Naming my baby Nagisa?

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

I guess I’m quite lucky to be born in Indonesia . Indonesian people don’t have to worry so much about names. Here, we have names from many cultures including Chinese, Javanese, Indian, Arabian, Balinese, Sumatra-nese, Borneo-nese, New Guinea, Western, Malay, Sundanese and many more (not counting some parents who came up with original idea). Also, we don't necessarily apply surname-system here. So, you pretty much can name your children with whatever you can came-up with. Still, the names should be meaningful and represent something good since, in my country, giving a name is equal to a prayer for the well-being & bright future of your child.

As for Iizzy 55, from the posters’ suggestions so far, you seem to have 5 options here:
1. Go ahead and use 'Nagisa' as your child’s first name
2. Use ‘Nagisa’ as middle name
3. Somehow you ‘Americanize’ that ‘Nagisa’ name for the first name.
4. You use both suggestions no. 3 & 2
5. You drop the whole ‘Nagisa’ idea

It's your choice. Think carefully.

[Random32]

I'm on the side of middle name. Don't make it her first name, please.

Also, if your child likes "Nagisa," she can use tell people to refer to her by her middle name. It gives you an excuse to refer to her as Nagisa, and if she likes it, she can request to be called Nagisa without being thought of as weird.

Also, tell people something about the beach, or it sounded pretty, or something about Marine Life if you don't want to be looked at funny.

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Random32

I'm on the side of middle name. Don't make it her first name, please.

Also, if your child likes "Nagisa," she can use tell people to refer to her by her middle name. It gives you an excuse to refer to her as Nagisa, and if she likes it, she can request to be called Nagisa without being thought of as weird.

Also, tell people something about the beach, or it sounded pretty, or something about Marine Life if you don't want to be looked at funny.

I agree with this rationale.

I personally think Nagisa is a beautiful name, but to be honest it is mainly because of the fictional character I associate it with.

[Mystique]

Funny how people toss their opinion about first names.
Nagisa can work, just said with an english tongue they'll be a natural stress on the gi

NaGIsa.
It won't sound the same as the japanese, but it fits enough.
(It reminds me of the 'ghetto' names like Teniqua or Kaisha, or Devina)
Same with Naomi, I'd never consider it Japanese simply cause the stress we place on it in english makes it sound completely different and we grew up with it in the west.
NaOHmi
Like Na-RU-TOH


I'm from the crowd of having a very rare/unique name UK wise and I love it. I prefered not to be sharing my name with others and often got commented that it was beautiful.
Kids being kids will try to make a joke outta anything, so many tried to find rhymes that would fit my name or try to dissect it to make a joke (usually lame ones)
Nagisa doesn't bring much connotations in english to be bullied with as far as i can think of.
I can only think of potential Japanese ones ^^;

Lineage usually ties in with people's surnames, so rather, take in account your surname as well with the first name when you decide. Rather than anything, my surname was what I was conscious of, it was severly mispronounced by white native British peeps, especially in primary school and if anything was potentially bullied for.
But you cannot change a surname as easily as you can a first name which many americans just initialise it or use a completely different nickname.
Beside for jobs it's usually surnames, which employers use to ID pple and where we can tell what kinda country or race someone may be.

Mr N Li
Miss A Sakamoto
Mr K Brown
Mr D Rodrigez
Ms T Ahmed

Otherwise its not so bad, better than 99% of celebrities baby's names which are just beyond ridiculous because they're kids of celebs. One has to wonder how they'll fit in the long run

I'll leave you to decide who these belong to:
Memphis Eve
Maddox
Destry
Sage Moonblood (first and middle name)
Coco
Apple
Pilot Inspektor
Kal-El
(These are only top 11-20) xD

(some from the 10-1 list)
Audio Science
Rocket
Ocean

See, Nagisa? Totally fine. xD

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Mystique

Kal-El

I don't know who made that but he deserves a prize for most awesome name given to a child

[Mystique]

It's Nicholas Cage's kid and yes it's cause of Superman...

Moon Unit and Diva Thin Muffin
I think these two kids of the same parent do it for me xD

[Stiletto]

tbh naming your kid after an anime character is a tad out there. Although if you're looking for a name that is symbolic and not solely cosmetic then I don't see the problem.

[lizzy_55]

Hey guys, thanks for all your replies, and again I keep coming back to this thread, so anyone else is welcome to reply too. all your opinions are helpful and we're looking into each of them. After hearing what the majority of you have had to say, We may consider using it as a middle name instead, for us we're set on it as either first or middle name. If we use it as a first name, we're going to tell our child that their name means beach too, not just about the fictional character we named her after, also we're considering using the western pronunciation na-GI-sa, so it's easier for other to pronounce here. What do you guys think. Again, thank for your thoughts!

[Mystique]

Originally Posted by Stiletto

tbh naming your kid after an anime character is a tad out there. Although if you're looking for a name that is symbolic and not solely cosmetic then I don't see the problem.

How is that anymore cosmetic than naming a kid after yourself or your parents? (which seems to be the tradition for middle names in the UK I noticed)

Or perhaps egotistical.
Also what if a kid's named after an historic figure with a name that's strange but the 'reason' seems just. Then that's ok and we all accept?
Alternatively, if a kid is brought up to be proud of their name, they'll defend it or most times, think nothing of it (save it being totally outta place in their local area).
It depends on how you raise your kid and how you explain things to help shape their perception on themselves.

So yeah as Vexx said, not knowing your location or in my case surname doesn't help.
Makes me wonder why you're not consulting your family and friends rather than a bunch of peeps on the internet from all corners of the world
Also if you are really concerned about what others will think in your area, then write the name on a piece of paper and let your local shopclerks, till attendents or random others you encounter try to read it and hear their opinions.

"Just a favour, could you try to read this name and tell me how it sounds to you"
And sure enough if you give a much more elegant reason as to why you're considering it as your childs name (if your bump is showing now), people will beleive anything xD

Remember, your average joe isn't clued up on a tiny part of Japanese subculture known as 'anime'

[Tempester]

@lizzy_55:

Personally, I lean towards Nagisa as a given name. We need more diversity in names. But I also think that the middle name idea is awesome and should be a definite choice if you decide not to go for the first name. Just don't Westernize the name, please...

Also, maybe just it's my bias speaking here, but Nagisa isn't a terribly hard name to pronounce. There may be some who mispronounce it initially, but it shouldn't be a big issue. It's not like 'Yorie' or anything. There are some names out there that are much more incomprehensible than any Japanese name. Take this name 'Na-sha'. Most people would think you just pronounce it 'Nasha', but it's supposed to be pronounced 'Nadasha'. ('-' being pronounce like 'dash')

Originally Posted by Mystique

How is that anymore cosmetic than naming a kid after yourself or your parents? (which seems to be the tradition for middle names in the UK I noticed)

I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who doesn't like the thought of "X Jr" names. The hypothetical idea of me having the same given name as my father is traumatizing.

[Haladflire65]

I think an exotic-sounding name would be fine (I knew a white girl from northern Europe named Akira; I myself am Korean and don't have an English name so I always have to tell people my name multiple times). The only thing I think I have a problem with is the reason behind the name. As much as I can understand that you're a huge anime fan and love Nagisa very much, I just wonder how it would feel to be named after an anime character... many Westerners think of anime as "just cartoons" and assume it's only for kids, etc. It's probably going to come out some day (I don't think you can always just get away with saying that it means 'shore' or 'beach'), and when even I get people making fun of my name when it's just a normal Korean name... imagine what could go down when people find out Nagisa is from an anime... (a simple Google search tells you exactly who she is)

And another question; are you going to stay an anime fan for the rest of your life? Can this possibly be something you're going to regret later on? I don't have that much against you naming your child Nagisa but I'd advise you to think hard about it before making a decision (I would also say the middle name would be a good route to take)

[Vexx]

The thing is Nagisa is a standard Japanese given name (and sometimes a surname). You don't even have to bring up a fictional character who happened to have that name. I named my two sons after two conquerors in history and their middle names were given japanese names from the family history (wife's dad and an uncle).

All you have to say is that the name is simply one you liked very much.

• Nagisa Arakaki (渚; born 1980), Japanese professional baseball player
• Nagisa Katahira (なぎさ; born 1959), Japanese television actress
• Nagisa Oshima (渚; born 1932), Japanese film director
• Nagisa (harpist), a Persian harpist from the 7th Century

[Fahd]

Just a few points I wanted to make:

1) Having a 'foreign' name has the advantage that it's likely to be unique amongst the people the child will know. It also provides a talking point (e.g. I get to explain this for my name). The only disadvantage for this is if the child is someone who wants to blend in with the crowd (i.e. not standing out) and avoid having to answer questions about themselves (see DonQuigleone's earlier post). There's no way to know the child's personality before you give them the name.

2) Mispronunciation has never really been an issue for me, as people who do want to talk to me make the effort to pronounce it correctly, and I've never really cared too much about random people making pronunciation mistakes as I won't be spending lengthy amounts of time talking to them, vs. say, my friends.

3) The child will have to spell out their name when someone needs to type it/write it down, but that's something that becomes a reflex action (e.g. "My first name is Nagisa, spelt N A G I S A").

4) If your child (in much later life) happens to come across an employer than won't employ them because of their name/skin colour disconnect, I think that's actually a good thing because they probably wouldn't be happy working at such a place. A job interview is always a two way process - you get to evaluate the company just as much as they get to evaluate you.

So... I suppose you could consider this a post from someone with a 'non-western' name who hasn't been bothered by it . The one thing I would say is don't give your child a common name which is spelt in a really odd way, because that's just being obtuse. Everyone will presume to spell their name the 'standard' way without asking how it's spelt (or before the child gets a chance to explain). Either give them a unique'ish name or don't .

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

It's a hell of a lot better then a pair of twin's named Benson and Hedges.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Fahd

Just a few I wanted to make:
....

4) If your child (in much later life) happens to come across an employer than won't employ them because of their name/skin colour disconnect, I think that's actually a good thing because they probably wouldn't be happy working at such a place. A job interview is always a two way process - you get to evaluate the company just as much as they get to evaluate you.
.

Its actually illegal in the US for that to be any part of the process (and I'm a bit interested that it might be a problem in Germany based on Jinto's post).

Good points all though. I have a very easy name to hear/spell that is constantly mangled and a last name that gets routinely mangled when it SHOULD be pathetically simple so I automatically spell it out AND pronounce it. So again, don't worry about the idiots

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Fahd

4) If your child (in much later life) happens to come across an employer than won't employ them because of their name/skin colour disconnect, I think that's actually a good thing because they probably wouldn't be happy working at such a place. A job interview is always a two way process - you get to evaluate the company just as much as they get to evaluate you.

For most (bigger) companies it is the HR department that goes through all the job applications and does a pre-filtering based on to some part "esoteric" filtering criterias.
Having an exotic name when you clearly are of a different ethnicity sometimes falls into these exotic filter criteria (e.g. in Germany you'ld be literaly disadvantaged with first names like: Chantal, Kevin, Jacqueline, Angelina, Justin... typically persons with german roots who are named like that are associated with deadbeat families).

And before you get to a job interview you have to survive the first round of being selected for an interview.

But thats beside the point.. What I actually like to contest is one's ability to evaluate your possible working environment in a job interview. In a huge company chances are that you will interact very sporadically with those HR people once you are hired.
So, the hiring process and the actual working environment can be very different things.

One also has to consider another aspect. Depending on the situation in the job market, job seeking people might not be in a position to be picky when it comes to the employment conditions. So, the two way process certainly applies for people who have the luxury of falling into a category of employees for whom there is a high demand in the job market.

@Vexx,

They don't have to tell you why they did not take you/declined your job application. The laws against such discrimination exist in Germany too, but as a would be employee you have to prove that you dropped out of the application process because of some sort of discrimination. This is next to impossible.

[Flying Dagger]

I am going to go against the flow and say no.

More like, think really hard about it.
How will you feel if you have hmmm... Huk as your middle name because your father was really into comics. It might sound cool for the 1st 20 years of your life, but as you grow up you might go :/.

Granted Nagisa is not as bad as "Huk" some day you may regret it.


I am fine with the basis of having a japanese first name, but there are a lot of suitable ones out there. A lot of well educated people acquire a chinese name when they work in east asia.

Plan B would be to give her a proper name and use Nagisa as a nickname.

Bottom line: is it REALLY a name you want to use? The existence of this thread seem to demonstrate insecurities.

[Tri-ring]

What comes around goes around I say.
I really do not have an opinion just like to point out the fact that fads of names changes all the time all over the world I bet you'll get a good laugh finding out the most popular names that were used 100 years ago.

Here in Japan names like 麻里, 譲, 瑠佳(Mari, Joe, Ruka) were not heard of until Christianity came in around the 16th century and now although still rare they are not completely unheard of.
Here are the top ten baby names for this year according to a survey taken last month;
Boys;
「蓮（Ren）」、「悠真（Yuma）」「大翔（Hiroto）」「翔太（Shouta）」「颯太（Sot a）」「悠人（Yuto）」「蒼空（Sora）」「翔（Sho）」「悠斗（Yuto）」「大和（Yamat o）」
Girls;
「結愛（Yua）」「結菜（Yuna）」「葵（Aoi）」「陽菜（Hina）」「結衣（Yui）」「咲希（ Saki）」「さくら（Sakura）」「愛菜（Mana）」「凜（Rin）」「莉子（Riko）」

To my knowledge, all these were almost completely not heard of as given names 15~20 years ago so we don't know what names are going to be common 15 years from now nor would we know how people will react to names 10~15 years down the road.

If the parents are satisfied and if they can be proud of it does it really matter what label they are going to stick on to their child?

One thing for sure, it would be a damn dull place if everyone was named Paul, David, Joseph, Chris and other names that came out of the bible.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

「陽菜（Hina）」「さくら（Sakura）」

These two were almost completely not heard of as given names 15~20 years ago? That's very...... interesting.

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

These two were almost completely not heard of as given names 15~20 years ago? That's very...... interesting.

Sakura has a sad undertone to where it gives the image where it will wither in an instant, not something you want a child to be seen as, although I do recall a girl's name of Sakurako but again I think it was rare. As for Hina again I recall girls named Hinako but Hina? Not that I recall of. Although the kanji are different hina means chick so I guess it's the same.
In Meji era there were given names like Kuma(熊) and/or Tora(虎) [bear and tiger] to girls which were to wish for longevity for their child. Lost it's style along the way but I think you know what I mean.