Making Girls' name short list - verdicts please?

[BoyMeetsWorld]

Hi,

So I already have a thread going re: pronunciation of one of these names. However, DH and I are trying to narrow down our girls' short list (boys already sorted) & would like opinions please just re:favourites, not whether you hate them all :p

*Arabella (Belle)
*Esmeralda (Esme)
*Emilia (Emmie)
*Emerald (Emmie)
*Juliette
*Clara

Please could you advise on Top 2 preferences from this list? X

Emilia and Arabella

Emilia, Juliette, Clara are my favourites.

Emilia
Juliette

Emerald and Juliette. i love Emerald and don't know why it isn't more popular - why is it so different to Ruby? also have a soft spot for Topaz.

1st juliette -beautiful, classy,elegant name.

2nd clara

Emilia or Juliette

Clara and Emilia

Clara is my fave and second choice Emilia.

Just a thought. A beautiful and much underused name that is almost a mixture of all the names you like is Ameral.
I think it's lovely.

Arabella
Clara
(Like Ameral too as suggested by MrsC)

AAArgh! Why do unusual names suddenly get trendy? I chose Emilia for my daughter 15 years ago a) because she was born with masses and masses of beautiful dark hair(cf Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady') b) it was UNUSUAL (and c) I'm a tiny bit pretentious LOL). No one had heard of it. No one could spell it. Now it's on Mumsnet!How does this happen? Did the same thing with 'Abigail' 27 years ago............

Emelia and Clara are lovely.

kweggie this is my problem too. I adore the name Emilia but don't really want an overly 'trendy' name. I'm a huge Shakespeare fan (did my dissertation on Othello) so have reason etc. none of the other Shakespearean names quite cut it for me - do like Juliet but its my sister's 'official' name.

Out of interest kweggie how do you pronounce your DD's name?

Esme, Juliet (prefer that spelling) and Clara are all lovely.

Love: Juliette & Clara

Like: Arabella & Emilia

Dislike: Esmeralda & Emerald

Esmerelda and Emerald! Beautiful words, beautiful jewel.

But they mean the same thing so I'm going to count them as one and award myself a third choice, which would be Juliette (though I probably wouldn't bother with the extra "-te" personally, it'll just be a spelling headache.)

Juliet - but spelt the traditional way and Emilia - pronounced the traditional way.

Clara