Elspeth or Alice?

[ElleCloughie]

Me and my hubby are expecting our first child, a little girl, in October. Of all the names we have looked at and discussed, the two we keep coming back to are Elspeth and Alice. Her middle name will be Catherine.

Of course, the final question we come to is always should we play it safe with Alice, which seems to have become hugely popular (and rightly so!) over recent years, and yet risk her being one of several in her class. The alternative is something slightly more unusual, but of course she would be then one who has to deal with potential mispronunciations and mispellings.

I would love to hear what other mums think!

I prefer Alice. Elspeth I find to be slightly akward sounding, the sp and th bits. I hear Alice is popular but don't see it to be so in reality.

Alice

Alice, beautiful name

I love Elspeth, unusual, but not odd.

Definitely Alice - although I have one so I am slightly biased. As the previous poster said, although it is supposedly very popular I have met very few of my daughter's age or younger. Maybe it's a regional thing? Even if it is popular it's a lovely name and certainly not a faddy/fashionable name but very much a classic and timeless one.

Elspeth one of my favourites at the moment.

I really like Elspeth, it's not too out there but she's likely to be the only one in her class

Both lovely. I prefer Alice though. Alice Catherine is beautiful.

I'm about to have an Alice. I think it's about 40th in the UK which, given the really wide spread of names (especially for girls) means you're unlikely to have classes full of Alices (it probably means that less than 1 in 100 girls actually has the name Alice).

I personally think Alice Catherine is a beautiful name and flows well, so I prefer that. But you have to go with your gut - don't worry about spellings or popularity, just choose the name you love the best :)

Elspeth is one of my all time favourite girls names. Unfortunately there is the possibility that she may get called Ellie!!

Elspeth always sounds clunky to me. I like Alice and don't know any under 35.

I prefer Elspeth, it's more interesting and lighter sounding.

I like Elspeth best. And Catherine is lovely (I'm a mum of one of the K variety!!).

Alice

Hate Elspeth. Sounds too 'lispy'.

I have an Elspeth. She always gets compliments on her name :)

Elspeth!

Alice is getting very popular, it's a nice name but for something equally as nice but a bit more unique I would choose Elspeth

DD is Alice, only ever met one other Alice all through her school years.

I much prefer Alice. I don't really like Elspeth at all- I agree with previous poster it sounds lispy and clunky and she'd be forever correcting people who think she's called Elisabeth.

Thank you so much for your thoughts! The pros and cons are all ones we've already considered, so we're no closer to making our minds up one way or the other. I think we will just need to wait until we meet her to decide which suits her! :D

Have always hated the name Alice but in my dim and distant youth was desperate to change my dull, boring name to Elspeth after watching the Flame Trees of Thika. Therefore Elspeth gets my vote!

Elspeth is quite spitty! Alice is lovely

I totally agree with Layl! In fact as I said it aloud to myself I thought it would be a good name for a female llama... I'm just not too keen on names that are hard to say or you have to think about before yiu say them... but I absolutely love Alice. Easy to say, classic, beautiful name for a lifetime.