Everyone is getting my baby's name wrong

I have a child with a name that is often pronounced wrong. I eventually gave up trying to correct people as child prefers going by a nickname anyway.

Mila is very cool 😎

Emily with an A on end is an easy way to explain if that’s how you say it.
She can easily go by Em or Emy or Mila (Meela) as she prefers when she’s older.

Realistically, people are going to get her name wrong - at least at first meeting - for most of her life. It's an unusual name in the UK, but very similar to two existing names (Emilia and Amelia), so people are going to mishear it and / or assume it's one of the latter two.

However - I wouldn't overthink it. She'll have to get used to correcting people, but future teachers / classmates / employers etc will learn it and it won't be an ongoing issue with the people she regularly interacts with. I don't think shortening it will help much. You'll all just have to get into the habit of correcting people who get it wrong.

It's a nice name!

If I saw Emila written down my eyes would see Emilia as I’ve never seen or heard Emila before.

Mila would be Meela to me (Mila Kunis).

I would call her Mila (mee-la). I think it’s such a beautiful name 💗

Oof I was ready to be sympathetic until you were rather unpleasant about the name Olivia, OP. It’s not mine or DD’s name, so it’s nothing personal, but you don’t come across super well.

I’ve never heard of Emila before, but just correct people. I have an incredibly unusual name and that’s what I do.

ETA: I agree with a PP who pointed out you’ve chosen a name which looks and sounds mighty similar to several highly popular names, but without the advantage of being easy for people to recognise and say… while also looking down on “boring Olivia”. Hmm.

That is certainly how it looks, or people will mishear OP and think she's said Amelia/Emilia.

I'm not sure why you're so rude about Olivia OP when you've chosen a name in the same family as the perennial Emily/Amelia/Emmie/Ellas.

I have a name that people have struggled pronouncing or spelling for my whole life and it's a pain in the arse. She'll have a better chance with Mila but will still get variations of Meel-a, Mye-la or Mill-a. But it doesn't look like a typo.

Read that and thought Elmlea - like the cream... that would be quite pretty!

If you are going to say Olivia is common and boring then exactly the same applies to Mila. Just stick with Emila, it’s so much nicer than Mila and once she’s older she will be telling people her name anyway.

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Urgh I feel your pain. I have a name that should be incredibly easy to pronounce - literally just three syllables with the same sound per syllable haha, but it’s sliiightly more common in a different spelling/pronunciation. It BLOWS PEOPLE’S MINDS. It doesn’t matter how clearly I pronounce it, they just look at me like I’m crazy and often end up correcting me. FWIW I’ve never shortened it because I feel v stubborn about making it easier for people who aren’t so hot at the listening 🤣.

Emila will be correcting a lot of people during her lifetime, and people generally don't like being corrected.

So it's Emily with an a at the end instead of y. The end.

Her friends will just shorten it to Millie or Em - boring stuff (in your words) 😂

My first glance at it I read it as Eh-mil-uh. My niece is Emilia so it feels odd to try to pronounce it without the i!

Well thank god Olivia is now classed as ‘boring’ so I don’t have to tell everyone how to spell it for the rest of my life. It was a pain in the arse growing up in the 80’s/90’s having people misspell it Oliver, Olivier, Olvia, Olivie or being called Olive Oyl, Liver and Tripe etc when I was growing up. Hopefully Emila becomes popular and boring too, so your daughter won’t have to put up with being told her name is weird as well, or having to spell it out every time she meets someone new or has to phone the bank.

It reminds me of one of those tests where your brain autocorrects misspelled or missing words, my brain autocorrected your DD's name to Emilia.

Emila is a beautiful name and I much prefer it to Emilia. If you wanted to then you could change the spelling so it’s spelt phonetically.

Overall I agree with previous poster who said that the difficulty of having a slightly unusual name is vastly overrated! I’ve often had to correct people re my name and it’s never bothered me…I think people need to stop being so sensitive and realise there are bigger problems to worry about.
The people who matter will learn the name.

I’d rather a slightly unusual name than a more common one personally.

Is it a made up name ??
or aligned to a particular language ?
agree that it reminds of Emla cream !

Can sympathise. We have an Ailsa and she's commonly referred to Alisa, mostly I just ignore it but I do worry that we've saddled her with a name she will spend her life correcting. Not even mentioning a trip to Disneyland in which she kept being referred to as the Queen of Arendelle!

Not surprised to be honest. This is what happens when you give your child a made up name that’s almost identical to a common name.

It makes me think of Emla cream (well known anaesthetic cream) so people will perhaps jump to that pronunciation with an i.
I think if you go for similar to but slightly different from popular name you do have to accept that you’ll/she’ll need to just let new people know it’s em mee la or however she prefers.

Yes I'm aware of that. But their names mean something to me culturally. The children love their names and the fact they link to our history. They're fine with it and are glad they're not one of many Elizabeth/ lilly/Amelia.