Urgent!! She's 5 days old, please help.

[IAmABam]

Before she was born our short list was, in order of preference:
Eilidh
Elena
Elise
Cara
Arianne
Jamie

Now she's here I just can't see any of them suiting her, although I still love all the names. The longer she's nameless the more confused I get so I have set a deadline of tomorrow morning to decide.

Please help me choose between one of these names or something else I might like even better.

How about Noelle seeing as its Xmas?!

If Eilidh is eye-lish then i love it. Always loved that name after watching a programme about conjoined twins when i was young.

jrmumma
I watched that programme too. I really remember it. I must have been about 14 at the time it was on. Really sad story.

It's the Scottish Eilidh so pronounced AY-LEE

iwaswatchingthat it really stuck with me too.

Eilidh would be my pick. I guessed the pro councillor as well although I have never met one.

Elena and the varying pronounciations have always confused me.

Eilidh if you really, really must choose tonight - but to be honest, I'd take the pressure off myself and make the decision not to choose until the New Year. It will be far worse to change it later than wait a bit. Loads of babies don't get named immediately.

Ok, point taken about the R in Elena not being used.

Elena reads ellen-a to me but tis pretty.

I love Eilidh -- it's a lovely name for a little girl and because it's Scottish doesn't sound like a little girl name when the baby grows up.

(Eilís is the name pronounced Ay-LEESH or Eye-LEESH, and it is Irish for Elizabeth)

(I would never pronounce Elena any way other than Eh-LAY-na. I think to be Ellen-a it would have to have two Ls. Or two Ns.)

"It's the Scottish Eilidh so pronounced AY-LEE"

Bloody hell OP - have you forgotten that you are giving a name to a PERSON?
A name that they will live with for eighty odd years?
Eilidh is not a name for a person, it looks like a chemical formula and doesn't exactly role off the tongue...

Be cool when you do this, not fashionable or a little bit "make it up". Your child will go to school, then university, then into the wide old world - don't saddle her with a ridiculous name that MumsNet loves this week but which she will grow to hate (and then just change).

Give her a proper easy to spell and say over the phone name which won't become a burden or a source of bullying.

Don't name her for a fad or a lapse of judgement, be kind to her, she won't be in Scotland forever.

And look carefully into the history and etymology of the name you choose because although the entire cast and crew of this web site like the name Eilidh very few of them know that it means "bird" or "bright" (depending on whether you believe it's Gaelic or Greek in origin.

mini I think your post is quite offensive to anyone Scottish or living in Scotland. Eilidh is not a ridiculous name. Many girls have this name in Scotland. My 5 year old can spell it as our neighbour's daughter is called Eilidh. Chemical formula..... Pfffft! Away and bile yer heid!

Oh and for the record I am Scottish and DH is Irish and we live in New York at the moment. I have learned many new childrens' names since my DD started school here.
Borja, Tomas, Zeke, Matteo, Pablo, Skylar to name a few. It's a great big world out there. No one bats an eyelid at my childrens' Irish Gaelic names. It's part of their heritage.

Eilidh is my most favourite girls name ever. I've loved it since I was 7.

I'm not having any more DC but I'm so utterly desperate to use that name!

I'm Scottish too so it's a perfectly normal name here.

Please please call her Eilidh.

Eilidh is a perfectly ordinary name. It maybe doesn't work if you don't have Scottish heritage.

Cara is lovely, and quite unusual. It means 'face' in Spanish, with the association of beauty. I love it.

I like Cara, but everyone I know seems to be using that name or considering it at the moment

Really offended by minimonty's post. The name isn't new or trendy to me. I have a friend in her thirties with it. A beautiful Scottish name.

Amen to that post about the world being a big place LifeofGru. My DCs went to school with children named Clothilde, Mikulas, Jaela, Adan, Graham, Salvador, Weronika, Maro, Wiktoria, Faustina, Fotios, Petroula, Igor, Aoife, Roisin, Ciara, Angharad..

Cara is Irish for friend too.

(It's been a long time since I saw a post like MiniMonty's here)

mini is being rude and talking rubbish.

My ds goes to nursery with an Eilidh, and we're in a typical English town. It's a lovely name!

Give her a proper easy to spell and say over the phone name which won't become a burden or a source of bullying.

What a dull, boring world we'd live in if we all stuck to this rule! (I rather like my ten-letter-long Gaelic name, thanks).

Elena although I prefer Eleonore.

Eilidh I don't know how to pronounce this, I'm guessing but if I'm guessing right it is lovely.

I assume mini's children are called Janet and John. Saddling them with any other name would just be cruel .

I love Gaelic names and wish i had ANY sort of Scottish / Irish heritage so I could use them.

Eilidh is perfectly well known where I stay.

You need to widen your horizons MiniMonty to include at least the rest of the UK in your tiny world view.

Love love Eilidh. Ridiculous post about it being a 'chemical formula' WTAF? . It is a traditional Gaelic name in the same way Aishwarya is an Indian name. Maybe that's a "fad" and "burden" too?

Since when is Eilidh not a real name?! I know adult and child Eilidh's and it was on my list if we'd had a girl, I love it! Beautiful name! Elena is nice too but I like Scottish names.
Oh and congratulations on your new baby