Elinor or Eleanor?

[CheerfulYank]

Which spelling do you prefer? :)

Eleanor. This is my favourite girls name. However I can't use it as I am having a little boy!

Eleanor - reminds me of horrible girl in my class at school. And always reminds me of Lenor fabric softener.

Elinor - so much prettier. Reminds me of Elinor M Brent Dyer. Jolly hockeysticks!

I love both pretty much equally but I would probably go for Eleanor for simplicity's sake... though Elinor seems a bit more interesting.

We have always had Eleanora picked out as our hypothetical girl's name (was DH's grandmother) and I do like Elle or Ellie or even Nell as nn...however if we were going to shorten it to Eleanor, I prefer the Elinor spelling. Very Dashwood-esque. :o

IMO, traditional spellings are best, therefore Eleanor.

Toad, Elinor is a traditional spelling, just not as popular!

Right you are, she turns up in Jane Austen. Comment withdrawn!

My daughter's middle name is Elinor. Her first name is Maebh.
Naming her after a warrior queen and Ms. Dashwood has proved to be an excellent strategy for making her a no-nonsense kind of girl.

Eleanor.

You will struggle with people misspelling it if you go with Elinor, although it's not so alternative that people will think you're just trying to be different, IYGWIM!

FWIW, I always think of Elena as a completely different name. Pronounced Elle-ay-ner. Hopefully that comes across as I wrote it!

Good to know...good to know. :)

Embarrassingly enough, this is the reason I need to know. I am not pregnant but DH and I are going to TTC DC2 this summer. Eleanora Josephine is Our Girl's Name, Which We Will Not Be Moved Upon. And we like Ellie, Nell, or Nora for nicknames. However, if we have twins (I am such a weirdo, I really ought to get a hobby ), our back up name is Susannah Rosamund, with Annie Rose as a nn. And I feel like Ellie or Nell or Nora would be too short compared to Annie Rose. Thus, Eleanor/Elinor.

Feel free to tell me to get a life. :o

I like names.

Tidy here in the US Elena is El-ee-nuh/nah. :)

It's really odd that you say that, because it was when I was in the US I heard Elena and I didn't even make the connection between that and Eleanor at first!

How strange there are so many different pronounciations!

Elinor

Eleanor was the French mediaeval spelling and Elinor was the English one. DD's middle name is Elinor in honour of verrrry distantly connected woman from early 17th century and she spelt her name Elinor. It's pronounced so differently to 'Eleanor' that we don't have any probs .

They're pronounced the same here

I always liked Elanor, from Tolkien. It was a small yellow star shaped flower, sun-star is the direct translation from Elvish Sindarin.

UK pronounciation of Eleanor is Elle-ee-ner.

The pronounciation I heard of Elena in the US was as I said before.

Like I said, odd that there are so many ways! :)

Eleanor is sort of 'Helena' with the H, Elinor is more El-ee-naw. I think. Though I'm starting to wonder...!

That is different! Here they are both Ell-a-nore.

without the H - christ I am baffling myself now!

Elena is like Helena in terms out pronunciation...

El-en-a / Hel-en-a
El-ay-na / Hel-ay-na
El-ee-na / Hel-ee-na

DD has one of these names, and you just have to accept that it will only be pronounced right 30% of the time.

But CY, I don't get it - why would you need to change it from Eleanora to Eleanor/Elinor in the event of twins? They are shorter versions...

Eleanor is pronounced exactly like Elinor is written - El-i-nor (short 'i' as in 'fit').

Because if it were Eleanora we would go with Elle or Ellie, etc. BUT in the event of twins, the other would be Annie Rose. Elle sounds too short when compared with Annie Rose, but Eleanor sounds okay. However, I like the spelling Elinor better.

I know that is unbelievably complicated and ridiculous and I can't believe I'm admitting that my mind goes to these places, but there you have it. :o

Both nice, and you'll end up correcting people from Elena no matter which you choose so toss a coin