Elena or Elaina?

[Raines100]

We've just found out we're expecting a girl, and so we can finally use the girl's name we've had in mind for years. She will be Elena, pronounced the Spanish way, 'El-ay-na'. I'm concerned that, with this spelling, everyone will call her Eleanor or Ellen-ah (the Italian pronunciation). 'Elaina' should set the record straight... but will everybody think I can't spell?

I have a Spanish friend called Elena. She doesn't quite pronounce it as elayna, more like uh-leh-na.

I have an Alaina!

Don't arrest me mumsnet for making up a name!!!!!

To make matters more confusing I know an Eleni who pronounces her name Elaney. Apparently the 'correct' way of pronouncing it is L N E.

I would write Elena and pronounce it E -lay- na, but then I lived in a Russian speaking country and that is how it is pronounced there. (Lena said Lay-na for short)

@Raines100 OP I know this thread is incredibly old now..! But I'm in the same predicament! What did you choose in the end?

@JDF1611 Our Elena is now 6 years old and loves her name. We realised that we (and she in future) would be far less likely to lament the correct spelling, regardless of how others cope.

I'd say it's about 50/50 as to whether people are familiar with the name already. She often gets Eleanor from people reading it first, and some people seem never to have heard it before and ask me to repeat it, but it's all quite easily resolved. No one continually gets it wrong. It doesn't feel like a big deal.

Hopefully, she won't find it tedious in future, but for now, she loves it.

@Raines100 thank you so much for taking the time to reply! It's a lovely name and so pleased your daughter likes it too :)

I can tell you for a fact that Elena is not pronounced El-ay-na by Spanish! It's only Americans and some British (not all regions) that spell Elena as El-lay-na.

Italians, Spanish and all EU countries spell Elena as Elen-na and it's an extremely popular name in southern Europe.

Please name your child Elena, with an expectation to be pronounced El-lay-na, only and only if you really don't mind correcting more than half of the population on how to spell/pronounce it.

My name is one of them that everyone gets it wrong and it makes my life miserable...

If you want to be pronounced El-lay-na, go for Elaina or Elayna or Eleina or Eleyna or Elana.

Not Elena!!!

I agree - nowhere is Elena pronounced as El-ay-na. There's NO ay sound!

Elena is very popular in Germany too where it's simply Elen-ah.

So if any parent wants Elayna, then spell it Elayna or Elaina!

I'll just leave this here:
youtube/BUi9vMqXxDo

Elena. We have one.😀

Only issue we have with ours is some people say EEEE-layna, and that would probably occur with Elaina as well.

Elena corrects people who pronounce it wrong. We say Ah-layna.

She gets called Laney, too, which is cute.

I would assume someone with a child called Elaina couldn’t spell - it even just got picked up by the spellchecker on here!