Mae or may?

[Locketjuice]

For a middle name
Or
Does anyone know if I can use it as her first name with no hyphen eg Ella may without may being a middle name?

My DD has May as a middle name

Yes, I know an Ella May.

I currently know about 8 children called something mae or something may

It's going to be everywhere

Neither. As num3 says, every other child at the moment has May/Mae/Mai as a middle name. There are so many lovely names, please choose something a little less common.

How can they both be her first name if they are two separate names . Your first name is just that - your first name. You can know her by both names without hyphenating, but it won't all be one name, so only the first bit will be her first name, and the second bit will probably get dropped along the way. If you want her known by the full thing long-term, I think you need to hyphenate.

I know lots of people dislike May because it is so common, but I don't think it much matters. I've got a 'generic 1970s' middle name and it has never bothered me. Do bear in mind if you are looking for something unusual that all the -may names do tend to end up sounding rather the same though. Ella-May, Lilly-May. So the name probably ends up feeling more 'popular' than it is.

Cannot see what is so lovely about May/mai that every female child must have it as a middle name. We had Ellie-may and Eluise-May within a week of each other at work. There must be a middle ground between 'completely off the wall' and 'one of 10 in her class'.

A lot of people do it to honour a grandmother who had it as a middle name if they don't want to use it as a first name. Half the people I know have a grandmother with that as a middle name.

Also, middle names are often chosen because they flow with other names, so actually you can end up with quite a small pool, which is why I think that there is less variation in middle names than first names.

Neither. Ella Mae/may/mai is so incredibly dated now, sorry. Hyphenated names are naff and Ella is also very popular.
But if you absolutely must use May, spell it with a Y.

My DD has May as her middle name. It was after her GM and GGM

DD2s second name is May to honour her grandmother.

My cousins middle name is Mae for no reason at all.

Both are lovely. Yes, it's popular, but it's not offensive. It's simple, and very pretty.

Should add, it's lovely as a first name, use it!

May if you use it. No hyphen

I work with kids and can tell you that May/Mae/Mai is everywhere.

My DD2 has it as one of her middle names, Kelsie May Olivia which I think flows nicely. It's a family name passed from GM and one of my middle names. We had also given our eldest DD another one of my middle names (Louise) so seemed right to give her one too lol.

Sorry but I also dislike the mai/mae spellings.

I prefer 'Mae', just because 'May' is a month, and a word in its own right, whereas 'Mae' is more of a name to me.

It may be popular at the moment, but in my mind if you like it then you should go with it.

Also, if you want to use Ella May or Rosie Mae or whatever as your child's given name, with a middle name and a surname following on, then go for it. You don't have to hyphenate her name in order to use both parts.

I like them nice enough without the hypen which I think changes the feel off the name.. They may be popular but so was Louise and Anne as middle names .

Went for may in the end

Thanks everyone, and everyone that said its too popular, her first name isn't really popular and may makes it sound more complete and flowing with my surname which also starts with a M.