Stereotypical Names

I was listening to a podcast when I heard the name René Müller, and the fact he was from Luxembourg. I was, like, that name pretty much sums up Luxembourg, doesn't it?

I'd thought about stereotypical names before, like how László Kovács is just about as Hungarian as you can get, or how during the London 2012 Olympics some commentators had opined that Bradley Wiggins was such a British name.

Sometimes at work stereotypically Jamaican names would arise, like Pauline, Angella, Claude, and Erroll.

On my way home I was trying to run some more iterations of what a stereotypical name would be for where, like, "Oh yeah, s/he's definitely *blank*.

France - Didier Dupont
Germany - Andreas Pfeiffer
India - Ranjeeta Mote
Bangladesh - Nazrul Chowdhury
Vietnam - Khanh Nguyen
Korea - JinHwa Kim
Japan - Jun Takahashi

Then there are just first names or last names I can think of that would typify a place (or, at least, I'd immediately think this person was from that place or of that place.

Iran - Azadeh
Indonesia - Wariyanto
Wales - Ioan
Ireland - Fionnula
Netherlands - Jeroen
Ethiopia - Teklemariam

Then there are places that have such common names (John Smith, Mohammad Jaffar) that one can peg it down to a language, but not necessarily a place. Then there are some, like Khan, that I'd hazard a guess to say (Pakistan), but I might not necessarily 100% hit it.

I kind of wish I knew more than I do, though. But I guess I might know enough, some might say.

It never is.

Banned Names

Is your name now 'banned' in Saudi Arabia?: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-your-name-now-banned-in-saudi-arabia-9192298.html

Okay, so this isn't my first parade. I'd gone over articles that talked about Finland's moratorium on certain names (mostly ridiculous ones), but with Saudi Arabia it seems they're doing it more out of a sense of trying to be pious rather than being sensical. That doesn't surprise me anyway, since Saudi Arabia has always been piety central (though it doesn't always do it with the best results).

The reason this article had even come to my attention was one of my Armenian-American friends has a name which, by this list, would not be acceptable. It's always an interesting look at how the rest of the world regulates things.