[Opinions] Re: does it sound too Spanish ? advice please ..
in reply to a message by Lovely
I think you should use whatever name you like.
Her is an anecdote about people making assumptions about the name Esmeralda.
There is a little girl named Esmeralda H- obvious Bosnian last name. The special education specialist went to schedule an interpreter for the parents and requested a Spanish language interpreter. As the ESL department head I had to intervene. People judge and make assumptions. Personally I judge a little on last names because it is more often indicative but the child M. Lopez was so far removed from her Hispanic roots that she had NO connection at all to the Spanish langauge. Many students who don't speak Spanish but have that heritage will have excellent accents or excel in the language. This child did not.
Her is an anecdote about people making assumptions about the name Esmeralda.
There is a little girl named Esmeralda H- obvious Bosnian last name. The special education specialist went to schedule an interpreter for the parents and requested a Spanish language interpreter. As the ESL department head I had to intervene. People judge and make assumptions. Personally I judge a little on last names because it is more often indicative but the child M. Lopez was so far removed from her Hispanic roots that she had NO connection at all to the Spanish langauge. Many students who don't speak Spanish but have that heritage will have excellent accents or excel in the language. This child did not.
Replies
Funny you should say that. I knew a Bosnian girl called Esmeralda.
Certain celebrity, literature and soap opera names are quite common among Bosnian Muslims. Esmeralda was both after the book character and a Spanish telenovella character from the 1990s (currently Turkish soaps are all the rage here and names like Onur, Kerim, Melek, Boran, Sila, etc. crop up in BAs). Also names like Elvis, Indira, Šeherezada, etc. are common.