Esmé or Isabella?

[pinkrainbowsocks]

Which do you prefer? Esmé pronounced ez-may

Isabella

Not a fan of Esme. Dd is Isabella so obviously love it however she's currently being tortured with 'Isabella. You're boyfriend's here' from Encanto and is cursing me for saddling her with it (has previously loved it 😆)

Wouldn't it be Esmée in French?

Yes Esmée is the feminine version, Esmé is male, but they're pronounced the same.

I know SO many young Isabelle and Isabellas. Literally about 10 within close family and friends. It's a lovely nane but it's seriously ruined by it's popularity.
I love Esme but wouldn't personally choose a name that needs an accent as I have no idea how to type it.

Isabella

they are both way overused though.

how about Estella?

Esme.

Isabella is a bit fussy. I prefer Isabel/Isobel

… or Ismene

Definitely Isabella. It's classic and beautiful.

Isabella used to be beautiful but has become a little dull from overuse imo. I know sooo many Isabellas aged 5-20!!

It must depend on your area whether something is over used as my dd was one of 3 Isabella's in her primary school of 600+ and the only one in her year group of 90 both of the others were Spanish children living here though. There was one other in her very large brownie unit with a huge catchment. I work in a school and we don't have a single Isabella from 2 yo nursery right up to primary 7.

I've got an Esme. I let people pronounce it how they like- arguments over perfect pronunciation in a multicultural society are just unnecessary and I occasionally throw an accent on to look pretty. Personally, I pronounce it Esmehy. (Not es-may, the may isn't where the stress lies off my tongue). I tried playing around with pronouncing it Es-meh in the beginning but it doesn't come out of a British tongue at all. We have met roughly the same number of Isabellas her age as Esmés.

Esme (any pronunciation) is my preferred option. It’s lovely. Isabella is pretty but I know so many (plus variations on Isabel).

Esmé it's my favourite and definitely what I was going to name my daughter but 2 boys later......

Have to add, my favourite pronunciation of it so far has been from a little girl in America where DD was born, who couldn't grasp her name (it's not a common name there) and referred to her every day as Ezmo. The funniest part was that her mum kept trying to correct her yet the mum was also saying my name wrong. So we became this little duo of POPPAPOG and Ezmo.

I could have written this post word for word!

I pronounce it Esmehy.

Really? Why 3 syllables and why ending in y?

@pinklavenders it's not three syllables, the h is to soften the way the y sounds so it doesn't sound like may. It's just me trying to type how it sounds.

Loads of little Esmes atm, in case that bothers you. I always wonder how a name suddenly takes off in popularity. I think it has replaced Ella.

Esme pronounced Ez-me, from the Scottish tradition not the made up French version.

They’re both so popular they’re boringly unimaginative now - there is one Esme and two Isabella’s in DD8’s class.

Esme gets my vote. Isabella is fussy and overused in my opinion. Esme is getting popular as well though, so you could go with Maeve for something similar but less prevalent.

@jeanne16 I always wonder that too. When I named my little Esmé in America I had never heard of anyone being called that name. I just saw it on a list of E names and liked it a lot. Then I came to the UK and there were toddler Esme's everywhere!

I've just had a look at the top 1000 USA girls' names. Isabella is number 7 and Esmé is 379 right next to Leighton and Raelyn!

It was actually imported to Scotland from France, from the Old French word for Esteemed.

I love Esme. Always adored Isabella and Isabelle but agree that it’s just so so popular now that it feels a bit bland.