Annabelle, Francesca or Eleanora?

[ZigAZigAhh]

I'm 36 weeks along with DC2 and while DH and I been struggling with boys names the whole way through, we had pretty much settled on Annabelle for a girl.

Now we are having a wobble and reconsidering some others in our shortlist - I would be very interested in honest opinions!

Annabelle - we both like it (no mean feat) and has nice nicknames (Anna, Annie, Bel, Elle etc).

Francesca - I love it, DH not so sure. Don't really like Fran as a nickname but there are plenty of others (Chess, Chesca, Frankie etc) and she may end up with a nickname completely unrelated to her name anyway. My DBro would have been Francesca if he had been a girl and I think my DMum's love of the name has rubbed off a bit on me.

Eleanora - I have always quite liked Eleanor but not enough for it to be a serious contender. Came across Eleanora recently and absolutely love it. DH seems keen too. Seems to be quite uncommon compared to the other too.

Any thoughts very welcome!

Is Eleanora an alternative spelling? I prefer Eleonora.

Fashion is fickle, when my Annabel was little there were loads of Eleanors / Ellie's but hardly any Annabels.

Francesca

Annabelle definitely.

All nice actually IMO.

Eleanora is beautiful

Leanora also nice. Although I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling.

Eleanora is beautiful. So is Leonora.

Oh yes leonora that looks better.

Definitely Eleanora!

Love Annabel, don't like Annabelle - just looks frilly to me, or like two names pushed together.

The 3 Francescas I know (all adults) get called Fran.

Annabelle but the spelling Annabel is so much nicer.

Not keen on Francesca or Eleanora.

I like all 3 names

I do prefer Annabel to Annabelle as I just prefer the streamlined look of it. It's a lovely name and I would call an Annabel Annie

Francesca - lovely name. I also dislike Fran but really like the quirkiness of Chess also like Chesca. Would worry she would become known as Frankie though which I dislike

Eleanora- beautiful. I've always prefered Eleanora to Eleanor. It looks prettier and is more unusual. I really like Norah but think most would shorten to Ellie or Ella which unfortunately there are rather alot of lately.

I think Annabel would be my top choice

The problem with Annabel is that it gets misspelled a lot Anabell, Annabell, Annabelle, Anabelle... and I'm talking from experience

Thank you all so much for your comments - really useful to hear opinions! We are still a bit stuck, DH and I both seem to prefer different names on different days so it may be a case of waiting until she (if she is in fact a she and not a he) arrives.

Re Eleanora, it would be pronounced EL-uh-NOR-uh. Eleonora (from what I have read!) is a different name with a different pronunciation (el-LAY-oh-nora). But yes, definitely some potential for confusion. Apparently Billie Holliday's real name was Eleanora (random Sunday morning trivia)

Prefer spelling of Annabel. Eleanor is much better than Eleanora although I do like Leonora. Francesca is ok but really dislike Fran. Arabella is beautiful as previously suggested.

What about Leona
Spelling and pronunciation less open to interpretation different spells

I love Annabelle but there are so many of them around at the moment... i have 4 friends wirh little ones called Annabelle. Francesca is lovely too.

I like Francesca but they are all good choices. When the baby is born, you'll know which one she is