Mumsnet Talk

Hello, I hope you can help with our naming conundrum! My DH and I can’t agree the slightest bit on a girl’s name…

We have a really hard to spell and pronounce surname (beginning with an S), so we would like a name that is easy to spell and pronounce so the poor thing doesn’t spend its life spelling its name to people. I would also like to avoid names beginning with S where possible and also T and K as they are our initials, and also ideally an A as our DS (should we ever have one) name starts with A. (Just for the record it took us about a week to come up with a boy’s name we agreed on!) Neither of us like nicknames as real names so Effie, Millie etc are out.

If it was entirely down to me I would probably go for a name like Daphne, Francis, Maggie, May, Edith or Agnes – okay that one doesn’t work!

He seems only to suggest over popular top ten names – Eve, Evelyn, Eva, Evie. Ava etc but (a) they are very similar to multigenerational family names on my side (which is okay but seems a little self centred to name a child after your middle name) and (b) having grown up in the early 80s with a dreaded Kat… name I really don’t want make my daughter grow up where there will always be 5 of them in every class. I did try compromise on Vivienne but he wasn’t having any of it!

I thought we getting there with both liking slightly left field names like Uma, Rae or Mir (are these too left field?) or Scottish names Shona, Una… but we aren’t sure…

Any brilliant suggestions? I feel like we are missing something obvious…

PS – middle name will be a family name probably Eve/a or maybe Audrey, Elizabeth, Agnes or Claire.

What about

Eleanor
Mary/Mairi
Lillian
Caroline
Morven

Really like Shona by the way - simple and uncommon - but it does start wth an S.

Other short girls' names to consider: Adela, Ailsa, Anna, Aria, Calla, Cara, Carla, Celia, Clara, Cleo, Dora, Eden, Eliza, Elsa, Esme, Gaia, Greta, Gwen, Heidi, Honor, Iona, Ismay, Ivy, Jane, Luna, Lana, Lara, Lucy, Lyra, Pia, Nia, Nora, Rowan, Tessa, Zara, Zoe

Lisa
Louise/a
Heather
Morag
Laura

If he likes Ava, Evelyn so much, what about Ada or Adelaide?? I always think are similar!

I love Uma, really like Una too. Not keen on Rae, too like that fish and it's a bit unisex maybe? Mir is nce but will people think its nn for Miriam? Really dislike Shona but that's just a personal reaction.

Other suggestions...

Liza
Maeve
Diana
Maud
Juno
Calla
Nancy

Oh one more

Ursula

Might be a bit long though if your surname is hard.

Uma is great.

Aoife
Ailis
Ina
Audrey
Peggy
Etaoin