Where to find foreign-language baby name books?

October 23, 2011 8:17 PM

Need recommendations for foreign-language baby name books.

I'm looking for books of baby names that aren't geared to an American/English-speaking audience (e.g., a baby name book written in French with French names published by a French company). I know that there's all kind of spillover between languages when it comes to names, but certainly there are less popular names in other languages that aren't listed in English baby name books. It's these names that I'm after. I've found a few books in Spanish on Amazon, but I'd like French, German, Swedish, Arabic, etc. Not really looking for websites, either. (And I'm not even trying to name a baby with these books...just name characters for a novel!)

posted by skilar to shopping (6 answers total)

Here's a Swedish one to get you started.
posted by marais at 8:26 PM on October 23, 2011

How about a lot of nations in one book?

I got an earlier edition of this as a reference book for similar reasons years back -- it's pretty comprehensive; it has all the nations you mentioned, plus various African countries' names, traditional Hawaiian names, Scottish names (broken out into "standard" Scottish AND traditional Scotch Gaelic), different Southeast Asian countries get their own chapters, there's a whole section on different North American Indian names, and they even have BASQUE names.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:14 PM on October 23, 2011

In Dutch, there's De mooiste namen voor je baby and Hoe zal ik je noemen? (which is the newer of the two). You can order both from bol.com; they ship to the U.S.
posted by neushoorn at 10:52 PM on October 23, 2011

And in Welsh
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Welsh-Names-Children-Enwau-Cymraeg/dp/0862436427
That's the bilingual edition so explanations would also be in English.
posted by sianifach at 12:40 AM on October 24, 2011

There are a few danish books, but as you're supposed to pick a name from the state aproved list anyway, most of those books simply take that list and add some etymological info. They're not that useful.

You can find the list with approved names here. No english interface as far as I can tell, but søg means search, pige means girl, dreng means boy and unisex means exactly what you think it means.
posted by Sourisnoire at 2:14 AM on October 24, 2011

French: La Bible des prénoms

We own a copy (can't even remember where we got it) when my wife was looking for "unique" baby name ideas. Definitely not Americanized.

Tip: Base your search around the word for "names" or "first names" in the language of your choice ("prénoms" for French)
posted by sprocket87 at 5:37 AM on October 24, 2011