Could it be an April Fool's Joke? Well trying to expand our possible list of names (the newspapers, movies, billboards etc., having failed us) I sent an email to a friend (Margreet van Zanten) in the Netherlands asking if she had any good ideas for names. We both like the Netherlands very much, and Saskia is a relatively known name in Holland (Rembrandt's wife), and also many Dutch names seem to work reasonably well in both English and German. Anyway, on April 1, 1999, Margreet wrote me back:What about (in random order): Ilja (could be a boy or girl in the NL), Anne (sounds better in Dutch then in English), Petra (girl's version of peter!)After convolving this list with both mine and Andrea's taste buds only Anouk remained. This stayed on the list with Mallika until the last minutes. I'm not quite sure how Anouk won out, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I undemocratically shouted out "It's an Anouk" (even if I wasn't a hundred percent sure) as she appeared, and while Andrea was in a state not well suited to arguing the relative merits of possible alternatives. Besides, we always thought of Anouk as better benefitting a rounder baby.
Wow this is hard!, all the names I like seem to be typical Dutch, of which I don't know how they sound pronounced in English, or I don't like the English version.
Well here are some more, Hylkia, Miranda, Esmeralda, Nicolet, Yasmina (or Jasmina) (this one is from Stephan), Tesla (you know, I actually like this name), mete (Turkish boys name but I can picture a girl with that name as well), Asuka (Japanese girls name, pronounced in such a way that the u is hardly heard (aska), Kim, Helen, Ylva, Anouk, Carla, Dagmar, Femke, Famke (in Frisian these two last names just are a kind of pet name for 'woman/girl', there is a Dutch movie star living in the USA with that name, she played I think in one of these Bond movies), Imme, Jessica, Juliette, Emma, Kari, Manon, Lotte, Marit, Melissa, Stella.
Editor's note: Feedback from friends revealed only two other known Anouks so far: 1.) Anouk Aimee - a French actress 2.) Anouk - a Dutch pop singer.