If boys can be Bentley and girls can be Kia, why not this Romanian automotive appellation?
Thanks to Elta for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day: Dacia.
Should you ever go car-shopping in Bucharest, you could easily buy a Dacia. The Dacia Logan is among the more popular cars in Eastern and Central Europe; some aficionados even race them. Dacia is owned by French auto giant Renault – Renault actually helped kickstart the company in the 1960s and some early Dacias are just Renaults in different clothing.
But assuming you’ll be driving your newborn home from the hospital in the US, Dacia is likely to strike others as an intriguing rarity. Pronounce it DAY shah – perhaps the most intuitive choice – and the sound is somewhere between Arabic imports like Ayesha and nouveau coinages like Shayla.
In Romanian, the name sounds more like dah CHA. But that doesn’t seem quite right in American English.
Three syllable options includes dah SEE uh and day SEE uh. I’ll admit that I like that last one, if only because it leads to the appealing short form Dacy. Of course, Dacy either sounds like Macy and Stacey or maybe Daisy – in which case, you have spelling issues.
But let’s assume you can choose an agreed-upon pronunciation and you’re not troubled by the need to coach others. Before Dacia was a car, she was a kingdom.
Modern-day Romania and Moldova were, in Ancient Rome, referred to as Dacia. The boundaries shifted over time, but think of the area from the Black Sea, past the Danube, past the Carpathian Mountains and into the plains beyond. Herodotus mentioned the Dacians as far back as the 400s BC. The Emperor Trajan formally annexed Dacia as a Roman province in 106. It lasted into the 270s.
Several sources suggest that the Dacians take their name from a wolf god, and we do know that their armies used a wolf-headed creature on their standards. It’s a stretch to say that Dacia means wolf-like, but if you’re looking a thoroughly feminine choice that links to the four-footed creature, Dacia is more subtle than Lupe – and has none of Lupe’s Christian associations.
A handful of medieval references put Dacia far farther north. The Vatican used to refer to Scandinavia as Dacia. Medieval Denmark was sometimes called Dania in formal Latin – another possible given name option, I suppose – but I can’t explain Dacia. In any case, it didn’t stick.
Today Dacia can be found on the road, preserved in a few street names and a handful of Romanian villages and yes, as a given name. Plenty of Dacias surface in the US Census records.
Her sound is appealing, and she could offer a quiet way to honor Romanian roots, especially if you’re a generation or two removed and choices like Nadia just seem too obvious.
She’s also a great choice for parents who love the -ia ending. She’d fit right in with Sophia, Julia, Olivia, Amelia, Maria, Lydia, and Lucia.
Yugo, however, is still not an option.
The dah CHA pronunciation fits well with Katya and might appeal to those who like Katya but find the Kate related names overused.
That’s a nice point, C. I love Katya. And Anya, actually – Clio could’ve been Anya, if we’d decided we wanted to choose another name. And of course Sasha is so current. Maybe the more Slavic sound is an appealing option …
My hubby is Romanian and a car freak, so needless to say this name has always been a favorite of his 🙂 He prefers Daciana, though, and it’s on our short list should we ever have a little girl.
I thought summer cottage, too, but nope.
Daciana is appealing.
And I’ve heard about the Renault Clio! Oh well. Back to what I said about Kia and Bentley. Arthur always veto’d Avalon because it is the name of a Toyota …
Are there not Renault Clios in America?!
They’re popular over here and so they are most people’s first thought when they hear my name; my mum hates it because people always ask here whether I was named after the car, even though I’m spelt differently. Someone even asked me if I was called Cleo because I was concieved in a Renault Clio, ewwww, rest assured I wasn’t!
I like ‘Day-sha’, it’ sweet. I think there is a character called that on a BBC soap called Holby City.
Nope – I’ve never come across a Renault Clio in the US. In fact, I can’t recall seeing any Renaults here in recent years. I am fairly certain they haven’t been sold in the US since the 80s, a few years before the Clio was introduced. So unless we move to Europe, our Clio will never be asked that VERY inappropriate question. For shame!
I was guessing at all kinds of pronunciations… I thought DAH sha or DAH cha before reading further – the whole ‘pick your way to say it’ issue is something I don’t love. Also, dachas are summer hut/cottage thingies to me. Daciana appealed at first, but I realized it sounds a lot like Tatiana, which I prefer. I don’t have any problems with the name for someone else – just don’t be offended if I guess the wrong pronunciation at first!
Not a fan—it looks like a creative spelling. It also reminds me of a co-worker I have named Dayjah. Her parents named her after the phrase “Deja Vu”, and I think maybe a song too? If her parents weren’t hippies, she’s making up for it!
Sebastiane’s suggestion of Daciana is lovely, though. Funny how a few letters can change a name’s perception so much.
The history is and associations are intriguing, so I want to like the name….but just can’t get on board.
How fun that there is a car named Clio! When I was naming my daughter, I almost changed my mind because when I googled her name, I discovered there is a van in Europe called the Opel Zafira. I loved the name too much, and couldn’t find another that I wanted to use, so we stuck with it.
I read it as day SEE uh. It’s another name that looks made up, even if it isn’t. Just not familiar enough to appeal to me, but I could see it as a nice choice for someone else.
Hmmm, not a fan. I find all pronunciations awkward and it does read “car” to me. Also, I couldn’t get the opening lines of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer out of my head while reading this (“You know Dasher, and Dancer, and Prancer, and Vixen. ..”).
UHG! Hit me right in the gut there. My name is Dacia (living in Texas, USA) and I do pronounce it the least common way…Day SEE uh. You certainly are entitled to your opinion, but I assure you I’m not a reindeer. 🙂 lol
I read it as DAH-sha, which gets me thinking about classical literature and didn’t people have dachas, that is, carriages to ride around in? I don’t much care for it but I can see it fitting right in with the current African-American naming scheme.
in Russia or Ukraine I thought a dacha was a summer home.
that reminds me, when we were living in Mexico we very nearly bought a Renault Clio, a very cute but apparently not that reliable little car!
I much prefer the more popular Romanian Daciana. Dacia is just a place name to me, though I suppose, I could see the appeal.