Eila

[samsam1986]

Hi everyone! My first post on the site - but I've been reading lots of very useful info for a while now.

So, my girlfriend & I are expecting our first child this Summer, and if it's a girl, we're thinking about calling her Eila (pronounced I-La, just like Isla). The reason behind it is that I wanted to honour my late grandmother who was called Eileen, and whilst Eila isn't necessarily an official shortened version of Eileen, the pronunciation is similar, and it's also a little bit quirky, a bit different.

I just wanted to get some other peoples opinions on the name, as we can't really ask friends & family as we'd like it to be a surprise.

How about Eilish? Or Eilis, the Irish original?

I like it. It looks and sounds pretty and it's a nice acknowledgement.

I wonder whether the 'but she'll be forever having to correct people!' hand-wringing is quite geographically split, maybe? I'm willing to believe that in some rural or suburban areas where all children are currently called Harry or Oliver or Emily or Olivia (or Isla...), this really is a problem. In the (fairly deprived, very multicultural) corner of London I grew up in and am raising my child in, and in the many circles I've worked in (latterly very very conventional middle class ones), it's really normal for names to be unusual, and new to people, and often requiring attention be paid to both pronunciation and spelling. Really normal. Kids accept it, teachers accept it, colleagues accept it. People are mostly keen to be polite, and being polite means taking care to use and spell someone's name correctly and not gratuitously insult it.

My own name is unusual, 'real', spelt as it's pronounced but still frequently needs double checking. It really doesn't bother me now and never has done.

I know an 80 year old woman called Eila, pronounced Ee-lah.
I like the name.

I like it and would instinctively pronounce it the same as Isla.

A family member of mine is called Eila (she is under 10) and i think it's lovely - never has any issues with the pronunciation or spelling, occasionally have to spell it but I think most people do at some point with all the names in the world and different ways of spelling them

Gimble One way of saying vomit in Icelandic is æla which is indeed pronounced like Isla :) the actual spelling Isla shouldn't have been weird to your friend though since in Icelandic, Iceland is called Ísland

Eila is lovely.

When I saw it written down I instinctively pronounced it the way you want it. But even if I hadn't, people are being a bit weird: it's a perfectly understandable pronunciation from the spelling and a perfectly reasonable spelling of the pronunciation. Use it if you like it.

I would pronounce it ayla as well. To me it’s like you forgot the L from Leila!

Hmm yes maybe there was a bit lost in translation then with the spelling @abiirthdaycake, I remember us all getting confused between I, E and A. Vomit is probably the only Icelandic word I can say then. There's some craaaaaazy long place names there. One of our favourite games was driving around and trying to read them. The sat nav gave it a good go too.

I pronounced it eye-la. I think it's nice!