A British company is offering translation services to help expectant parents to avoid embarrassment.

For a fee of £1,000 (about $1,700 US), Today Translations will research into at least 100 worldwide languages to ensure that parents' unusual baby name choices do not have unintended meanings in other languages.

Hollywood heartthrob Tom Cruise and actress wife Katie Holmes could have been spared their blushes if they had paid for a consultation before naming their daughter Suri, the London-based firm said.

They discovered the name means "pickpocket" in Japanese, "soured" in French and "horse mackerels" in Italian.

Singer Gwen Stefani named her child Zuma, which means "peace" in Arabic, but she was apparently unaware that to the Aztecs it meant "Lord frowns in anger." And English soccer star Wayne Rooney called his son Kai, which means "probably" in Finnish and "stop it" in the African language Yoruba.

Chief Executive Jurga Zilinskiene hopes a "name translation audit" will appeal to other celebrities considering exotic names for their offspring, but thinks it could also help ordinary parents who want a children's name that stands out on an increasingly small planet.

"It's so important to make sure what you call your child is the best possible name," she told the New York Times, adding that "a name today is no longer just a name but also now an online identity in a global village - something that parents have a responsibility to consider in today's online world.

"At the end of the day, it's something a person has to live with for the rest of their lives."

29 November 2009