4 ms·

Same phenomenon in Spain, where there are jokes about meme-ish concoctions (which probably never existed) such as “Kevin Costner de Jesús”.

tsimionescu 4y ago
I would bet such names have existed - I personally know (in Romania) someone named "Brusli Stanescu" (Brusli being a phonetic transcription of "Bruce Lee", Stanescu a common last name), and someone named "Ohara Scarlat" (which in traditional Romanian LastName FirstName introductions would have been Scarlat Ohara - based on "Scarlett O'Hara" in case that's not obvious).
- paganel 4y ago
  I'd say today's Romanian for what the French have with Kevin is Mario. In our (Romania's) case is also the fact that this is a "racial" issue, on top of the classist one. Before the whole GDPR thing came into effect and results became anonymised I was working on doing a "distribution" of kids' first names based on their "Evaluare Nationala" results, to see if there was any correlation between "good" schools and some first names and "bad" schools and some other first names.
- alehlopeh 4y ago
  In Cuba some people have the name Usnavi, which apparently comes from mispronouncing US Navy. It’s not used as a derogatory term but it doesn’t exactly scream “upper class” either, at least among Cuban Americans in Miami.
  - harperlee 4y ago
    It’s a silly thing but there’s a cuban musician called Yotuel, and each time I hear it I can’t help remember the verb conjugation tables (yo-tú-el means I-you-he/she) and secretly hope that’s the origin haha.
schroeding 4y ago
In Germany there's similarly "Matt Eagle", which is quite meme-ish as it phonetically sounds like "Mettigel", a dish from the 60s/70s with minced raw pork and onions in the form of a hedgehog[1]. [1] https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mettigel_1.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mettigel_1.jpg
- Nursie 4y ago
  That’s kinda horrifying!

tsimionescu 4y ago

I would bet such names have existed - I personally know (in Romania) someone named "Brusli Stanescu" (Brusli being a phonetic transcription of "Bruce Lee", Stanescu a common last name), and someone named "Ohara Scarlat" (which in traditional Romanian LastName FirstName introductions would have been Scarlat Ohara - based on "Scarlett O'Hara" in case that's not obvious).

paganel 4y ago
I'd say today's Romanian for what the French have with Kevin is Mario. In our (Romania's) case is also the fact that this is a "racial" issue, on top of the classist one. Before the whole GDPR thing came into effect and results became anonymised I was working on doing a "distribution" of kids' first names based on their "Evaluare Nationala" results, to see if there was any correlation between "good" schools and some first names and "bad" schools and some other first names.
alehlopeh 4y ago
In Cuba some people have the name Usnavi, which apparently comes from mispronouncing US Navy. It’s not used as a derogatory term but it doesn’t exactly scream “upper class” either, at least among Cuban Americans in Miami.
- harperlee 4y ago
  It’s a silly thing but there’s a cuban musician called Yotuel, and each time I hear it I can’t help remember the verb conjugation tables (yo-tú-el means I-you-he/she) and secretly hope that’s the origin haha.

schroeding 4y ago

In Germany there's similarly "Matt Eagle", which is quite meme-ish as it phonetically sounds like "Mettigel", a dish from the 60s/70s with minced raw pork and onions in the form of a hedgehog[1]. [1] https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mettigel_1.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mettigel_1.jpg

Nursie 4y ago
That’s kinda horrifying!