Eira or Arienne

[TonbridgeDad3]

Hi all, really hoping I can get your thoughts. My wife and I have just had our first child - an amazing beautiful girl! - and throughout the pregnancy we have found the advice on Mumsnet invaluable! Now though, we are desperate to finally name our daughter and need your advice.

My wife is Welsh, and as a nod to her (and the baby’s) heritage we want to use a Welsh name. We’ve got it down to a choice of two now, which do you think is best:

Eira
Arienne

Thank you!!

I'm biased towards Eira as it's my DD's name. I love it and there's not too many other Eira's around ( we live in Wales and she goes to a welsh language school) . Non welsh speakers often pronounce it aye-ra ( rather than eh-ra)

Arienne isn't welsh. It isn't welsh at all

Eira is popular at the moment, but it's nice for a winter baby girl.
Most non-Welsh speakers will say it as Eye-ra or Ay-ruh though and neither are pretty

Eira on the grounds it is Welsh and Arienne isn't.

Eira is beautiful but a little tricky for non-Welsh speakers to say. It's EY-ra (ey as in hey, ra as in rabbit) but in some parts of Wales it sounds more like EYE-ra. Non-Welsh speakers tend to say the ra parr as ruh. So bear that in mind in case it will annoy you.

Eira is one of my favourite Welsh name alongside Alys, Mari, Cadi, Mali, Nia, Elin, Ffion and Tesni.

I like both but prefer Eira. Where I am from we pronounce it Eye-ra though (S.Wales)

Eira is lovely, very seasonal.

Arienne is pretty but it's not Welsh. I prefer the spelling Arianne.

Eira is a lovely Welsh name, very suitable for a December born little girl.

Arienne is not a Welsh name. I know of one
girl called Arian which means silver or money but it's a very unusual name.

Eira is beautiful for a winter baby.
I love your list @CaffiSaliMali - Welsh girls names are so lovely!

Love Eira (I'm Welsh), really don't like Arienne, and as others have said, it's not Welsh.

What about Arwen?

I think they're both really nice names

Arwen isn't welsh either.It's from Lord of the Rings

@KirstenBlest

Arwen isn't welsh either.It's from Lord of the Rings

Anwen is Welsh I think?

Congratulations on the new baby

Anwen is.

Arienne

Sorry. I meant Anwen. Autocorrect 😡

That's OK @Justkeeppedaling

@TonbridgeDad3, if you are in Tonbridge, why not use Arienne as a first name and Eira as a middle name

or another lovely name of your choosing. The Eye-ra way of saying it is mainly by people who don't speak Welsh. Urg!

@dotdotdotdotdot - yes, there are some really beautiful Welsh names out there, especially for girls

Alys and Mari are my frontrunners, but I do love Eira too, very pretty and also seasonal in the OP's case