Urgent!! She's 5 days old, please help.

Amen to that post about the world being a big place LifeofGru. My DCs went to school with children named Clothilde, Mikulas, Jaela, Adan, Graham, Salvador, Weronika, Maro, Wiktoria, Faustina, Fotios, Petroula, Igor, Aoife, Roisin, Ciara, Angharad..

Cara is Irish for friend too.

(It's been a long time since I saw a post like MiniMonty's here)

I like Cara, but everyone I know seems to be using that name or considering it at the moment

Really offended by minimonty's post. The name isn't new or trendy to me. I have a friend in her thirties with it. A beautiful Scottish name.

Eilidh is a perfectly ordinary name. It maybe doesn't work if you don't have Scottish heritage.

Cara is lovely, and quite unusual. It means 'face' in Spanish, with the association of beauty. I love it.

Eilidh is my most favourite girls name ever. I've loved it since I was 7.

I'm not having any more DC but I'm so utterly desperate to use that name!

I'm Scottish too so it's a perfectly normal name here.

Please please call her Eilidh.

Oh and for the record I am Scottish and DH is Irish and we live in New York at the moment. I have learned many new childrens' names since my DD started school here.
Borja, Tomas, Zeke, Matteo, Pablo, Skylar to name a few. It's a great big world out there. No one bats an eyelid at my childrens' Irish Gaelic names. It's part of their heritage.

mini I think your post is quite offensive to anyone Scottish or living in Scotland. Eilidh is not a ridiculous name. Many girls have this name in Scotland. My 5 year old can spell it as our neighbour's daughter is called Eilidh. Chemical formula..... Pfffft! Away and bile yer heid!

"It's the Scottish Eilidh so pronounced AY-LEE"

Bloody hell OP - have you forgotten that you are giving a name to a PERSON?
A name that they will live with for eighty odd years?
Eilidh is not a name for a person, it looks like a chemical formula and doesn't exactly role off the tongue...

Be cool when you do this, not fashionable or a little bit "make it up". Your child will go to school, then university, then into the wide old world - don't saddle her with a ridiculous name that MumsNet loves this week but which she will grow to hate (and then just change).

Give her a proper easy to spell and say over the phone name which won't become a burden or a source of bullying.

Don't name her for a fad or a lapse of judgement, be kind to her, she won't be in Scotland forever.

And look carefully into the history and etymology of the name you choose because although the entire cast and crew of this web site like the name Eilidh very few of them know that it means "bird" or "bright" (depending on whether you believe it's Gaelic or Greek in origin.

(I would never pronounce Elena any way other than Eh-LAY-na. I think to be Ellen-a it would have to have two Ls. Or two Ns.)

I love Eilidh -- it's a lovely name for a little girl and because it's Scottish doesn't sound like a little girl name when the baby grows up.

(Eilís is the name pronounced Ay-LEESH or Eye-LEESH, and it is Irish for Elizabeth)

Ok, point taken about the R in Elena not being used.

Elena reads ellen-a to me but tis pretty.

Eilidh if you really, really must choose tonight - but to be honest, I'd take the pressure off myself and make the decision not to choose until the New Year. It will be far worse to change it later than wait a bit. Loads of babies don't get named immediately.

Eilidh would be my pick. I guessed the pro councillor as well although I have never met one.

Elena and the varying pronounciations have always confused me.

iwaswatchingthat it really stuck with me too.

jrmumma
I watched that programme too. I really remember it. I must have been about 14 at the time it was on. Really sad story.

If Eilidh is eye-lish then i love it. Always loved that name after watching a programme about conjoined twins when i was young.

How about Noelle seeing as its Xmas?!

I'd have to guess at pronouncing Eilidh as I'm not familiar with Irish names beyond Niamh and Siobhan and would have guessed 'Ay-leesh' or 'Eye-leesh' so probably very wrong! But you'd tell me, then I'd get it right.

To me Eleanor is pronounced ELL EN OR or ELL IN OR at a push.

Cara

or

Lara

Oh good, I think I like Elena (as you pronounce it) best of that list. I think it's lovely, simple and bold but pretty and also a 'go anywhere' name, geographically and socially.

I don't see any of them as 'large person' names, so no idea about the connection with birth weight (which probably doesn't relate much to adult size anyway) but I know it's odd when you have an image in your head then things are different.

I have to say I'd find it an extremely odd spelling of Eleanor / Elinor and I don't believe many people would be confused in that way.

To me - English, 'standard' accent - E-lay-na is the obvious pronunciation though I'd believe you if you told me Ellen-a. (Helena to me would be the other way around, Helen-a but I'd happily accept Hel-ay-na).

Even in my 'often misses Rs off' accent, Eleanor has an R 'or' sound at the end.

Ruprekt there is no "r" I would pronounce Elena exactly the same as the OP, and I would pronounce Eilidh AY LAY

Go with your instinct op. Your pronunciation is spot on x

I have a 3yo Elena, pronounced the same way you said. There is another Elena in her nursery also pronounced that way. I've not had a problem with mispronunciation once people know how its pronounced. I think its a beautiful name, simple, strong, elegant. But I agree with other posters - tiny babies grow into their names. My DD and the other Elena look v different but both completely suit the name.

Elena pronounced Alayna is quite confusing imho.

I would have thought it was pronounced Ellenor.

How do you say the other name you like?