Neela

[jamenhej]

For a number of reasons, I would love this name if DC2, due in a couple of months, turns out to be a DD. Any thoughts? Nila is another option for the spelling...

Neela - said Knee-lah, yeah? If not Nila, I would say Ny-lah (I prefer the way this sounds)

Neela - "Knee her!"

I prefer Nyla.

I'm not keen.

Yep, said knee-la! I'm not so keen on Nyla I'm afraid (although the more I'm saying it now the more it's growing on me!!), but it's useful to hear that Nila might be pronounced that way, that stupidly hadn't occurred to me!

Sounds like a nickname or slang, to be honest. On an adult woman particularly.

I love it. it was on my list aswell but was yet another veto from boring dp.

I'd spell it neela rather than nila.

What about Naya

My bestie has this name. Pronounced knee-lah.

Definitely not made up. It is quite a common Indian name.

The Indian link is one of the reasons we are keen on it, although like Giles, my DH does need a bit of persuading on it, at least for a first name!

In my accent, I love it! In certain English accents, for example, I can imagine it would sound like kneeler. If that bothers you?x

Wouldn't bat an eyelid. Very common Indian name and not difficult to pronounce. I might be slightly surprised to find it attached to a non-Indian child but probably only for about half a second!

I had wondered about both the kneeler aspect, and also about it being used for a non Indian baby, but it's reassuring to hear that it wouldn't seem that unusual! The kneeler thing might attract a few comments I think, but easy to laugh / shrug off I think....?

Not quite sure why I needed to use 'I think' twice there Tired brain!

There was a Neela at school. She was from Northern Ireland, it was fifty years ago, so not new and not specially Indian name. I think it's rather nice.

I like it, but then I'm a ER fan and loved Dr Neela Rasgotra. :)

That's cool! I hope I didn't give the impression in my OP that I was trying to say I invented it

I like it - easy to spell and pronounce. In theory you could make playground jokes out of it but you'd need to be really desperate (speaking as someone who has a name which you could do similarly feeble jokes with - never been a problem).

I'm now going mad trying to remember where I know it from and why it gives me good vibes - it's probably either a science fiction character or a really nice Indian workmate from long ago.

What IHeart said, although, with the other thread running about the name being "too white" I'm no longer sure we're allowed, on MN to say that it is a lovely Indian name, that I might wonder about if the child didn't have Indian heritage.
It's easy to pronounce, and easy to spell and isn't the name of an object though, so it passes my test

X-post. Oh of course, it's Neela from ER. She was great .

Haven't read the 'too white' thread in full, I must admit, but in this specific case, we did wonder briefly about a potential 'mismatch' between the name's most common heritage and the name bearer's heritage, but we hope it shouldn't present too much of an issue, and India is a country very close to our family's hearts and is reflected subtly in DD1's name potentially outs self to those with particularly good Sherlock skills so we hope that overall it would work out.

Sounds gorgeous I've not heard of that before. My sister was going to choose the name Neeve which is Irish and means snow I think.

Neeve really isn't Irish
Necking. Tell me she didn't go for that?

Yes, very common Indian name, quite a few in my family. I considered it for DD2 (mixed race, Indian and English) but went with something else. I like it. I don't believe you have to stick to names relevant to your specific cultural heritage.

Neela looks like you were wanting to call your child Nuala but didn't know how it spell it properly tbh

Unless you are Indian or have Indian heritage obviously