Help me choose how to spell our babies name!

[Bexchap]

So we are set on the baby girl name Elaya/Elaia pronounced E Lay a, however stuck on how to spell it, her nickname will probably be Laya/Laia

I would read Elaya as you've written it out. But Elaia could be E lay a or E lie a.

I wound go for Elaya for ease personally.

Also spelt Alaya it seems

quranicnames.com/elaya/

Elaia . I think its more classy

If you want it pronounced E lay er I would use they lay spelling.

Lovely name op. Beware star wars references.

E lay a as that's how you want it pronounced.

the other way oeople are likely to call her
E lie a

I'm a supply teacher so spend my mornings trying to pronounce names.

Id go with Elaia as when I read Elaya I pronounced it El-ay-a rather than E-lay-a.

I'd pronounce Elaia as El-LY-a, so I'd go with Elaya.

Eleia

So an eh sound infront of Leia.

Tbh, I would pronouce it Ell-eye-ah for both spellings.

As somebody who has to spell their name out every single god damn time I tell someone it (call centres ), I feel I'm able to say pleeeease don't give your child the burden of a name they are forever spelling out & correcting. It gets extremely old extremely quickly

I'm with SlatsandFlaps

I Like E lay a but El eye a, is awful sounds like saying a liar, which kids will tease I imagine 😕

I'm going to throw Eleia into the mix as Leia is well known a pronunciation.

Is it meant to be eh or ee at start?

i also think Eleia might be best option for pronouncing it eh lay ah but she’ll be spelling out her name forevermore.

I prefer Elaia

@SlatsandFlaps same here, but nice not to have the same name as everyone else.

I think Elaya is more likely to get pronounced the way you want

'E lay 'er. No chance of bullying at high school there at all.

Eleia as pp noted
other spellings really could be more confusing

I would go for Leia
it's what you want to call her and everyone will pronounce it how you want because of Star Wars. You can see from this thread that people will always get the 'wrong' pronunciation of alaya however you spell it so do your DD a favour and make it simple.

I think CloseYourEyesAndSee is right.

There is the pronouncing right and the writing it correctly to consider, but Leia is pretty and unusual, but not a tongue twister.

On a linked thought, I wonder if Elaine is due a revival?

To digress, I think, if I liked Elaia, I would probably try to go with Helena, pronounced Hel-ain-a, since names with many pretty sounds but not many other connotations of history or literature are less dense in connotations, and less versatile in letting the named person use name to embellish their sense of identity.

Elaia or Elaya is very, very pretty. It sounds like the name of the famous singer who died tragically young, Aliyah(?) which is also very pretty and maybe would be easier for people to get right.

This is what I thought.

Aside from that, it’s a name that’s going to be said wrong or spelled wrong sometimes, I don’t think there is a spelling that will guarantee it never happens.

Elaya as it’s the most phonetic to read.

Although I wouldn’t worry too much about having to spell names. It’s always touted here when wanting to give your child a name that has many spellings.

I have a name that has consistently been in the top 50 if not 2 names in most English speaking countries for the past 30 years. Apart from a variation in some Slavic countries the spelling is consistent. More often than not I have to spell it out. My middle name has two common variations - again nearly always have to spell it and my last name is the most common spelling of a very common name - again still have to spell it more often than not.

I'd probably go with Elaya if I wanted the e lay a pronunciation.