Help convince me this name is nice please!

Us of course = 'use' not 'her'

It's late...

Us=her ,stupid iPad.

Melanie is my middle name,I've always liked it,of course you can us it if she's blue eyed!

I just wanted to say I went along with a name DP liked,and I thought was 'okay',I have regretted it every day since,I wish with all my heart I hadn't settled on a name I didn't love.

Anna and Chloe both fit all your criteria.

Catherine is a lovely name but do not call a child by a name you don't really like.

My husband is Italian and our main criteria for choosing names was that they would be pronounced roughly the same in both languages. I can't imagine us having a conversation where he pronounced their names one way and me in another.

I'd go for a French name that is also easy to pronounce in English if it was me. Especially as you don't seem to have much of a liking for it!

I wouldn't worry about Catherine being too popular - it really isn't! My DD is a Katherine / Kitty and she really is the only Kitty in her school. I'm told there is one other Katherine in the school (primary) but she is much older and in juniors (if she is still there). In fact I don't actually know any other children called Katherine at all - whereas we know loads of girls called Olivia, Isabella, Lilly, Ruby, Martha - all these names I know at least 3 examples of!

With my DD, we named her Katherine - it wasn't either my or my husband's first choice of name, but it was the only one we even remotely agreed on, so we kind of settled for it. We then played around with nicknames (Katherine just felt too grown up for a baby) and eventually settled on Kitty - but she had lots of names along the way. I now love it as a name, and even think I slightly prefer it to my DD1s name, who we had named before I even got pregnant.

As for the pronunciation issue, I wouldn't worry. I have friends whose children are half french. The English family pronounce the name the English way, and the French side the French. Talking to the mum, it doesn't cause any problems at all.

I think as a name, it is a 'grower' .

what about Catriona, pronounced Catrina?

My name is Catherine and I love my name! (thanks mam)

People tend to call me either Cat or Catherine.

Kitty/Katie is really cute for a baby! However it kind of irks me that people spell derivatives with a K when it should be with a C...

Katya is cool too!

Or does Stephanie fit the bill?

How about Trinny as a nn

It's a beautiful classic name. Perhaps Cate as a shortening for your English family.

My friend is married to a French man and they have Isabelle, which works for both English and French family.

and you will get fed up with people asking if you are a royalist naming her after prince williams wife.

Well unless DH is the first pregnant man, it is not really up to him and him alone what you call the baby. It should be a joint decision. If you have to ask strangers to help you like a name, you obviously do nto like it, so just veto it.
what area of Switzerland do you live in, the french part? because apart from the fact it is pronounced differently there is the accent issue. pronouncing something the french way with a British, italian, or german accent might make the name sound odd and unnatural in speech.

Also, if it bugs you now, just wait until you are a hormonal, sleep deprived mother three months in and it will annoy you a hell of a lot more then when you've been up all night and he is asleep beside you!

Why do you have to agree with a name you are not really pleased with, rather than your husband agreeing to a name HE is not really pleased with? Who's going to be going through labour here? .

I would insist on coming up with a name you both love if you can.

Nice things? Er it means trouble, sometimes mistranslated as pure - so pure trouble.

You could use Catrina or Catriona or even Caitlin for nn.

Ariane? (originally Ariadne)

The name Catherine is lovely BUT if you spell it like that your daughter will spend her life saying "no it's Catrine, not Catherine" or "it's spelt C.A....etc"

You are making a HUUUUUGE decision - it needs to be the right one for all of you, not just a half hearted attempt by you to go along with your husband's wishes.
What about Celine?
I agree with the previous poster who said you and your man need to make a new list.

If you're looking for a Greek-origin name, that's multi-lingual, how about Mélanie or Alexandra?

Why would you have to pronounce it the French way when speaking English?
My kids are bilingual and answer to both pronunciations of their names. They use the French version to introduce themselves when speaking French and the English version when speaking English. It's never been a problem. Same with my name, actually.

I would say, however, that Catherine is very dated here in France. I know many, many Catherines here, but all are aged 45-55! It was one of those extremely trendy names that peaked in the 1960s and very specifically "labels" its wearers as belonging to that generation (like Nathalie, Stéphanie, Christine...).
I don't know about Switzerland, but here in France (and I'm close to the Swiss border) it would certainly seem a strange choice of name for a baby in 2012...

There is no "russian" name Katya. There is a shortened/NN Katya or Katia from Ekaterina.

Catherine, whichever way you pronounce it is fab.

Well, if your DH got to veto Charlotte, I think it's time to exercise your veto for Catherine and go back to the drawing board. Agree with the two posts above. Though also as katykuns suggests, you could go with the compromise of Cat(he)rine as a middle name. But you need to come up with a first name you are both at peace with.

I think you need to have a talk with your DH. If you can't get excited about it and he won't hear of anything else then you should both back away from it. He can't expect to dictate on this matter and have you just go along despite your feelings. This is more of a relationship dynamics thing than a naming process. I agree with ZipZap's assessment and I don't like what he is doing.

How about
Leonie
Anouk
Theoni
Laura
Manon
Marguerite