help! Am I letting my pregnancy hormones run away with me on this name?

[littlemissbroody26]

Hello :)

I am 18 weeks pregnant and have started the hard job of making baby name lists. It is made even more difficult because i live in sweden so the baby needs to have a swedish name (im english and i love lots of english names but swedish ones are hard to like imo.)

Ages ago long before I was pregnant my OH said he liked the name Älva for a girl (said el-va) the word elva means 11 in swedish but the work älva means elf/fairy (to me älva and elva sound the same but for swedish people they sound different apparently.)

The name alva (said Al-va) is very popular, in the top 10 here, it also means fairy/elf but is a more common name.

we have called the baby "elfie" whilst he/she is in my tummy as she/he is due close to christmas so it would be lovely to have a name that actually meant elf.

But am i just being really silly, is it really ok to call a child elf/fairy? I'm not sure if I would have even considered it before i was pregant but i have all these lovely feelings for my OH now like he could sugest anything and it would be perfect!

the other option if Freja which i love but is so popular.

so many choices.. and elfie might be a boy anyway!

Thank you :)

Alva is lovely, and works well in both languages - I would go for it, it's not like you are actually calling the baby Fairy!

This is probably completely useless, I have a friend with some family in Norway and don't know if the names would be similar?

anyway, their girls are gorgeous and are named Hanne, Maia and Matilde - all are perfectly useable in English too.

congratulations on the birth of your little girl mammatonic :)

hmm more swedish names.. these are the top 20

girls
1 Alice 985 0
2 Maja 743 0
3 Julia 723 0
3 Elsa 723 0
5 Linnéa 720 0
6 Ella 712 0
7 Ebba 683 0
8 Molly 675 0
9 Wilma 657 0
10 Emma 641 0
11 Nellie 633 0
12 Alva 618 0
13 Isabelle 597 0
14 Olivia 578 0
15 Agnes 571 0
16 Klara 567 0
17 Elin 514 0
18 Emilia 511 0
19 Freja 506 0
20 Ellen 503 0

boys
1 William 1035 0
2 Lucas 973 0
3 Oscar 957 0
4 Hugo 863 0
5 Elias 837 0
6 Oliver 758 0
7 Liam 748 0
8 Alexander 740 0
9 Viktor 731 0
10 Emil 700 0
11 Axel 685 0
12 Anton 655 0
13 Erik 649 0
14 Leo 642 0
15 Filip 614 0
16 Vincent 610 0
17 Olle 602 0
18 Arvid 566 0
19 Ludvig 565 0
19 Theo 565 0

Oooh!

Apart from wilma and ludvig I like lot all of those. Not mad keen on the ones to appear in British top 10, like olivia. Would elin be pronounced like ay-Lin or ell-in? Is pretty both ways.

i think elin would be like ear-lin.. the e sound is very long.. but im not 100% Ludvig has the nick name ludie which is sort of sweet, my OH's cousin called her baby Ludvig so its not an option for us anyway.. wilma reminds me of scooby doo hehe

not sure if this will help you at all for more ideas www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Swedish_Names ?

this is the list from 80-100.. its a little more interesting

girls

80 Ronja 170 0
81 Elina 165 0
82 Mira 164 0
83 Josefin 163 0
84 Anna 161 0
84 Evelina 161 0
86 Hilda 154 0
87 Rebecca 152 0
88 Vilda 148 0
89 Frida 147 0
89 Lina 147 0
89 Sigrid 147 0
92 Greta 140 0
92 Nicole 140 0
94 Hedda 137 0
94 Majken 137 0
96 Sofie 135 0
97 Annie 133 0
98 Victoria 131 0
99 Hedvig 128 0
100 Hilma 126 0
100 Maria 126 0
100 Rut 126 0

boys

80 Elis 174 0
81 Alex 172 0
82 Tim 169 0
83 Robin 167 0
84 Maximilian 165 0
85 John 163 0
86 Fabian 161 0
87 Hjalmar 160 0
88 Mio 159 0
89 Hannes 157 0
90 Elvin 155 0
90 Tage 155 0
92 Måns 150 0
93 Aron 149 0
94 Ivar 145 0
95 Ali 144 0
96 Otto 142 0
96 Svante 142 0
98 Marcus 139 0
99 Ebbe 134 0
100 Edward 131 0

I think because there are so few people in sweden there doesnt actually have to be that many people with the name for it ot get into the top 100... edward is number 100 but there was only 131 babies called Edward so not many really, the chances of meeting another Edward would be fairly low...

sofie and greta are nice

and i like boys no 64 joel.

they are sweet joel is pronounced you-elle here because of the j sound, still cute tho :)

I was surprised at how many of the names would travel comfortably to the uk - although as you point out, the pronunciation may be different.

lots of the names are English names but they sound so very different when the swedish people say them, in a way im tempted to choose a compleatly swedish name so the child doesnt get called 2 different things olivia for example would be said oo-lee-vi-a here, and erik would be earrr-ik.

the same with the name freja but i much prefere the swedish way of saying it they roll the r and the a at the end is short and goes up sound sa little like frrrray-ya where as i wasnt so kean on it in english (especially when it is said in a devon accent which is where i come frome) as it can sound a little like frey-urrr... huuum there is so much to think about when choosing names!

there certainly is! I am scottish so we are probably closer to the swedish way of saying names than the english given that we roll our Rs too. - I would say Freja the first way too :)

How about Anneli - Graceful meadow.

www.mybirthcare.com/favorites/pg1/Swedish-names.asp

I like all 3 names, they are lovely.

my ds is Isaac, which is Isak in Dutch (dh is dutch) pronounced with a short 'i' We lived overseas where it was pronounced with a short i too. My ds grew up happily accepting that his name was pronounced differently in the different languages he spoke.

We had to choose names for our 3 dc that worked in English, dutch and russian, and we managed it, but they were all pronounced a little differently. It was very cute actually, they loved their name 'translating' slightly as they changed language.
So i would say don't worry about it being pronounced differently, as long as you like both pronunciations

I like Alva, with or without the thingy on the A!

i want a baby so that i can call it elfie (i may have to get a cat instead)

i love all of the names op!

Ludo - means "i play" or similar.

italiangreyhound annali is a lovely name, its a little dated unfortunatly, like calling a child tracy or trevor... pretty sounding tho!

steppemum thats great that your dc like the difference in pronunciation!

cheese sarnie it might make a better cats name than baby name hehe :)

ludo.. thats nice!

we spoke with mil about names yesterday and she hated älva, all the more reason to use it imo! she suggested iris instead???? iris is a nice name, but she has named her 4 children allready! she actually said "you can't call it Älva" to which i said "i think you'll find I can!"

A Swede living in the UK here and having a similar conundrum.

Alva is a beautiful old Swedish name, it doesn't immediately make you think of an elf.

Liv is also a lovely Swedish which means 'life'.

hello sandyrose!

liv is really lovely, but unfortunatly the name of a family cat! why do people waste lovely names on pets!!

are you trying to find a name that works in both Swedish and English?

If you fancy something more "English"-how about laura, Kerstin, Viola?

Edith
Matilda
Ottilia
Sylvi

ottilia is great! on the list!

LOVE the name, elva/alva. Think the meaning is cute too.
Also can't you have a more english name if u wanted to? to show your proud of your roots (although I am not patriotic at all!)

My taste goes from one extreme to the other though, from very "normal" names to more unique names (which my partner doesnt like!)