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Mar. 22nd, 2019 01:03 pmI'm trying to source the name origins for Nino Lahiffe in vague hope of identifying his ethnic background. Behind The Name says "Nino" is short for Italian names such as Antonino and Giannino, except when it's a feminine Georgian name. I'd thought it was Spanish—I mean, "Colleen" is Anglicized Irish for "girl"†—but it turns out the word I'm thinking of is "niño" and, aside from how that is not (at least in the English dub) how it's pronounced, Behind The Name doesn't admit that's a name at all. DuckDuckGo, meanwhile, sent me to Wiktionary, which thinks "Níno" is a Serbo-Croatian diminutive of Nikolas, no option for Italian and nothing else on the Nino page. (Which isn't where "Níno" should be in the first place.) Wiktionary also calls "Niño" a Cebuano given name (nothing else on the page), which, okay, I can't rule that out of Nino's family tree? But that's an ethnic minority in the Philippines, a former Spanish conquest where people mostly don't speak French, and somehow it sounds more plausible that Nino is actually, you know, Spanish! (Also I'm astonished Wiktionary didn't simply redirect me to El Niño!)
Meanwhile Behind The Name Surnames says "Lahiffe" is Irish, but it's a user-submitted name; veracity therefore potentially dubious. DuckDuckGo points me at the Wiki page for one Robert Lahiffe, a dead Irish politician, so I'll buy it's an Irish name—but it must be a pretty rare one? Robert is the fifth result. Second is names dot org, which thinks "Lahiffe" is a given name; fourth is ancestry dot com. And with the possible exception of Pooh's Adventures Wiki—I don't know the actual purpose of this site but the preview text here is definitely to do with the ML character—the rest of the top ten are about the Miraculous Ladybug character!
Gaaaaack.
† One (or two?) of Mom's petty annoyances is she and Dad had picked out two girl names before I was born, Dad chose which at the hospital, and oldest sister got the other one later. Oldest sister is brunette, I am redheaded, and her name is distinctly Irish and what my parents gave me is distinctly not; this is a betrayal of all our Irish ancestors, or something. This also wouldn't have come up if Mom's oldest brother's middle child, who is a few months older than I am, had been (or, you know, appeared to be) a boy. My uncle and aunt sniped the name "Colleen" for that cousin, you see.
Meanwhile Behind The Name Surnames says "Lahiffe" is Irish, but it's a user-submitted name; veracity therefore potentially dubious. DuckDuckGo points me at the Wiki page for one Robert Lahiffe, a dead Irish politician, so I'll buy it's an Irish name—but it must be a pretty rare one? Robert is the fifth result. Second is names dot org, which thinks "Lahiffe" is a given name; fourth is ancestry dot com. And with the possible exception of Pooh's Adventures Wiki—I don't know the actual purpose of this site but the preview text here is definitely to do with the ML character—the rest of the top ten are about the Miraculous Ladybug character!
Gaaaaack.
† One (or two?) of Mom's petty annoyances is she and Dad had picked out two girl names before I was born, Dad chose which at the hospital, and oldest sister got the other one later. Oldest sister is brunette, I am redheaded, and her name is distinctly Irish and what my parents gave me is distinctly not; this is a betrayal of all our Irish ancestors, or something. This also wouldn't have come up if Mom's oldest brother's middle child, who is a few months older than I am, had been (or, you know, appeared to be) a boy. My uncle and aunt sniped the name "Colleen" for that cousin, you see.