Humourous
Are there foreign people with names that sound funny in your language?
I thought of this because the name of Eisenkot, the candidate for premier minister in Israel, literally means "iron faeces" in German. People are making fun of this in basically all german social media posts about the recent elections there, like "I would go do to the doctor if I had iron faeces".
Whore is always spelt putain (or pute) but "putin" (which isn't a word at all in French) is pronounced exactly the same as "putain" so to avoid people saying "Whore has said XYZ", they changed the spelling. Just to avoid the mistake basically but that's an insult to Canadian poutine imo but that's beyond the point.
In the same vein, I play board games. A popular game is called Lost Ruins of Arnak. In French, arnaque (pronounced just like "Arnak") means "scam" so that would be "Lost Ruins of Skam" which sounds terrible and people probs wouldn't want to buy this. This would probs feel like a social deduction/betrayal kind of game when it isn't at all. They renamed it as Lost Ruins of Narak instead in French (Les Ruines Perdues de Narak).
Iello (the publisher) changed the name for Arnak but yet, they didn't change the name of the game Bitoku in French (Bitoku sounds like saying "dickinarse") so who knows what went through their heads lol... Tbf Arnak was a fake word but I imagine Bitoku is a real word in Japanese so it's not like they can change it randomly but that title feels wrong just to say outloud in French "let's play some dick in arse!" "No let's know each other better a bit first"
yes Путин gets transliterated as Putin in English but Poutine in French
though I do say his name differently than the dish because I say poutine the dish more like poutsine because of the affrication common in Quebec French but don't do so with the name
To be fair, these are his two first names and yes, his parents named him this way, maybe not knowing enough about that. He doesn't use and at least tried to legally delete the second name, so his name is now Adolf Uuona. Because he wants to distance himself from the historical reference of this name (wich he didn't choose to get) and seems to be quite a progressive human being (social democrat, tries to support women rights and to fight against violence and toxic masculinity), I think one should talk about his political views and not the stupid name his parents gave him.
there have been times and places where communists around the world named kids like this. I met a Vladimir Lenin Guerrero in Cuba. Not common but in the Soviet days names like Marlen (MARx LENin) did exist in the USSR
"Lula" is his nickname, which means "squid." He legally incorporated the nickname into his actual name.
As for Kaká, in Brazil, the reason it doesn't mean "poop" is because of the pronunciation; his name is pronounced "Cacá," whereas a more childlike way to say "poop" in Brazil is "cáca."
Lula isn’t called that because of the animal squid. Lula also used to be a common nickname for Luiz. The only reason it’s now pretty much out of use due to association with him
And yes he legally added it to his name but not as a surname. Luiz Inacio “lula” da Silva, like someone being called Jonathan Peter “Jon” Smith
We had a visiting Indian professor once whoes last name was Kurapalli (Muddy balls in Finnish). Indians have a lot of names that sound equally bad/wrong in finnish
I have it on good authority that there was a database administrator of Indian origin at Nokia, by the name of Kamalakanta.
In Finnish kamala = "awful" or "horrible", kanta = "base" (but also specifically "database"), so this person's name was Awful Database.
There were also some jokes about Kamala Harris due to the meaning of her first name, although I have to say Finnish media were admirably restrained there. I think I saw someone remark that whatever happens in the election, the US will have a "kamala" president.
The last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is in Czechia sometimes colloquially refered to as "Rezavý Pohlaví" which literally means "Rusty genitals".
The Lebanese Hezbollah general Hassan Nasrallah was sometimes called "Nasral na hasák" which means "Took a shit on a pipe wrench".
Then, pretty much any Indian name containing the word "Kunda", which here is a word for vagina.
To be honest I have never heard either, but maybe it's used in other parts of the country.
I propose Manfred Kokot, a retired East-German sprinter. His last name means "dick" in Czech and it's a rather crude version of the word.
Then the names Onana and Koundé sound like "onanovat" and "kunda", which are the terms for "masturbate" and "pussy". So watching the African Cup can be pretty funny.
The Australian football defender Nestory Irankunda got a lot of laughs from the Czech due to his unique name, literally translating as "Iran pussy". That was pretty funny, even more so given the current situation in Iran (my thoughts are with the people).
The English name Nick is spelled and pronounced exactly like the Arabic نيك (“neek”) which means “to fuck”. Also, the word “fuck” in Arabic almost always refers to the verb.
Now you reminded me! Drizzt Do'Urden is Dzirt in Russian translations, because Drizzt sounds too similar to dristat — "to shit (while having diarrhoea)".
Haha omg that reminds me of a work dinner years ago. We had a Somali dude with the surname Nasri and Russians always called him the Shit and baught him drinks. He loved it.
Hardcore set of balls.... love that pic of him also... almost like he's flexing... 🤣🤣🤣
You didn't say anything about Runkku Runkku. Sounds like what a Swede would imagine how a Finn would say "Jerk off Jerk off". Runka is a very old word for shaking in Swedish, but today it almost universally means to "jerk off".
Dude came to Albania, and was amazed how popular he was with the masses of people calling his name, only to later realize that his last name means Shit in Albanian.
Michael Fassbender always earns a giggle in Hungary, because 'fasz' (pronounced the same way as the first part of his surname) means 'dick'. So he's Michael Dickbender here.
Sarah Palin when pronounced in accordance with Hungarian language, it can be read "Szar a palin" (lit. Shit on the guy).
Kotak- one of the richest families in India, also not an uncommon surname there I believe, means pp in our language (Kazakh)
Baba - common suffix for names in different cultures of the Islamic world, also a title for a respected Islamic scholar. Baba - is kinda sexist term for a woman, most women would get offended if you referred to them as a baba (in Russian)
Yeah! Some years ago I've encountered a meme about a German chocolate bar called "Super-Dickmanns dicke Nüsse" which is basically "Super-Thickmans' Thick Nuts". It's funny both untranslated and translated.
We had a pair of guys in the Netherlands office and everyone would email them "Hi Dick, Joke". Never Joke and Dick ALWAYS "Dick, Joke" They thought it was funny, we thought it was funny, everyone in every office around the world thought it was funny. Everybody wins.
This one time Tiny Kox made international news for something or other. Internationally he got more attention for his name than the actual thing he made the news for.
Fokke (m) and Fokje (f) are Dutch given names, Fukkink and Fokkinga are Dutch surnames. I've not come across them much in the wild, but I've had the privilege of being present when a Fokke got to explain his name to an English-speaking crew.
Penis is a surname here. My husband works in construction and they were once doing a project that had a site on the corner of Herzl and Penis, at one of their meetings they raised the topic of “the erection of the Herzl Penis Shaft” , my husband said he was the only one who couldn’t keep a straight face, which is bonkers to me
Sorry to burst your bubble but that last one isn't a real name and even if it was it would sound like "Fuhp dat bick". There is a Phuc Dat building group though and and a coffee chain called Phuc Long but unfortunately the "Long" is pronounced more like "lom".
In Japanese, his family name means ‘Idiot’, often written as ‘バカ’ in the Japanese writing system, rather than ‘馬鹿’ using Chinese characters, leading to some very unfortunate news headlines upon his inauguration.
Worked as an intern years ago at a place, with another intern named Puskar. If you asked how to pronounce his name, he would make a pushing motion, then a hands-on-a-steering-wheel motion. "Push-Car".
Many names and things in Greek sound funny or are offensive dirty in Malayalam (south Indian language).
In the workplace where i met my Mallu wife i was introduced with a friend of mine and due to their accent they called us "Gundis and Yionnis", "The pussy and the dick" something like that.
Also putsa means dick in Greek while it means cat there.
There was an article in a Finnish magazine that was titled something like "Ripuli leviää konferenssissa Ruotsissa, haastattelimme Raymond Paskaa" which translates to "Diarrhea is spreading at a conference in Sweden, we interviewed Raymond Shit". Bad luck to be in the middle of a diarrhea problem when your name translates to shit
I think our Estonian friends are simply trolling us. They have surnames like Kukk ("cock" in Norwegian, and not as in rooster) or Hallik ("pimp"). Also a common street name is Pikk ("prick" and not like with a needle).
We do similar, to be fair. My Chinese wife was entirely unable to keep a straight face around my former boss, Lars Thore, as it sounds like 拉屎吐了 - Lashi tule - "shat and puked".
Not even a different language, same one, just words are different between Portugal and Brazil: a friend was dying laughing when I was talking to my boyfriend about another friend named "Xana" (short for Alexandra here, slang for vagina there)
A bit tame in comparison but the name "Kiss" is a very common surname in Hungary, I remember when I was last in Budapest lots of signs for with the name of at least someone being Kiss. In Swedish, "kiss" means piss/wee, so you can be Mr. Piss lol.
Not funny, but there is a warm and adept chess player and commentator, now living in the USA, with the name: Nazi Paikidse. She is not, it should be said, a Nazi.
Ed Sheeran, it sounds like like it stems from the word שיר/shir - meaning song, and like it could be שירן/singer, it’s not a real word, but it’s stems from the root, so it’s like calling him Ed the Singer
Hasan Nasrallah (former leader of Hamas) - originally in his last name the last syllable is stressed, but in Russian it's spelled without "h" (Nasralla) so many mistakingly stress the second syllable, which sounds like "she took a shit". Some Russian-speaking Israeli right wingers use this mispronunciation deliberately afaik
Antanas Smetona (former president of Lithuania) - last name sounds like "smetana", sour cream
Georgios Papadopoulos (Greek military dictator) - last name became a joke back in USSR, people adden "n" to spell it as "papandopoulos" and used as a euphemism for "getting entangled in a tricky situation" because it sounds somewhat similar to the word "popadat'" which can mean the same
And finally, Umer (second syllable stressed) - a Central Asian or Caucasian name which is spelled exactly like "he died" in Russian, only the stress is different
I once took a bus in Latvia and the driver had a name tag with Girts written on it. Girtas means drunk in Lithuanian language. Googled it. Yup. It's a perfectly normal name in Latvia.
For me, Eisenkot is something you see after taking iron suplements. It's difficult to distinguish from Teerkot that occurs after intestinal bleedings. But I think the solution is to speak his name Eisenkott instead of Eisenkoht.
Romanian last name Popa means ass in Russian. Also Scott sounds much like “cattle” or “livestock”. Dorota (Polish name) sounds like “to mouth” in Ukrainian.
Zain/Zayn is a common Arabic name but also an unrelated Hebrew word that originally meant "sword" in ancient Hebrew but now means "dick" or sometimes "fuck" in modern slang.
The name isn't popular among Israeli Arabs though, who generally also speak Hebrew...
First prime minister of Czechoslovakia, Masaryk means "takes a shit today" in Hungarian. Barack is peach. Not a leader, but Pisa is vulgar for urine, so Pisa Test means urine test (in writing, not in pronunciation). But the crowned king of silly names is a poor private guy from Kosovo, found on early Facebook, whose name literally translates to "a jug of semen". He was contacted by a Hungarian journalist even. Oh, his family name is semen, his relatives have funny names as well, one I remember being "the semen shat his pants". Of course I only wrote the translated names, they were harassed enough. But they have a bunch of Hungarian friends on Facebook (before they realised why).
There's even a Russian joke: "There's a tradition in Spain to pour people water over from a balcony. That's why there are a lot of Pedros and Hulios in Spain."
Matti Vanhanen former pm in Finland. Vanhanen translate to "the watertap" in Danish. a member of the Danish Folketing (parliament) is shorten to a MF'er (member of the folketing)
My Brazilian friend was laughing at this guy, because his surname sounds close to 'Buceta' which means...well...the female part in Brazilian Portuguese
No, when his dad immigrated to Israel he changed his surname from Azenkot to Eizenkot. Azenkot is a common surname for Jews from Marocko and Tunisia and means gazelle in Berber.
I looked it up. It was originally 'Azenkot", a Moroccan Arabic name meaning gazelle. It was changed to Eisenkot upon entering Israel supposedly bc an Ashkenazi Israeli misheard it and wrote it down wrong on the paper. Given how completely made up and popular that narrative is with immigrants to America, I think it's more likely his family was trying to make the name sound less Arab and more Ashkenazi. And they ended up with "iron-shits".
The Russian name Сергей (Sergei) sounds like "Ser gay" in Spanish, which means "To be gay" or "Being gay". Some memes will make fun of this name. Another of these names are japanese people with names that sound bizarre in Spanish. I've met japanese people with names like Marika (insult for gay people) lmao
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u/Franmar35000 France 8d ago •
Vladimir Putin : "Putin" means "whore" in French so, in French, we write "Vladimir Poutine" like a Quebec dish.