Gosh, girls names are hard.... what do you think of

[athimble]

Francesca, mainly Frankie, but I don't like Fran and a friend already has dibs on it.

Florence but I don't like flossie.

Sarafina but it's close to a sibling's name.

Miette but it might not sound nice in an aussie accent. (To a lesser extent Amelie or Matilda)

Jeunet but it sounds like juno.

Rory/Aurora Audrey, Zoe .....

Pretend the last name is "blahblah" and a future brother with a lucky roll of the dice might be Javier/Xavier Finn or Leo..

Getting close to seeing what she looks like after a few weeks..... your thoughts?

My beautiful daughter is Francesca (Frankie most of the time), so you won't get an unbiased response from me. Having had three children and differing reactions to the boy's names, I can categorically say that everyone comments on how lovely Francesca is. Also one if those timeless, adaptable names (for tomboy/girly/trendy etc)

I'd go with Marissa. Similar feel to your choices without any of the drawbacks :)

Gosh, I think girls' names are so much easier than boys'!

Francesca - I like it. How about shortening it to 'Cesca?

Florence - we a have one in Brownies, called Florrie - I love that too

Sarafina - never heard of it, do you mean Serafina? Either way, I'm not keen.

Miette - not keen - think this is a nn in French, not a name, could be wrong.

Amelie - a bit to "fancy" for me - I'd prefer good old Enlgish Amelia - could shorten to Milly?

Matilda - I love this name too.

Jeunet - awful

Rory/Aurora - Rory is a boy's name, and Auroroa a bit fancy

Audrey - OK - ish. DD would probably get called Aud though :(

Zoe - love it, and no need to shorten it at all, which is a bonus

It's Serafina, not Sarafina and if you intend to call her Sarafina I promise you EVERYONE will get it wrong for her whole life and it will drive her nuts.

Francesca is beautiful.

Matilda is beautiful.
Florence is lovely but bit common now.

I hate Audrey.
Zoe sounds too 70s/80s to me.
Amelie - meh
Jeunet - not keen at all, but I love Juno.
Miette - going to sound terrible if you live somewhere where everyone speaks with a glottal stop. I mean really awful.
Aurora - meh. Rory is quite gimmicky as a girls name. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I could sound cute, it could sounds awfully contrived.

If you like Francesca and Matilda what about Imogen, Cecelia, Cordelia, Juliet, Penelope?

Seraphina is a fab name. Not crazy about your other names. Zoe is cute.

Yes I think Francesca is pretty high on the list, we essentially have to wait until they find out whether our friends are having a girl or not before we steal it though ;)

Ah yes, I meant Serafina, I am most definitely not a fan of changing spellings and I prefer the non "ph" version. It has been top 3. However she will get called "sara" most of the time no doubt which is the same as my sibling which makes it far less appealing than it is.

I'm less of a fan of Zoe (I didn't put it on the list), but it's a case of knowing someone called Zoe in childhood ruining it a bit for me when it is actually objectively a pretty good name that goes with my rare and foreign surname.
(It's a situation where calling a child John, Mary etc looks weirder than a less english name.)

Miette, Amelie, Matilda(actually Mathilde) and Jeunet all basically stem from a love of Jean Pierre Jeunet. Miette is more of a nickname, it means sweet little thing or crumb or similar. I too like Juno, and this is going to sound silly, but even though I'm taking names from french movies, it's not quite as distinctive as Juno which EVERYONE knows because of a single movie. It was on the list but it wasn't in the top ten or whatever.

I consider Rory to be a nickname for Aurora, not two separate names. I guess it's also why I like the tomboyish/cool freedom of Frankie with Francesca as well. But Aurora sounds awfully hippie. But I'm the kind of person who liked Cambria from the other recent thread because it reminded me of the "Cambrian explosion" and a science related name would be fine so long as it didn't veer into hippiedom and wasn't Leaf, River, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily.

I'm not overly sold on "tilly" for Matilda and would no doubt want to consider Mathilde as well even though it's a bit more annoying. I also don't know how much "waltzing matilda" they'd get.. but I do like it.

I don't mind Imogen personally, but it seems to have an 80's vibe. Lot of singers named Imogen. Cecelia is a close friend's name, Cordelia I only know from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.. I'm not sold on "Julie" for Juliet. I think Penelope did make the list in a low ranking but not from me.

I think Florence and the Machine are probably directly responsible for x number of named bubs. It's not in the top 100 girl names here so I don't think it's that common. Zoe is #7. Other names I'm partial to like Isabella are #4 and I can't quite do given the popularity. Gosh even Mackenzie is #27.. how did that get so high? I actually don't mind it.

I knew a marissa that spoils it

I don't really see Amelie as fancy. I'm less of a fan of Amelia, once again it's a people-you-know-thing. Also I don't mind fancy. I mean isn't talking about french movies toss-pot enough already? ;)

May I vote for Emmeline? Has the French/slightly foreign vibe. Also, easy and nice to shorten.

Not miette - could be pronounced horribly, or Jeunet - looks like a misspelling of Jeanette or Janet. Do like Juliette (film ref to ms Binoche?).

The others are lovely. I'd go for Francesca or Florence.

Emmylou was actually on my shortlist before it was nixed because it was my partner's sibling's name (I didn't know it wasn't Emma) so I don't mind Emmeline at all, and although it probably falls foul of the same issue, thanks for the suggestion, I will mention it.

Yes I'm veering away from it.. We had occasionally been using it as a foetus name given it means crumb. But we've also tried other names on to see how they sounded. Then again I can make every name sound bad putting it through a nasal strine accent ;).

Jeunet wasn't neccessarily on the list, I just thought it would look nice next to Javier if we follow up with a boy. No one would ever pronounce it correctly though which would be a pain in the ass. (Not everyone would pronounce Javier correctly either but I like it enough not to care and at least there are some Javier's around like Mr. Bardem) and yes it does look like Janet with I really don't like. I do like Juliette better than Juliet.

Yes it probably does come down to Serafina, Francesca, Florence... all kind of refined Italian names.. maybe with a Matilda, Miette, Zoe or Amelie threatening underneath them...

Magali, Ottoline, Lydia, Julia, Ellen or Anna.

Alessia
Elise
Alicia
Mariette

Seraphina or Ophelia could be Thea as a nn

love Amelie and Matilda. What about Evangeline?