Completely torn between two 'boring' names!

[intheshallows]

I'm beginning to panic a bit as we still haven't settled on a name for our baby girl- and I'm desperate not to wait until she's here to decide (so please don't suggest that as an option!)

We love both Emily and Alice. I've always loved Emily and that's the name we settled on at first and started using it to refer to bump. But I felt that we hadn't tried hard enough to explore all options and after reading the whole baby name book I thought Alice was nice. My husband prefers Alice too (although he does like Emily).

So we settled on Alice thinking it was slightly more underused and I got very excited about it. But we keep on accidentally referring to her as Emily still and I can't help but feel in my gut I prefer the name Emily?

So which do you think? Emily or Alice?

I say wait til you meet her - she might look nothing like an Emily!

If we named babies by what they look like they’d all be called Slippery Spam.

Emily xX

@GwendolineWindowlene best response

When I hear the name Alice, all I can think of is that song....' Alice, Alice who the f* is Alice'

I love Alice it's beautiful and timeless x

They are both lovely, and I would also suggest waiting until she arrives. Might turn out to be a boy despite the scans saying otherwise...

Also, other ways to help choose - I think it depends on the middle name you have chosen and your surname too. How do they sound together? What are the initials... Do they spell something or are they an acronym for something...?

Flip a coin, your heart will
Let you know what you really want if you’re disappointed with the result

I personally prefer Alice though

I'd go Emily purely because My ds has a little friend in nursery called Emily and the way he says her name is so cute

I prefer Alice. Known but underused now, everyone knows how to say and spell, cute on a little one but sophisticated on a lady, feminine but not frilly.

Be prepared for her to be known as Emily initial when she goes to school if you pick Emily. There are always two in every class.

Emily.

But either one you pick will be lovely, they're classic names not boring!

Alice 1 million times, Alice

Alice

@Didyousaynutella

Be prepared for her to be known as Emily initial when she goes to school if you pick Emily. There are always two in every class.

There are A LOT of Emilys tbf. It is not that high overall in the ONS table, but if you look at slightly older mums, (35+) it's #3 or so. Where I live, mums tend to be that sort of age, so we get a lot of Emilys.

Alice - because there are less of them. Both names are perfectly nice.

Alice

I much much prefer Alice. Emily is just SO dull and bland to me. What about Emmeline, nickname Emmy/Emme/Emmie? Bit less bland than Emily on its own. Both will wind up as Em as an adult regardless.

Emily may be popular with babies at the moment but I don’t think there’s much between them in society as a whole, neither is unusual. My kids have not had an emily in their class but we know people of both names. I wouldn’t pick based on being more unusual as alice could boom next year! Personally I prefer Emily but they’re both nice

Thanks so much again all for your feedback! I'm not going to pick on the basis on which is least popular. I'm a teacher (secondary) and would consequently expect there to be far more Emilys than Alices in my school, but it's actually the reverse. There's one class with three Emilys in but none at all on year 7 or 8, so I know first hand it's completely down to luck how many there are in each class.

Rumours Princess Eugenie might be considering Alice for her little one- if something like that happens then it will have a massive boom!

Regardless, I agree that Alice seems a little more 'special' whereas Emily would be construed as more 'boring'. Not sure why! I just prefer the sound of the name Emily for some reason? Think Alice might sound a bit 'wet'? But which is better- boring or wet!! I just love both! Going to tally up your answers soon but think it's ridiculously close...

I love both names but I have an Emily so slightly biased towards that - as a PP said although it was the most popular name for ages my Emily is 21 this year & she's the only one I have ever known.

Thinking about it and, despite my previous comment, I think you need to forget popularity entirely. They are both well used, nice names.

Personally, I agree with you that Alice has something more about it, whereas Emily feels like a default name if you can't think of anything else. But that's my perception entirely and someone else's view will be completely the opposite.

Just pick the one you like best, basically!

Alice

I like both but prefer Alice.
But go with the one that you love more deep down.

I like both but prefer Emily. I don’t like that Alice has the word ‘lice’ in it.