Mixed Indian Baby Names

Note: I’m Indian-American and have two half-Hmong-American boys, Kai and Ajay, so I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this very niche issue, even making two top-10 lists of all the baby boy names we considered. Hope this helps someone!

I had two goals when naming my kids Kai and Ajay:

1. Easy to pronounce in all languages.
2. Meaningful in a native language.

Here are my favorite meanings of my boys’ names:

• Kai:
  • “Victory, triumphant” (凯/凱) [Mandarin]
  • “Lovable” [Swahili]
  • “Ocean” (海) [Japanese]
  • “Fire” [Scottish]
• Ajay:
  • “Unconquered, invincible” (अजय) [Sanskrit]

Here are the Indian-American baby boy names we considered:

Common Western-Sounding Names:

1. Ajay (AJ)
2. Jay
3. Krish (Chris)
4. Neil
5. Nikhil (Nick)
6. Om
7. Samir (Sam)
8. Shaan (Shawn)
9. Vikram (Vic)
10. Zayn

Unique Modern Indian Names:

1. Avi
2. Dev
3. Kal
4. Nitin
5. Raj
6. Sahil
7. Sai
8. Tej
9. Veer
10. Yash

(I usually write about important stuff like the World’s Biggest Problems.)