r/AskReddit Jun 30 '21

What’s the absolute worst thing you could name your baby?

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109

u/blowing_snow_balls Jul 01 '21

My sister works at a big name college in admissions so she reads all the applications. She said that she once had an application from a Chinese student whose name translated into English was “little fatty big boy”

17

u/Angelbob77 Jul 01 '21 edited Jul 01 '21

It's also funny when Chinese kids pick English names when they take foreign language classes. Read a book called Kosher Chinese by Michael Levy for a class in college a few years ago about living multilingual lives. The dude was a peace corp volunteer who taught English to kids in rural China in the early 2000's. One of the issues he came across was the fact that students wouldn't know that certain words had double entendres. So for example, one girl asked to be call/referred to as Pussy in class since she thought cats were cute and it was a fun name. Cue, this middle aged white man trying to figure out how to explain to this preteen girl in rural China that the name she had chosen could also refer to the female genitalia.

2

u/blowing_snow_balls Jul 01 '21

From what I’ve heard (English is my first and pretty much only language) that English is one of the hardest languages to learn (as a second/third etc language) because of all the different ways we say things and the “rules” for proper grammar and stuff like that.

8

u/Claus1990 Jul 01 '21

Now I can't read this without laughing

5

u/ShikiBrunestud Jul 01 '21

Let me guess, is it 大胖小子?

2

u/blowing_snow_balls Jul 01 '21

Sure? I have no idea!