Parents of an Amelie...

Surely Amelie is so similar in sound to Emily that using it to avoid Emily somewhat defeats the point ?
Either use Emily too, explaining that you have always intended to use it, or choose something else, using Emily as the middle name .
Also many people end up using their middle name as their day to day name, so if Emily is used as a middle name it could always be used as the main name later on, when it might be clearer whether or not it will be a problem.
Alos fairly common to have a name used for more than one family member. My cousin and her mother have the same name for instance.

I remember a colleague and his French wife named their dd Amelie about 10 years ago and were baffled when there were suddenly lots of English ones

Yes, but bear in mind that Amelie is so similar to Emily and Amelia.

Darcey is fairly low in the top 100, but add Darcie, higher in the chart, and there are a lot of them.

To me it just sounds a bit odd if you have no connection to France, same as Elodie. Both if those names sound gorgeous when pronounced by French speakers. I have a colleague with no connection to France with a baby Xavier which is similar I guess.

I don't understand why people don't refer to the stats before commenting on popularity...

Amelia- 2
Emily- 5
Amelie- 72 (just behind Maria- would you consider that popular?!)

names.darkgreener.com/# go to this website if you want to check the popularity of a name!

I think Amelia and Emily are much nicer. If you're in England, they're more English classics. Amelie may be a classic in France, but it's not in the UK. It's arisen in the past 20 years because of the film - and people can get snooty about names that are derived from films (especially cutesy ones), and one that will date a child as well. A bit like the Khaleesi or Daenerys of its day.

‘Chavvy’ connotations are often the result of those who consider themselves to be rather ‘posh’ using a name and finding out that ‘normal’ people use the same name! The horror!! 😂

Amelie, along with Emily, Grace, Evie/Evelyn, Sophie, Isobel/Isabelle, etc etc (those popular names that seem to occur in clumps, but everyone knows them as being popular) are nice names, and cross the earnings-spectrum. So ‘chavvy’ to one is ‘posh’ or ‘normal’ to another.

Some want to give their children ‘safe’ names with good connotations so choose one regularly used in their baby group or whatever, but it’s virtually impossible. We’ll probably all know of someone with any given name at some point in our lives.

Others want to give their children ‘completely unique/‘different’ names’ -again, same as above.

Therefore, if a name is chosen, and there’s a passion for the name, with whatever justification, just use it. Don’t worry about what the neighbour, the in laws, the site on which you know not one single person’s identity thinks. Just choose your own child’s name and enjoy it.

Originally we loved the name and DH still does for our baby if it's a girl. However, I've gone off it a bit because of our surname. Together it sounds like it gets lost in the middle.
I think it's a nice name and is unlikely to be in a class of 3 of them at school, which is my base for our DC's name when we settled on it, but I've got a feeling we're having a boy instead.

No 74 is still quite a lot, and it probably peaked about 10 years ago so it will date.
Bear in mind that parents who already have Emily, Amelia or Milly etc will have ruled it out.

Oh, and FYI, I also know a Mackenzie and a Jayden who are both lovely lads, so maybe don't be so judgy yourself...

I adore the name.

It's pretty. If you like it, use it.

I think its a lovely name.
That said, unless it was my sister or brother that had used the name Emily, then I would still go for that.

My 14 year old DS has a friend the same age called Amelie. She is ace and therefore I love the name.

But it's not overused. Someone up the thread said it's number 74.

It's a name that was hardly ever used in this country before the film came out. Due to the popularity of Emily and Amelia, it has renamed popular. I think the French version is lovely, but the Am-uh-lee sound you get over here isn't pretty.
I'd suggest she look at all the other names that she could pick. There are so many to choose from, why pick something overused?

Agree it blurs in with all the Amelia’s and Emily’s. There are lots of other nicer names than this group which are just so over used and dull

I don't think it's chavvy but do think it's a bit faddy at the moment.

My sister is an Amelie - she is 29 and up until about 6 years ago I had never ever heard of another. She hated it as a child as people always assumed it was Emily due to it not being a well known name so she always went by Amy. Now she hates it just as much due to its popularity as there is at least one Amelie in both of her children's classes at school.

It's a nice name in isolation but to me it now just blends with all the Emily's and amelias.

Also @Miffymeow , why would it be shortened to Amy? That's a completely different sound. Ammy perhaps, or Millie but Amy seems far fetched

It is only number 74 in the charts so I really don't understand why people on Mumsnet think it is popular?! Maybe just merging into the Amelias and Emilys?

Popularity aside, it's a lovely name and I don't view it as 'common' at all

FWIW I like Amélie.

I do, however, think it’s a very bad idea to name a child with the next best thing to her actual favourite name. She should either use Emily (Amélie is similar enough that both girls will come running if you shout it in a park anyway) or go completely back to the drawing board, I’m afraid.

Emma would be better than Amelie for someone who feels they can no longer use Emily.

Amelie is considered "down-market" I suppose because every so often these fashions in names spring up when names from books/films etc get used without much thought going into whether the name "goes" in the relevant culture. Or because people like the "sound" of a name without realising it's the Tagalog equivalent of calling a baby Adolf etc.

Names that always get that dismissal on here are Amelie, Elodie, Luca etc. Foreign names that haven't yet been around long enough in the UK (cf Francesca, Sophie) to be "accepted".

I don't like it personally because of the pronunciation issues she'll have. It also depends where you are in the country. (It's a name with vowels that get mauled by lots of accents!)

It's not my cup of tea but it's ok. But choosing Amelie because a close family member has called her baby Emily is crazy. She should just go with Emily and have done with it.

I adore the name.
I didn't use it on my dds as I found it too confusing and I wasn't sure of the spelling or pronunciation.

I wanted it to be 'Amelie', sounds like Emily with an A, but I think the correct way is actually Amélie, pronounced Am-eh-lee.
I didn't want to get it wrong and inflict that on dd. Plus I have a sibling who just loves to point out such errors