Nadia or Zoe?

[chfs]

Hi everyone,
We were choosing between Nadia and Zoe for a recent born. Our preferred one was [one of these two] but then an English friend of ours said she doesn't look like one, she looks like a [the other name] to me, without knowing that we were considering that other name, which I thought was uncanny! The girl has a Hispanic last name; we live in the UK.

• What would a Nadia or a Zoe "look" like to you? What image does it conjure up?
• Does either name place you in any particular age group / social or professional category / geography etc?
• Which one do you like better?

Would appreciate your thoughts as neither of us is from the UK so unsure how these would be perceived locally

Not wild about either, but if you do choose Zoë make sure you use the diaeresis or it would be pronounced "Zo"

@TheFreaksShallInheritTheEarth

Not wild about either, but if you do choose Zoë make sure you use the diaeresis or it would be pronounced "Zo"

It really wouldn’t. Do people pronounce Chloe as Clo? Zoe is a fab name. I like Nadia but prefer Zoe.

Definitely Zoe

Zoe

@SusannahHolmes

Zoë is timeless. It never got so popular that it aged in the way that Sarah, Claire, etc did. I would say pretty classless too.

Nadia I like a bit less, not sure why. Again, pretty classless and timeless.

It's so pretentious with the two dots though. It's a really wet name in my opinion. Nadia feels much stronger to me.

Pretentious with the two dots? That is how it is spelled. It is a diaresis to show that the "e" needs pronouncing separately. Like Chloë. It's the correct, original, traditional spelling - not a pretention!

Nadia is beautiful, Zoe to me is very common - and not as in popular.

@Essexmummy88

Nadia is beautiful, Zoe to me is very common - and not as in popular.

Agreed.

It's not pretentious with the two dots over the 'e'. It's how it's spelt!

Nadia is my sister’s name (born mid 1960s). She is very attractive, successful and outgoing with loads of friends and has a great lifestyle - lives overseas.

Zoe is more cutesy I think and the only one I knew well was a total snake!

Guess which one I would go for.!

Love the name Zoe. It is an awesome name and no one struggles to pronounce it I am a bit biased though. Nadia is good too but I don't know what it is like to be called it!

Zoe definitely!

I much prefer Zoe.

Nadia will get shortened to Nads.

Thank you very much everyone for your feedback, some very interesting points we hadn't thought about! Zoe it is then, may save Nadia for the next one if we have one:)

They are both very beautiful, timeless names. But overall I'd probably go for Zoe. I also like that it means 'life'.

Anyone who said it was cutesy, twee, well that's very subjective of course (but you're wrong!) I think you're basing it on the name ending in an 'ee' sound, but of course so many names do, so that's silly. Zoe is a classic.

Like Zoe, really don't like Nadia.

I like Zoe x

I much prefer Nadia! Zoe is nowhere near as flowing and mysterious.

Zoe bc it's lovely
Also bc Nadia has few diff pronunciations
Naadia
Nardia
Nadya
I don't esp like any of them