What’s In A Name?

A translation firm is offering prospective parents the chance to check their preferred baby-names don’t mean anything embarrassing in other languages. For nearly $2,000 the company, Today Translations, will carry out a translation “audit” of baby names, checking the meaning across 100 languages. “Celebrity couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes might have thought twice about naming their daughter Suri if they’d known that it means ‘pickpocket’ in Japanese, ‘turned sour’ in French, and ‘horse mackerels’ in Italian, suggest Today Translations,” reports Reuters. The service is available to anyone, but the firm says it expects interest from celebrity couples who are likely to give their children “unusual” monikers. “Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale may have known Zuma meant ‘peace’ in Arabic when choosing their son’s name, they may not have been aware it also translates as ‘Lord frowns in anger’ in the Aztec language of Nahuatl.”