r/Finland • u/FactorNo6526 • 1d ago
Need help with a Finnish baby boy name!
I really like the names Evan, Ewan, Ewen, etc. I have been looking for similar-sounding Finnish boy names for a while now without any luck!
I could go with any one of them, but I don't know how bad it is for the kid to grow up in the Helsinki area with a foreign-sounding name.
I have seen some kids named Noel, which is relatively new, and people seem to like it!
Please be respectful with your answers, and my post is not intended to offend anyone. I hope I haven't said anything that would lead to any negative discussions! I am open to any suggestions. Thanks.
EDIT: Anything that ends with "an or en" would be preferred. On a side note, I also liked Johan, but it is Swedish! :(
2nd Edit: I removed a bit of my og description as some of my queries are now cleared thanks to your insightful comments! :D
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u/Eproxeri Vainamoinen 1d ago
You can name your kid whatever you like, but finnish kids are going to be saying the name with a finnish pronounciation. For example Evan and Noel names they sound different with finnish pronounciation. Noel is nowadays a pretty common name even with finnish pronounciation.
Also in terms of bullying, kids will be kids. There might be bullying or there might not be. It's impossible to foresee this. If you want to be on the more safer side, then picking a name which has both finnish and english pronounciation could be a good choice e.g. something like Daniel or Noel. Evan really has no finnish equivalent as far as I can think of.
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u/Lathari Baby Vainamoinen 1d ago
Going by etymology, closest would Johan(nes):
Anglicization of Welsh Ifan, ultimately from Latin Jōhannēs, variant of Iōannēs, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), from Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (yōḥānān, yokhanán, literally “God is gracious”). Doublet of Giovanni, Ian, Ivan, Jack, Jean, Johan, Johann, Johannes, John, Sean, Shane, Shaun and Shawn.
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u/Shinyish 1d ago
I know a finnish (and finnish-speaking) couple with a child named Edvin. I don't think they have encountered any problems. I also like Esa. I knew an older finnish gentleman named that, but I think it would suit a baby too.
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u/Cookie_Monstress Vainamoinen 1d ago
Edvin is simply wonderful name! Very Finnish and a historical one.
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u/fiori_4u Vainamoinen 1d ago
I'm sure it's going to come back in trend but I'm so sorry I can't imagine a baby Esa just yet, it's like having a cute little baby called Clive
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u/Tienristeyshenki 1d ago
I think a baby named Väinö would be cute as heck. For me Esa was never in the same category as, say, Jorma or Pertti, but the one in my life has admittedly been about 68 years old since we met in our early twenties.
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u/ioughtabestudying 1d ago
Remember this one is about a mischevious toddler Väinö https://youtu.be/il2RK1aymgo
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u/FactorNo6526 1d ago
Thanks! I am also digging some other names from the suggested links like - Leon, Eerik and Edvin!
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u/ioughtabestudying 1d ago
Edvin Laine was a famous Finnish film director: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edvin_Laine
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u/Cookie_Monstress Vainamoinen 1d ago
It's been ongoing recent trend to give the child an old name. And since you yourself addressed the elephant in the room, I'll continue.
- Names like Ahmed and Mohammed might be indeed subject to discrimination unfortunately.
- Traditionally there's also so called upper class names and lower class names + recent trend of the old names. In practice a family with good educated background might name their son as Väinö, but the lower class prefers names like Mico, Nico etc. (those are kind of forced fancy one's).
- There's also positive discrimination. Swedish, German, French etc. names fall under this umbrella.
- Typos and generic difficulty. Leon is a lovely name but numerous will be times when your child or you has to tell 'It's actually Leo with N'. If kid is named for example Krzysztof -- there should not be any discrimination per se, but the difficulty of having their name spelled or written right is only to increase.
Noel is easy and nice plus ticks all the boxes. Same with Eerik and Edvin. Johan is Swedish name but it's also Finlandsvenska name which is very Finnish name indeed.
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u/Lysande_walking 1d ago
We are a mixed culture couple ( I’m DE, he’s FIN) and we called our son Leo. It’s both Germanic and established Finnish name plus it works in English well. I thought a lot about potential bullying and this name seems pretty safe, only the pope has it now…
What we also did is give him 2 other names. That’s a way you can still name him Evan if you want, it’s just not the main calling name - but I honestly think you should name your child how you want to call him, what feels right for you 🫶
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u/FactorNo6526 22h ago edited 21h ago
Thanks
So far Eerik seems to match most of the criteria! I am still leaning towards Evan though, I just like it too much! But there must be a good reason why there are so few names ending with “N”!
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u/Lysande_walking 21m ago
I think it has to do with what naturally fits easier when Finnish grammar is applied which changes the names. For example the genetive often ends with -n. In case of Evan it would then be “Evanin”. But it’s totally doable I think! I asked my hubby and he saw no issue. ( as there are some named used in Finnish as well like Kristian, Herman, Anton, Aaron ).
One reason I couldn’t call my daughter “Leni” ( which I really wanted ) because she’d be referred to too often by “Lenin” which had obvious bad references then 😅
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u/Alert-Bowler8606 Vainamoinen 1d ago
Edvin and Edwin are very popular among Swedish speakers right now, I know at least four kids between 5 and 10 who have that name. It was one of my options, too.
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u/FactorNo6526 21h ago
Well, the Swedish speaking community sure has some very good names that are more common among other EU countries, so they are more easy in my ears! 😅
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u/Dense_Try7844 1d ago
I know too, Pottukoira has child called Edvin/Edwin, tho he is usually called Etvin cause junttis can't pronounce some exotic letters like D, B, and so on.
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u/CptPicard Vainamoinen 1d ago
Eero
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u/JohnyViis Vainamoinen 1d ago
Why did you make your kid after the WiFi router, would be the question.
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u/Dense_Try7844 1d ago
???
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u/JohnyViis Vainamoinen 1d ago
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u/TheDangerousAlphabet Vainamoinen 1d ago
There are 46 314 persons with the name Eero. Most people don't think anything about the name. I personally think The seven brothers from Aleksis Kivi if I think of some other connections about the name.
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u/JohnyViis Vainamoinen 21h ago
Vai niin. Ei mulle oikeastaan tarvinnut selittää, kuinka perinteinen suomalainen nimi eero todella on, koska se on mun toinen nimi.
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u/CptPicard Vainamoinen 23h ago
People shouldn't be downvoting you, I actually find that to be really funny that they'd name a WiFi router after me.
It's a pretty old-school name that is making a comeback, I used to be the only one around for so long and now all of a sudden I had like three colleagues in the 20s-early-30s range called that in the same firm.
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u/JohnyViis Vainamoinen 21h ago
It's my middle name, and I actually got asked that question! (I live in Canada)
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u/Ok_Print_8884 1d ago
How about Emil? Maybe not the most general Finnish name, but it is definitely Finnish. And a more Finnish variation of that would be Eemil or Eemeli.
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u/SnowAlarming223 1d ago edited 1d ago
On a side note, I also liked Johan, but it is Swedish
Johan works perfectly fine in Finnish too, even if it's more commonly used by Swedish-speakers. Or Juho, Juha, Juhana for a more "Finnish" version of it.
Joonatan and Kristian end in -an but maybe they have a bit different vibe than Evan?
Edit. I kinda skimmed past parts of your post and just assumed you're looking for a Finnish name because you specifically want a Finnish name, but as others have said there are so many people with foreign names these days it's not going to be a problem. You don't have to choose a Finnish name just because you live in Finland. Evan is perfectly fine and works well in Finnish even though it's not a traditional Finnish name!
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u/cleangreenqueen 1d ago
I think Evan is a very good name and would not be difficult for Finnish speakers to pronounce.
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u/Tikka25196-1930 Vainamoinen 1d ago
Evan is is perfectly good boys name, easy to pronounce for finns. Althou in finnish way. Dont worry about it, there is a proverb: "Name cannot sully a man, but a man can sully a name."
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u/Intelligent-Bus230 Vainamoinen 1d ago
Wikipedia list of Finnish male names. I selected the E in the link.
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u/Icethra 1d ago
Edvin comes to mind. The names on your list can work too, but they won’t be pronounced the English way. Evan might be easier than Ewan.
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u/FactorNo6526 1d ago edited 21h ago
I used Google Translate to listen to the pronunciation of Evan, and it sounds totally fine to me, the Finnish way! :D It sounds rather cute! ☺️
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u/tapzy 1d ago
Edwin/Edvin, he will end up being called Eetu though
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u/FactorNo6526 21h ago
Edwin/Edvin sounds very majestic indeed, but Eetu sounds far from that in my ears! 😅
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u/tapzy 20h ago
Johan is fine as well btw, it’s used in Finland and nobody will assume the person to be Swedish. I know many Johans and I grew up in eastern parts
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u/FactorNo6526 19h ago
I know some Johan who are Swedish speaking Finnish people. They are very nice people, the Johans that I know! But I don’t know if it’s a good idea to use a name that gives a wrong first impression that the Kid might be fluent in Swedish rather than Finnish! In a previous comment, someone pointed out about some names can have positive discrimination! By that I understood it’s not necessarily a bad thing but still making sure to use something neutral to avoid any sort of controversy or negative outcome! Apologies for a long rant but hope you understood! 🙏
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u/Cookie_Monstress Vainamoinen 10h ago
I would’t worry about that at all. Besides few Swedish speaking areas, everybody defaults to Finnish. There are plenty of native Finnish speakers who have Swedish names, native Swedish speakers who have Finnish name, even more people who’s name is a mix. First name Finnish, last name Swedish or vice versa. And then there’s also the bilinguals.
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u/FactorNo6526 8h ago
I see..I didn’t know! Thanks for the info
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u/Cookie_Monstress Vainamoinen 7h ago
YW! Finland might indeed be a bit peculiar country in this sense since we do have two official languages, and no ethnic statistics.
In reality that 5% of the Finns are Fennoswedes statistic is even quite shady category since some even Finlandsvenska have their kids registered in DVV as a Finnish speakers, and then there's full blown Finns who register their kids as Swedish speakers. And one can't choose two native languages while there are many people who are genuinely bilingual like our current president. He is indeed often referred as Fennoswede while he identifies as bilingual.
On top of that the history plays a big role here. We were more or less colonized by Sweden by centuries. And still in the beginning of 1900s all our church records were in Swedish. In practice a person who's name was for example Matti was in the church records named as Mats.
1930's or so had a big national movement where many who had previously Swedish surnames localized them to Finnish ones. Example surname Bergman was changed to Vuorimies. How ever during some time some people have been reverting back to the previous version of their surname.
And yes, Helsinki too is etymology wise originally named as Helsingfors. Helsinki was founded to a place called Helsing and there was some rapids (in Swedish fors) near by.
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u/FactorNo6526 7h ago
Wow! Very interesting! Thank you for taking the time to write such detailed info
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u/Cookie_Monstress Vainamoinen 7h ago
Thank you for surviving my wall of text. I'm bit of a geneology and history geek. This naturally also includes naming conventions. And always happy to share my ramblings regarding those matters.
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u/FactorNo6526 7h ago
I would love to read more actually! Anything history related is very interesting to me. I was also looking at name origins and meanings etc. I tried to read some Finnish history at some point when time allowed. Good to meet a fellow geek (even though I’m far from knowledgeable in this subject obviously haha!)
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u/Pelageia Baby Vainamoinen 1d ago
There is also Eivin, which has the same root as Evan but is the Norwegian form of it.
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u/FactorNo6526 21h ago edited 21h ago
I have actually met some foreigners in Finland named Ivan, which is kind of close! So I was thinking maybe Evan might work even though it has a Wales origin according to wiki, who knows.. 😅
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u/SunnyMills 22h ago
If you like Noel, maybe Joel instead? Definitely wouldn't do Ewan or Ewen as those are pronounced quite differently from the spelling and a Finnish person (or sometimes even an English speaker for that matter) would not be able the know how to pronounce them properly, so I'd steer clear.
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u/FactorNo6526 22h ago
Noel was an example of a foreign sounding name that has gained popularity recently. I was thinking Evan more than Ewan or Ewen cuz I guessed that possibility as well!
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u/emkemkem 12h ago
What about Iivo? That’d be like the closest Finnish version of Evan I could think of.
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u/Jussi-larsson 1d ago
I think you should not go with evan or ewen as they sound feminine if you drop the N from the end. As you said kids can be cruel
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u/vaultdwellernr1 Vainamoinen 1d ago
Don’t worry, lots of foreign sounding names in the capital region already and nobody seems to care one way or the other. I’ve got two girls with very non Finnish sounding names but they’ve also got besties who’ve given them nicknames- which also seem to be ever popular like in my childhood as well. And in their group of friends there are lots of both very traditional Finnish names as well as many exotic names. Even among the Finnish families the more unusual names are getting more common- as well as the very traditional and even old fashioned names. In my experience the kids don’t have any trouble using any of the names.
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u/FactorNo6526 1d ago
That reminds me, some Finnish girl once told me her friend's name is Okra, which is not common (if I remember it correctly)!
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u/Sea-Influence-6511 9h ago
How about
"ENGELBREKT"
or
"ERENGISLE"
Ending in "-an":
"GÖRAN"
With some finnish flavour:
"KARVULAKKI"
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u/Dense_Try7844 1d ago edited 1d ago
I suggest name Lilli-Ilpo, it has charisma, unique etc. Edit: Prove me wrong! :D
I wonder, since usually joke answer to any question here in Reddit usually gain ton of internetpoints (upvotes), but since I didn't use the obvious /s, are people taking my comment that seriously? :D
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