Questions about Ellen

[badmakeup]

I never really paid much attention to the name before as it's such a simple one but recently have started to really like it - understated but pretty - it seems to be one of those names you can easily overlook. My friend thinks she'd keep saying Helen though!

Does anyone have/ know an Ellen? What do you think of the name?

Would the Ellen/ Helen thing be a problem? Would it be ok to use Ella or Ellie as nns?

Any other thoughts welcome!

I like Ellen and I guess it depends on the accent whether getting mistaken for Helen would be a problem. If you are concerned then I'd go straight for Ella as a proper name and not a nn as that is lovely too. Dont like Ellie though.

......or have Gabriella.

We have an Ellen. Everyone outside the family thinks we can't pronounce Helen properly. She gets called Ellie along with millions of other little Ellie's around here!

I love Ellen, it's one of dd's middle names. It was my GrandMothers name, she was always called Lilly . It's a lovely name.

My niece is an Ellen, AFAIK she rarely gets Helen instead.

I think it's a lovely name.

My DDs middle name is Ellen after my late wonderful grandmother, we wanted to use Ellen as first name but with our surname it sounded like Elephant and at 9lb 6oz she wasn't dainty!

I love it, no pronunciation problems here. We almost went with Ailidh instead but just used my other (present) wonderful grandmothers name :)

I knew an Ellen when I was in my teens; she was a couple of school years above me. Really popular and really funny girl :) I got to know her pretty well and she was NNed Len or Lenna. I don't know how well that translates in written form, but it was very cute.