Naim's Name

Here's a new one:

"Don't you think it will be confusing for them when they get older when one has a Christian name and the other has a Muslim name?"

"Confusing, How?"

"Oh, I don't know. Just maybe Aaron will feel better about himself because he has a Christian name. Naim is going to get stopped in the airports. I mean, Naim Ferris sounds really Arab. People will think he's Arab until they see him."

"Well, as far as I know, he might choose to be Muslim when he grows up."

Jaw drops all around.

I actually didn't intentionally pick one Arab name and one Judeo-Christian name. It's just kind of how it happened. My sister doesn't even think the name Naim exists. She thinks he will grow up being called "Name Ferris." Its actually NAH-eem. D and I have Midwestern drawled it down to NAH-yim. My dad calls him Nymie, and he calls himself Ni-Ni. But Naim is a real name. We'll see how much he hates me for it as he grows up. Hopefully, he will like its uniqueness. If someone named Naim becomes famous in the next twenty years, it will instantly become ordinary (see Aidan and Liam--sheesh.) And it doesn't bother me that it is a derivative of Noam as in Chomsky. I rather like that. Hopefully, the country will eventually come to its senses and he will not have to worry about being racially/ethnically profiled because of his name. I can only wish.

He was actually named after Naim Suleymanoglu, the four time Olympian who defected from Bulgaria to Turkey and competed in weightlifting, winning multiple gold medals. He's 4'11" tall, known as the "Pocket Hercules" and is one of a few people to lift three times his body weight. D and I first decided to name our kid Naim 9 years ago while watching the Atlanta Olympics in '96. We were not and are not weightlifting fans, it was just one of those things that caught our attention when watching the Olympics. When our Naim showed up on the ultrasounds as the little underdog twin, stuck down under his brother who was taking up the majority of the upstairs apartment suite in my uterus, we decided the name stuck. Naim was named from the time I was probably ten or twelve weeks pregnant. (One thing good about having a high risk pg, is you get A LOT of high quality ultrasounds to get to know your kids with. Most women get one or two, I probably got ten or twelve.)

I like Naim's name. Everyone mispronounces it. We have to explain it and spell it all the time and we get funny looks occasionally. But it fits him. Or he fits it. He just seems like a Naim.

Comments

[Broomgirl]

I really enjoyed reading your blog.

[Emmie]

I love that name. I had 16 ultrasounds when I was pregnant, and have an album full of pictures. The boys look just like their last 2 or three profile shots - it's amazing. Before they came out, we even knew that they had full heads of hair. A friend recently said that she thought ultrasounds were kind of sad because it's so nice to be surprised and that it's like watching your kids on tv. Right. I replied that I much preferred to know they were alive and well for the moment. I lived for ultrasounds when I was hospitalized on bedrest.

[achromic]

Who knows? Maybe if there is still profiling of that kind going on here he will grow up with a deterimantion to stop it, or it may give him empathy with people of this ethincity and give him the motivation to be an advocate to help them. I'm a firm beliver that if you felt that strongly about it then it was most certianly met to be. And personally now that you told me two people who his name is associated with then he has some great people to look up to. (even if you don't agree with Noam's politcal beliefs he at least speaks his mind in a way that gets people to listen. And he writes in a manner that even someone of my skill can understand.)

[vanessa]

i love it. i especially love the meaning--"the contented one". what does Aaron mean?

[cluttergirl]

That's a nice name. I like it. Naim and Aaron. Sounds nice together. You could have named them Jimmy and Timmy for heaven's sakes!! (not to denigrate anyone reading who have Jimmys and Timmys). Thanks for writing how to say it though... I just didn't even think of it, I just liked how it was written. And no, I was never informed enough to know one was Christian and one Muslim. Aaron makes me think of Richard Scarry's Big Dictionary.. Aaron was the aligator who appeared throughout. :D As for spelling and pronunciation... everyone spells regular names in totally weird ways now, so no one knows how to actually pronounce anything. I think I'll go with Tom and Sue. (kidding) Thanks for his 'story"!!

[shannon]

Naim is a pretty name!

Nat's surname is neither of ours, but rather a third name entirely that we made up. As far as google knows, not another soul on the planet shares this as a last name.

Hopefully, Nat will appreciate her uniqueness (and the fact that we didn't saddle her with Nat Cate-Cole!).

[Jess]

Haha, I like the name Naim too. My friend's name is Naim and when he first told me his name, I thought, "How the heck do you pronounce it...? I thought it was pronounced like "name" at first, but then I figured, no way, so I Googled for the name and found out the correct pronunciation of it (also how I stumbled across your site).

It's not a common name (in the US) and I like the ring to it.

[Jozef and Gemma Daneels-Pardo]

hello we are a belgian spanish family we had our little boy in december 2004 and he is named naim as well but in flemish and spanish its the same pronounciacion and that was one of the reasons of choosing this name , when my wife was in the hospital giving birth the woman next was arab and she said that naimmeans paradise ,
But in spain there is allready a famous singer named naim thomas and he is allready 25 yrs old so thats not such a strange name yet