Elinor or Eleanor?

[CheerfulYank]

Which spelling do you prefer? :)

Eleanor

(this is only because it makes something deep within me when i see people taking an alternative spelling....like jraco...which is somehow supposed to be pronounced draco.... )

*makes something deep within me seethe

But Elinor is not an alternative spelling really, is it? I feel the same, for instance I am Megan and know a Meggin, which is ridiculous in my opinion. But to me Eleanor/Elinor are like Catherine/Katherine...both "traditional" spellings in their own right.

Ah right, so you wouldn't give her a nickname if you used Eleanor/Elinor?

Puffty - Eleanor is equally (if not more) the 'alternative' spelling (to Anglos) since Elinor is English and Eleanor is French. Elinor has a long and noble history.

In fact, the more I participate in this thread, the more I like Elinor.

Or Elena.

It depends who's reading it :P to me, this is the first time ive ever seen it spelt Elinor, so it seems werid

The French medieval version was Aliénor. Eleanor was an English spelling.

But both Eleanor and Elinor were used interchangeably because spelling was not fixed until relatively modern times. Those who could write wrote down names as they heard them, or as they thought they were spelled. It's not uncommon to find the same name spelled 3 or 4 different ways by the same writer in the same document. One of my ancestors was an Eleanor/Elinor, and both spellings were used randomly. There is no difference in the pronunciation.

Cheerful Yank I can't really see your twins nn problem - if you want them to match, you could have Annie Rose and Ellie Jo.

Quite funny to have Eleanor and Rosamund though ..... :o

No! No Ellie Jo! Absolutely not. :)

I don't want the names to be "matchy-matchy", but the length should be about the same in my opinion.

I have Very Serious Opinions when it comes to names.

It's my favourite name, but I cannot decide how to spell it. I'm quite a Tolkien fan, so Elanor would be lovely; I have a close friend called Elinor (Elly); but I think Eleanor is somehow the most elegant.

Sorry, then I just don't get it.

Sigh. I know. I am known to be difficult when it comes to names. Which may be why I have to have them hammered out well in advance. :)

I like double names (like Annie Rose, obviously) but they have to be the right names. Ellie Jo is too...too Lily-Mai to me, or something? I don't know why they're different, but to my ear they are. :)

We were set on naming DS William Robert, but one night I went into a cold dread over the thought that someone, somewhere, might call him Billy Bob.

He is Samuel Robert instead. :o

We went for Eleanor spelling and for some unknown reason decided to pronounce it Ele-an-nor, but everyone else pronounces as Ele-a-nuh. Getting rather fed up of correcting people and might just call her Nora instead. :-p

DD would have Been William Robert if she was a boy, (DH father name and DH's name) was slightly concerned about Billy Bob, but thought no one would think of it!

L00pylulu, us too! Although DD is now 3 and corrects people who call her El-en-er! TBH I think I now find the el-in-or pronunciation a little clunky but it's a bit late now... I have been toying with Nora and/or Nell myself.

I have an Eleanor, but for a long time I dithered about having the spelling changed to Elinor. We're happy with Eleanor now, but I do still like the other spelling, it has a more medieval, Lord of the Rings feel to it. My French friend pronounces it Ellie-an-ore, sounds much more exotic!

I like the name spelt both ways but I prefer Elinor. I wouldn't worry about spelling. My daughter has a straightforward top 10 name, with only one way of spelling it, and still people spell it incorrectly.

Just to add some more confusion, I am Elanor - I LOVE my name despite the daft spelling (the fault of my dad,who was a big Tolkien fan at the time, the little flowers where the elves live are called elanor and so Sam the hobbit names his daughter Elanor when he returns home at the very end of the third Lord of the rings book)

So, if you want a name no one ever spells right, but with a nice story behind it...

I will have just outed myself with that, but not a regular so don't really care!

Wow, Susannah Rosamund is my new favourite name combo - gorgeous!

DD is Elinor,the old english spelling,and she has always loved it. We also know an Eleanor,and I would say they both have to spell it out to people occasionally. My Elinor is Elinor Josephine,and she has been called Ellie Jo, by her brothers mainly,as a fun nickname, but now she is a little older,they call her Els!

Thanks Penelope, it is pretty isn't it? :)

That's funny Clawdy! It's such a lovely name. My mom's name is Jody, so I thought I'd go with Josephine as a sort-of-after-her middle name. :)

Morpeth - when I was 17, my lovely boyfriend told me that he would love to have four children, starting when I was 24, and wanted the first girl to be Elanor.

(no happy ending - we split up a year later, and I have no idea whether he had children, bit still when I remember).

I have an Eleanor, never occurred to spell it any other way!

one's Welsh (Elinor) one's English(?) Eleanor.

Elinor is NOT Welsh. Elin is Welsh.

They are both long-established English spellings.

Eleanor - DD likes her name and it's shortenable to Ellie, Elle, Belle, Elliebean etc etc. When we gave Elle her name we didn't really know of any other spelling, though I doubt it would have changed if we had.