How do you pronounce Esme?

[Muddywellyboots]

Our 3mo DD is called Esme. We love it and pronounce it Esmay. However everyone calls her Esmee despite us introducing her as Esmay. Just wondered what the consensus was?

Just to be clear by the accent coming later I meant later than the split of the feminine pronunciation. Originally, it was Esmé but for a boy. For a girl, it was Esme for years and the accent seemed to resurface in an effort to ensure correct pronunciation.

Just asked some French speakers and they all say Ez-may (I like the name too!).

My cousin is an Ez-mee though...

I've only ever heard it said Ez-mee.

Dd2 is Esme pronounced as ezmay, not had anybody call her ezmee apart from my mum when she was first born

I know one who is called Ez mee but a friends wants Es may if she has a girl so I will have to make a conscious effort to pronounce it her way with the baby.

Either way is right imo.

I've only ever heard it pronounced Ez-mee, and all the Esmes I've known were quite grown up so not recent pronunciation. I think both pronunciations are pretty.

Esmay.
I think it's much nicer imo.

I thought it was Esmay, I haven't come across an Esmee yet.

Es-mee for me too X

Ezmay.

I've only come across the Ezmee pronunciation on MN.

The French thing is a bit of a red herring as the name Esme actually has a big Scottish tradition too. There was a big explanation on one of the 50 billion other threads about it, maybe six or seven years ago.

My niece's name Ez-may. Maybe it's coz we're in Ireland but had never heard of ez-mee til I joined mumsnet. Doesn't sound like a name to me at all!

Ezmee. Never known Ezmay

I have an Esme and pronounce it Ez-mee. Seems the most common way here (s london) unless it has an accent.

I wonder if it's a regional thing! We're in the South West so they love a long eee sound here! I'm starting to wonder if we just call her Esmee as everyone else does regardless of what we say!!

Ours is called ez-may.

Sadly it's a name people pronounce how they want. I have such a name

Esm-ee
definitely

Mine's Esme pronounced Ezmee . I don't mind people pronouncing it Ezmay though the only people that do are from the North of England!

Esmé (masculine) or Esmée (feminine) is a French given name, the participle of French esmer "to esteem" (whence also English aim).[1] Esmé came to be used in Scotland in the 16th century as the name of Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox (1542–1583).

Esmay.

Beautiful name!

Ez-may. I don't like the sound of Ez-mee at all. As pp have said, spelling it Esmé might make the pronounciation easier for people? Although personally I have never heard it pronounced Ez-mee.

Muddywellyboots - I'm in the SW as well so maybe it is regional!

Muddywellyboots are you my sil? I have a 3 month old niece called Esme!
Her name is pronounced Ez-may and it really gets on my sil's wick about family members mispronouncing it repeatedly when she's corrected them. V irritating.

Dd is Esmé prone Ez may although most of the time we just call her Es anyway. When she was tiny dd1used to call her may-may which helped get my preferred pronunciation across beautifully

Ez-may