Everyone is getting my baby's name wrong

From experience her friends will call her all manner of shortened versions of her name so why worry about it now? She is yours, you named her, if people have a problem with saying her name then that’s on them.
Please don’t shorten it to please anyone.

There is always a risk when you give your child an unusual name that people will not pronounce it in the way you want to hear it.

I had an Emila in my class a few years ago and it was pronounced as Em-i (as in igloo)-la. She used to get it shortened to Emi which sounds cute.

Give over!

I’d pronounce it Eh mil a. Bit like Emily with an A.
People will be assuming it’s a variant of Emilia too. In certain accents this sounds same as Amelia.
Mila will also get pronounced 2 ways me la or my la.
Either get used to saying it’s pronounced this way and your dc will do this as get older or if it will bug you change it now.

What about Emi for a nickname? Super cute.

I initially read Emila as 'Eh-Mill-Ah' too.

Honestly, some people never get it. I’ve got people who have known me for years who still get my name wrong.

Sure Jan

That's just simply wrong.

It won't work, I have ended up with a very simple surname. I still have to spell it for people.

I would pronounce your child’s name as Em eye la, not E me la. I can imagine it pronounced as Emi la as well.

I think you have chosen the wrong name, or wrong spelling if you wanted a certain pronounciation.

Luckily she is only one child, not the twins I expected from your title🙂.

@happithipoy Emílá, looks wrong, and makes no sense. Emíla sort of makes sense, but doesn't solve @Laura3091 's problem.

@Laura3091 , your daughter has a name that's only been used about 20 times in the past 27 years. Amelia, Emily, Emilia and Mila have all been popular during that time, with thousands of them registered.
If I saw the name Emila, I'd think it was pronounced like Emily but with an -a ending instead of -y.

Think this is a case of not thinking fully before naming her. Sorry. I had to look a few times to realise it wasn't Emilia, which is a very common name. Emila just looks like someone forgot the I. I'd call her Mila to at least give people a chance of pronouncing it. But you will get this for life now when she uses her full name and I don't think you can be that surprised by it.

I have spent a lifetime correcting the spelling and pronunciation of my surname. It's hardly been a lifetime of woe.

So have I and have found it extremely annoying, so much so that I've looked into changing my name to one that won't be misspelled (except by people with very poor literacy). We aren't all the same.

OP this is already bothering you and it won't go away. Change her name.

Because 'mill' is pronounced the same as 'mil'.

Just get a few T shirts or vests printed with her name on.
Don't change it because idiots can't pronounce it properly..

Unless they are people who will know you and your child (these will get used to it) then either ignore it or gently correct people.

This country is full of people whose name i wouldn't get right first time, it's not the end of the world. I have spent a lifetime correcting the spelling and pronunciation of my surname. It's hardly been a lifetime of woe.

It's a pretty name. Congratulations

if you say em ee La than you should have written it that way

em ill a is how I would read it but clearly ( from my op) the letters are not easy for everyone to decipher

People don't just change their name because other people don't know how to read? Your daughter will be fine!!

It's unusual, so you'll all get used to correcting people and demonstrating how you'd like it to be said. I'm not sure using a shortened version would help either, I still wouldn't know which way to go if I saw Mila written (probably with an I as in Milo).

Emelia would have been an easier spelling for me to understand how you say it

To be honest I thought the name was a variation of the spelling for Emelia. It obviously isn't but I think you will spend a lot of time correcting people and as your daughter gets older, she'll be correcting the pronunciation and spelling. It's a pretty name, once I realised how to pronounce it. It's going to be a pain in the arse for your daughter though!!!

Known names include Emily, Emilia, Emmeline, Amelie and Amelia. People generally skim read and default to the nearest they know, so this is a problem your daughter will have all her life. She’ll probably end up changing it and not thanking you for it. Why are you so particular about a near-miss name?

How would you read it as Eh-Mill-Lah? There's one L?

I have a foreign name, and it's hard to pronoune in English. People will eventually get it! No one I know gets my name wrong (anymore) - yes sure I have to sometimes spell it, but that's that. It's no big deal.

You just keep correcting them. And if you are the person saying the name first you say something like "Emila- it's from X language" or "Emila - spelt like Emily but ends in A instead of Y" to flag that they haven't misheard you saying "Emilia".