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Baya
I recently watched a film with a female character named Baya (Les Noms des Gens - good film!) and fell in love with it! I looked it up and apparently it means ugly or something like that in Swahili but it means more pleasant things in other languages. Its on the rise in France so I can see using it there, do you think it would work in the states? What about the name in general?It's pronounced like bye ah (at least in this movie it is)
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I used to know a horse with this name, so that's all I associate it with, although that was pronounced bay-a. I couldn't imagine it on a person. I dislike the sound of bye-ah and don't think it's very feminine at all.
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There was a girl on "The Real World" a few years back whose name was Baya (she pronounced it "BAY-uh") so I think it's definitely workable in the USI like it but prefer it said "BAY-uh"
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Sounds like the Spanish word vaya, so it makes me think of that. And then I think "Vaya con Dios." Other than that I think it has an interesting exotic feel to it. I think it wouldn't stick out too much in the US.
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You're right. I think that's why I prefer BAY-ah. Or maybe because I like Bay.
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Oh, I like the sound of BAY-a. That's kind of pretty. I prefer that to BYE-a.
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Is it pronounced BAY-a? If so I like it, but I like Bay better. I don't know about the meaning but even if it was a word in Swahili my guess is that it would be pronounced BAH-ya or something like that there.Yeah it works, but I prefer BAY-a-
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It was sort of like "bay-ah" but sort of "BYE-ah" too. Its a french political comedy, the character is the daughter of an algerian muslim immigrant so I dont know the meaning of the name for them. If you watch this clip, she says it around the 17 second mark. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYSKY7uxooM
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Ahhh ok. My mom is French and we go to France often. I haven't heard it there yet. But it is pretty. To me it sounds like BAH-ya only that it's said so quickly that it almost become BY-a. Her last name doesn't seem to be French. Now I wonder whether it's popular somewhere. Hmm. It could grow on me. Doesn't someone here have a daughter named Baya? I think so.

This message was edited 1/2/2012, 12:55 PM

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Her mother in the film is french but her father is Algerian. Yeah it's said so quickly that it was hard to describe lol but I'm really starting to like it.
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