Sophia Alice or Olivia Alice (but advice needed on dodgy initials)

[FranglaisMadam]

Hello Mumsnetters,

I'm new to the forum, been lurking a while and finally decided to post. I'm 21 weeks pregnant with our first child. As you can guess from my username we are British expats who live in France so baby will spend first few years of their life here. We aren't finding out the baby's gender.

Anyway, cutting to the chase... what do you think of my girls shortlist? Our surname begins with a 'G'.

• Sophia Alice or Sophia Rose
• Olivia Alice or Olivia Rose
• Matilda Alice (less common but husband hates it)

Now, I always wanted Rose as MN but a few family members love the name Alice and got me thinking as I never considered it before, and now I LOVE it, it's still relatively underused in my area too. Used to like Grace as MN but has become far too popular as a filler name where I'm from.

Olivia - bit worried because it's become very popular with the "Croydon facelift benefit mums" in my parents town. Although, could argue that Sophia will go the same way - I thought it was unheard of in Wales but I now know of two Sophias, one of which is the granddaughter of my mum's friend. I don't want her thinking we are copying by having Sophia, as I had this name on my shortlist before I was even pregnant! Popularity doesn't bother me, as long as it's decent people using the name. I know that makes me sound a terrible snob, but you would be too if you grew up in my town. Oh and all three transfer easily into French as they are Olivie, Sophie and Mathilde here.

Final issue - the initials. Sophia Alice will spell out 'SAG" - how bad is this? I only notice it because I've worked in law where you use your initials A LOT on documents and bit worried people will take the piss ('saggy' or 'saggy tits' during the teenage years?). Worrying over these initials is keeping me up at night, but I think Sophia Alice is SO pretty.

Sorry for the essay-like first post! Opinions appreciated, be blunt as you like!
Looking forward to reading replies.

Franglais

My DD is Olivia Alice and we love it!! Such a pretty name

Congratulations on your pregnancy

Thanks DMTC. It's a very pretty classic name. And may I ask where you're based?

Sophia Rose or Olivia Alice

I like Sophia Alice just would avoid SAG!

I prefer Alice as a first name Alice Rose :) Olivia is quite nice but it was ruined for me when I heard someone (not even a chav) shouting LIV-YA! Just awful, and I can't bear the name Sophia, and I'm not even sure why. I like Sophie though :) Out of your choices I would go for Olivia Rose or Olivia Alice xx

Haha! Well my own parents dislike Sophia! But could be due to my mum mispronouncing it all the time as SOPH-EYE-A, god knows why but she has a real problem reading it/saying it properly!

All pretty names, but I had the same thought as Sasparillo as I was reading your OP - Alice Rose has a lovely flow to it!

I love the name Matilda and second choice would be Olivia. Alice is really tricky as a second name as it's hard to end a name with an 'A' and start a name with an 'A'. It ends up sounding like all one long name 'Olivialice' or sounds stunted. I prefer Rose as a middle name.

Matilda Rose or Olivia Rose. Sophie is lovely but I think it's a bit too everywhere...

if you're in France why don't you go for something french which is a lovely 'nod' to your country and would be unique for your daughter. There were some recent posts listing some amazing french names. go for it!

If I gave her a French name, I would definitely choose Mathilde, gorgeous. Alas, hubby is having NONE of it! Her NN could be Tilly but a friend has a spaniel called that. Also, we'll be returning to the UK when the baby is aged 4 or 5 and would have to deal with people not pronouncing the final syllable if she was Mathilde (Matild not Matild-UH) :-/

Olivia Rose is beautiful!

Why not have Sophia Alice Rose G----
solves the SAG problem

I did think of that, but do you not think it sounds a bit long-winded and over the top?

Could be worse, could be Sophia Harriet Alice G-- (tee hee)

If you like ia names how about Alicia instead of Alice?

I'm in west of Scotland.

Your mum's pronunciation of Sophia as Soph-EYE-a isn't wrong; it's the traditional British pronunciation. Soph-eea is more of a European
influence. (Like Maria, which always used to be pronounced Mariah in this country). I know several people called Soph-EYE-a - they tend to be quite posh though!

The initials would rule out Sophia Alice for me. Olivia Rose is very pretty. Congratulations and good luck!

I like Olivia Rose.

As Minty said Soph-eye-ah isn't wrong,it's how it used to be pronounced in Britain due to the German influence via the Royal Family at the time. Sophia Gardens in Cardiff is still pronounced Soph-eye-ah. You'd get some odd looks calling it So-fee-ah Gardens!

So-fee-ah is considerably more attractive though.

That's interesting, I never knew that. And I always did wonder why Sophia Gardens in Cardiff has always been pronounced Sof-EYE-ah. Suppose I've been living in France for too long as 'I' to me should be an 'ee' sound! I agree it sounds prettier than the Germanic version though.

Hmm the votes are certainly stacking up for Olivia over Sophia on this thread, and Rose seems to be preferred to Alice. I just wonder if Rose is too obvious a choice for a middle name as people tend to always give little girls Grace or Rose or May around my (UK) neck of the woods. Amelia May and Sophia Grace are getting very popular for example.

Thanks for the replies so far everyone.

I have a Sofia and an Olivia so obviously I'm as much use as a chocolate fireguard. But I much prefer Alice to Rose if it helps.

I'm going to break with the crowd and tell you not to worry so much about the initials. If I saw the initials SAG it wouldn't even occur to me to have a bit of a snigger even as a teenager.

I don't get why you (or anyone) are worried about initials, unless you were the sort to value a personalised car number plate...

Can you think of anyone who has initials which spell out a word with negative associations who has been hindered by it?

It just seems totally random to me.

Initials never occurred to me really until DH's grandma said "for god's sake make sure you don't give them initials that spell something". She'll def pick up on SAG and bleet on about it. Also, in my previous life, whenever I wrote an attendance note for a client call it's protocol to write: "insert initials spent 6 mins talking to client" etc etc, so initials are used in that circumstance.

Eskino and Wigglesrock you have both reassured me somewhat though. A friend of mine's initials are TT, he told me initials don't matter one jot, but that he's very glad his middle name isn't Ian!

Oh grandmas always say stuff like that! My gran told me my first born would get picked on for "having the name of a little Indian boy"

His name is Alex.

You've picked two names in Olivia and Sophia that are very popular in the UK so they are going to be used by all sorts of mums and dads.

It's worth bearing in mind that not only in Sophia very popular in England and Wales but so is Sophie. This might sway you towards choosing the apparently more popular Olivia.

For what it's worth I'm a Sophie and my initials spell SAG. No one has ever commented on or mocked it, not at school or even at uni when my email address started with my initials!

love olivia -rose my grandaughters called it .:)

Agree with Ggsoph. Even in professions where 'signing off' paperwork with initials is common, you can always decide to just use 2 rather than all three (so SG rather than SAG). Also, suspect increasing use of digital forms rather than paperwork mean that in 20 yrs time initialing documents will be obsolete!

Thanks everyone for your replies. GgSoph, thanks so much for posting that, you've definitely solved the dilemma for me. Based on your experience I feel that I can safely name her (if it's a girl) Sophia Alice G-- without fear of any piss-taking or sniggers, hooray!