When we had our firstborn, she said, “How about we name him Mark, but with a C?”
I smiled and nodded and then told her I’d take care of everything with the name registration and birth certificate. When my wife looked at the birth certificate a few days later, she was confused.
“Honey”, she said. “Why does this say Cark?”
In Italy the name Mirko, imported from Slavic neighbouring countries, is quite diffused but it’s not uncommon to ask «Do you spell it with a c or with a k?» because the k letter is not normally used in Italian spelling. To which the answer is often (joking) «Obviously with a k otherwise it would be a circus» due to the fact that Mirko and circo sound very similar in our language.
Being a slavic, from slavic neighbouring country, it’s really strange seeing you have name Mirko in Italy.
It was very popular in the 80s and 90s, indeed. With the new millennium it became slightly less “trendy” in favour of other “foreign-sounding” names. Trust me, Italians really like loans from foreign languages, even for peoples’ given names. This often create a comic contrast with very Italian family names e.g. “Jennifer Fumagalli” or “Thomas Bongiovanni” which sound a little kitsch but it’s also adorable.
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It was worth it. It must remain for the memory of the posterity.