have a little girl called Victoria!

There is a tradition in Romania of calling the child after parents. The child is always known - until well into adulthood as 'Little such and such' - I use to think it was a real name rather than a spoilt name. When they asked why he is not called Peter - I replied because I did not know the plumber's name (my joke) - oddly as jokes go, I have seen lead balloons rise faster than my slur on the family name. I think each child should have his r her own destiny and so have a unique name in the family - the way little Victor giggles and smiles constantly, I think he agrees.

The British are equally rubbish at naming their children - every year the most popular names seem to come from soap operas. Where is the thought or imagination in that?

I did look into naming Victor after his two grandfather's but because the spellings in Romanian and English are different, we decided it would make his international heritage stand out at school and as you know no one wants to especially stand out at school!

We looked in baby books and it was only when Uncle Victor called that everything dropped into place. The fact his name day is one day before my wife's birthday helped.

His second name Ioan (John) was because he was born on St John's name day and my wife did a mental agreement with him that if the birth went well, he would be named after this good saint.

What are your favourite Romanian baby names and why?

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