Turkish names - how do these sound to an English ear?

[smyrnamum]

DH is Turkish and we are struggling to come up with names for DD2. DD1 was easy as it was a family name that is easily pronounced in English and has an even easier nickname. This time around not so simple!

Our shortlist so far:

Selin (sounds like "Celine")
Elif (eh-leaf)
Defne (def-neh - Turkish version of Daphne)
Aylin (sounds like "Eileen")

Thoughts?

[MikeUniformMike]

All lovely. I like Elif best.

[Foniks]

All sound lovely to me. But then I usually love most Turkish names I hear and grew up with lots of Turkish kids so maybe I don't hear it how people who didn't will hear it?. I think Selin and Aylin are the best in your list, but I do like all of them. S names and A names look quite nice written down anyway. You've got good taste in names by the way, because they're all really nice!

[Orangedragonfly]

Elif or Aylin.

[Hulababy]

On first seeing them writing down (I teach, so often that is the first time I see a name and have to try to pronounce it), these would be my first attempts:

Selin - S-e-lin (phonetically)
Elif - Eh-l-i-f (I'd initially go for a short /e/ and /i/ sound)
Defne - Def-nee (I'd have added a longer /ee/ sound at the end, because the constantan was ending the name I think
Aylin - Ay-lin (saying a/ay/ as in pay and with a short /i/ sound)

However, once told I'd do my best to remember and use the correct pronunciation thereafter.

[CoteDAzur]

Selin is probably your best bet out of the shortlist in the OP.

Elif is not pronounced eh-leaf. The 'i' is short as in 'fit'.

Defne and Aylin will make life difficult for her, as she will have to spell out her name for the rest of her life. Also, Defne means laurel or bay - the herb often used in cooking fish & meat.

Don't forget: All Turkish names mean something, and most are words currently used in everyday speech - not only various flower names and sea, water, free, etc but also war, peace, etc.

How about these?

Ayla (light around stars)
Alev (flame)
Buse (kiss)
Eda (elegance - close enough translation)
Ezgi (melody)
Hayal (waking dream)
Izim (my path/the trail I left behind - sorry, I'm really bad at translating)
Lal (shiny & dark red color)
Lale (tulip)
Maral (female deer)
Meltem (breeze)
Mey (wine - not the usual word for 'wine' but a word sometimes used in poems)
Naz (not sure if there is a word for this in English - a very feminine behaviour, where we want our admirers to keep asking us out and we keep saying 'no', hoping they will keep asking. Better ask your mum for explanation. Pretty name, though)
Nehir (river)
Oya (elaborate needlework)
Peri (fairy)
Seda (pleasant sound)
Sema (sky)
Sevgi (love)

[alltheworld]

Emine?

[grasspigeons]

I like all of them but probably Elif best.
I also like Azra

[MrsWhirly]

What about Ayda? I like Selin best from your list and Defne the least x

[CoteDAzur]

Sorry about some of the definitions in my earlier post. I copy/pasted it from an earlier thread. Obviously you don't need to ask your mum anything

[MaisyPops]

Selin and Elif are both lovely.

[HouseworkIsAPain]

Would you think about adding an ‘e’ to the end of Selin to make pronunciation more obvious?

I have a name that is phonetically different to actua pronunciation. I wish my parents had given me a name that doesn’t require me to tell people how to say it.

[Hulababy]

I have a male cousin called Lal, pronounced with a longer /ah/ sound. Assume it is unisex as a name.

[slippermaiden]

All sound great. I have a Turkish friend, she is called Nilufer, which I think is so pretty.

[CoteDAzur]

No, Lal is a girl's name. It is absolutely not a unisex name.

Lal means 'ruby'. The word was used in Ottoman poetry for women's red lips.

[CoteDAzur]

"Would you think about adding an ‘e’ to the end of Selin to make pronunciation more obvious?"

You can't add letters to Turkish names (or words in general) because that letter would never be silent and it would either make the word meaningless or completely change its meaning.

For example, Seline would mean "To Selin".

[Iusedtobecarmen]

I like them all but Defne the most

Probably as it's the least English sounding name
And i.understand Turkish,so not difficult to me

My fave TUrkish girls name.though is Lale
One of my dc has a Turkish middle name. Not one that a non Turkish speaker would necessarily know how to pronounce.
Oh none of us are Turkish!

[HeteronormativeHaybales]

Selin is lovely, and I adore Seda from Cote's list. I knew a Seza (say-za) in a former life. Quite liked that too.

[Toomanypackingboxes]

Defne is the only one I would struggle with the pronunciation of without some help and I find it a little awkward to say but I would just pick the one you like best.

[smyrnamum]

Thanks everyone! I showed this thread to DH. He's leaning towards Selin but my favorite is Elif - which he thought English speakers would really struggle with.

Agree with CoteDAzur we are not going to change any spellings as Turkish is a phonetic language so it changes the Turkish pronunciation. Additionally some changes in tense/sentence structure are made by adding vowels so it really changes it to something else.

Cote we considered Naz but there's a rapper named Nas that DH used to love as a teenager and he worried people would think we named the baby after the rapper! I like Peri but DH said no way as is has a "stupid" meaning (fairy). I really like Alev and hadn't heard it, going to ask DH about it!

Unfortunately seems half the Turks we know named their baby girls Ayla recently so that's off the table.

[MangosteenSoda]

Another vote for Elif followed by Selin.

I once met a Turkish girl called Melis (Melise) which I thought was very pretty.

[Joeybee]

They are really nice names. My only concern would be that in the UK the child would constantly be having to spell out and tell people how to pronounce their name. Elif and Aylin are SO cute.

[CoteDAzur]

There are also:

Irem (garden of eden)
Eda (elegance)
Alara (red ornament)
Melisa (an aromatic plant)

[ChocolateCrunch]

Turkish names are lovely, I've never heard any before. From OP's and CoteDAzur's lists, I like:

Elif
Aylin
Maral
Alara

[starkid]

I like Selin and Aylin the best out of those, and are pronounced pretty similar to how they look.

[CoteDAzur]

Oh yes, Turkish girls' names are very pleasant and much loved by Anglophones.

Boys' names, on the other hand....