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Baby 10 days old and doubting our name choice

152 replies

OutOfSortsToday · 17/10/2021 16:17

Before she was born we had a shortlist of 3 for a girl, when she arrived DH admitted one of them (my favourite) he just couldn't get on board with as a first name. That has become the middle name (Cecilia)

Of the other two options we were totally undecided but eventually went for Elise, a name we've always really liked.

We've now discovered that lots of people pronounce it Eh - leess (with second part as 'lease' like in leasehold). We had always thought it was Eh- leez, and we much prefer that.

We've found that almost everyone so far has pronounced it Eh - lease with a soft s.

  1. are we wrong to pronounce it eh-leez?

  2. should we change it if we're finding the different pronunciation a bit annoying? Maybe I'm overthinking it?

Please be gentle, I'm feeling pretty rotten physically after the birth and have found picking her name really stressful from the off.

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mogwa · 09/09/2022 09:26

I've always pronounced it eh-leez with the same ending sound as Louise/Eloise/Denise (the "de-niece" pronunciation is bizarre to me). I'm aware that some people pronounce it eh-lease though but I didn't realise it was so common. Personally I would be hesitant to use a name with more than one pronunciation because your child will end up having to correct the pronunciation all the time. And there's the possibility that they'll just give up and stop correcting people eventually because it's less hassle.

A bit of an aside, but I remember reading that Sadiq Khan's name is actually pronounced by his family/friends more like SAH-dik but people in the white community pronounced it wrong and I guess he couldn't be bothered correcting it all the time.

I think Cecilia, Ilaria and Elodie are lovely.

Haffdonga · 09/09/2022 09:49

My ds has a name that is pronounced differently from how it's written (it's a name from DH's language). This stops being a problem as soon as you start getting out and about and introducing your dc to the world in real life not in writing.
This is baby Blue. Come here Blue. Would auntie Mary like to hold Blue? Blue get that out of your mouth. Etc
The fact that Blue is actually spelt Bleugh will pass 90% by who just know her as her name.

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