Marlowe (for a girl)... thoughts?

[Tucancrossing]

And would love suggestions of Welsh middle names to go with it!

Makes me think of Kit (as in stabbed in the eye in a tavern brawl) - I'd say it's a boys name, but each to their own.

Welsh middle names - Alys, Bethan, Cadi, Rhian, Efa, Eira, Eirlys, Ffion, Fioled, Lili, Nesta, Nia, Tanwen, Morwenna, Cafell, Idelle, Telyn, Iola.

@DPotter, Marlow is in Buckinghamshire not Berkshire.

@MagpieSong, did you get those names from a welsh names web site? There are duff ones in there. Idelle, Telyn and Cafell are not welsh girl's names.

No, but tbh a number of names I’ve heard in the area/my sons school aren’t technically welsh though in Wales. I wrongly assumed as I hadn’t heard them in England. Apologies for them not being actually welsh.

MikeUniformMike

Still doesn't make it a suitable name for a child, whichever county it's in!

Awful.

@MagpieSong, Telyn is just the word for a harp, so a bit of an odd first name - possibly used because of the popularity of Harper. Cafell means cell, as in enclosure not biological, so another strange choice. Perhaps they say it as Caff-ul or Caff-elle not CAV-eLL (LL being the welsh letter).
Idelle if welsh would be id-ELL-eh (welsh LL again) and just looks and sounds odd. it is probably pronounced Id-elle to rhyme with Adele.

Noun first names are strange sounding in Welsh because something like Telyn Mai or Telyn Evans reads like The harp of May or The harp of Evans.

Similarly Marlowe Catrin Smith sounds like Catrin Smith's Marlow, like a guide to or blog about Catrin Smith's life in a pretty Buckinghamshire town.

I commented on another thread about Seren Efa being The Star of Eve, and someone said "Evening Star" but evening has a different word in Welsh. There's a lot of sothach on these threads about welsh names.

Is Cariad a real Welsh name? Or just a Welsh word? I love that it's got a gorgeous ancient sound to my ears. I'd feel like a character in a novel involving castles and dragons.

@DPotter, it is better than Harlowe, although Harlow(e) makes me think of
When she was introduced to the American film star and sex symbol, Jean Harlow, Margot Asquith uttered a famous put-down, correcting the latter’s mispronunciation of her first name with the words: “The 't’ is silent, as in Harlow.”...

Thanks Mike, that makes sense. Yes, I think some parents choose based on sound and not meaning (everywhere, not just Wales - I mean Georgia means farmer which is an odd thing to call your daughter). Yeah, there is a lot of rubbish on name threads. I think as names become less traditional and so on, it becomes harder to pinpoint origin. Equally, there are huge amounts of Amelias, Isabellas, Elsa, Sophia, Grace, Ellas and Evie’s etc in this area of Wales - so not Welsh names at all despite being in a welsh speaking area with a son at a welsh language school. Not so many Ava-Leigh’s and Daisy-Mae’s as there were when we lived in London though. Idelle has the ‘ll’ sound, but cafell doesn’t (it has the v as an f welsh sound) so it’s ‘cav-elle’.

@MagpieSong, Idelle is just weird. It doesn't look like it should be welsh at all. It looks like a german name pronounced phonetically by a Welsh-speaker. You might as well say IsabeLLa or ArabeLLa, or Amelia as Am-EL-ya and Grace as Grah-Keh.
Cafell pronounced Cav-elle is odd too - quite illogical.

Celyn seems popular on here. I can understand the popularity of Holly as the sound is quite pretty, but Celyn (KEL-in) looks and sounds masculine. Celynnen is feminine but again a strange noun to use as a name.

@StillStriving, Cariad is used as a name but IMO it is dreadful.

Cariad is the word for Love, Girlfriend/Boyfriend, Lover, Sweetheart, or Charity.

Add that it also gets mispronounced - said as Carry-ad nor Carr-yad . Bleurgh!

There is an actress with the name, and as her surname can be a first name, I hear is as Name's Girlfriend.

I love it

So beautiful!

I don't usually like surnames but I think it works and I quite like it. Though weirdly my first association with the name is the fictional detective Philip Marlowe lol,.but I don't think it's a bad connection.

Awful sorry, give the poor girl a real name!

Really not nice.