Georgiana or Mariella?

[ruralmother]

Hi,
Looking for a lovely long elegant girls name, prefer classic but lesser used. Would appreciate your opinions on these too or suggestions for others of the same ilk.

Thank you!

Suggestions: Marina, Clarissa, Francesca, Annabella, Cornelia, Serena, Selina, Genevieve, Helena, Rowena, Frederica, Cressida, Leontine, Miranda, Ariadne, Daphne, Amabel, Clementine, Roberta, Dorothea, Camilla, Marianne, Henrietta.

MikeUnifirmMike, at last, another person who says jorjayna....

Clementina
Tiffany
Theophania
Theodora
Emmeline
Arabella
Amabel
Isabella
Elfrida
Pandora
Parthenope
Artemis
Artemisia
Annunciata
Aglaia
Athene
Cleone
Lucasta
Lucilla
Magdalene
Magdalena
Jocasta
Susanna
Lucinda
Nicolette
Marianne

Thanks Orlanda.

I like both, but I think Mariella would be easier to live with in practice, because Georgiana will often get pronounced as Georgina or Georgianna. My favourite female version of George is actually Georgette, which is a bit less common, but probably impossible to get wrong!

Marina
Marcella

Re Georgiana.

Since when was IA ever pronounced AY? As in Jorjayna.

Tiara pronounced tayra?

I prefer Georgiana.

Mariella feels a bit like a cobbled together name.

Love Georgiana I wanted to name dd it but Dh wasn't keen, beautiful classic unusual name

Georgiana is one of my all time favourite names... it's woefully underrated! I definitely prefer the pronunciation of George-ee-AH-na, but either way it's gorgeous!

Tatiana, by tradition in this country really until this century and the latter part of the last. There was @ famous Duchess of Devonshire in the 18c who was Jorjayna ( in pronunciation).

Just as both Maria and Sophia were pronounced Mar-I-a and Soph-I-a, not Mar-ee-a and Soph-ee-a. You were thought a bit fanciful and twee if you went for the latter.

I’m aware of Mar eye a and Soph eye a, as I know a couple of each - and actually prefer them.

But Jorjayna was simply a quirk of the Cavendishes not a general pronounciation.

Georgiana is top of our list for dd3. I also like Mariella but one of my dd's has a similar name so we wouldn't be able to use it. Tough call, they are both lovely names in my opinion x

Tatiana, no, sorry, it wasn’t. Same pronunciation in my family, came from Hampshire and West Country. Wasn’t Georg ee anna or Georg eye ana either.

And yes, I prefer the Mar eye a and Soph eye a too.

My sister is Soph eye a so I’m biased.

That could be a provincial variation tho. I’m still not convinced, I think people think it was more popular than it was because of Foreman’s book - but I accept I could be wrong.

Love Georgiana

Tatiana - “Jorjayna” was the Whig pronunciation, not just a quirk of the Cavendishes.

Could be regional variation, I agree, but some of them were, middle/upper middle class and had been since pre Tudor times. That doesn’t nec mean anything, I agree given that regional accents continued in the HoL until quite late in the 19c.

Just saying.

And I suspect some of my lot were Tories. It was certainly true that they were known to be bone headed, there was an in joke about it.

The Whigs following the drawl of the Cavendishes and the Devonshire House Circle...

Sure, which is why I instanced my prob Tory lot, quite possibly following fashion. Just because you were a Tory didn’t mean you automatically ignored the Whig fashions, just because you were a Whig didn’t mean you followed it.

As we are not living then and I have yet to see convincing non- anecdotal evidence either side, perhaps we should leave it?

I’d have thought that went without saying.

Um, I thought you were implying that pronunciation was initially limited to the Cavendishes, then the Whigs following their lead. Hence trying to suggest that actually it went broader than that.

Anyway, Happy New Year.

I was referring to the fact we have no survivors from the 18c to settle the matter either way, so there’s nowhere for the discussion to go...