What name would you go for? Need for native English speakers please :)

[flo0412]

Hi everyone, I am French, my partner is German and Slovak, and we live in the U.K.

It is therefore hard to find a name that we both can relate to, pronounce, spell, and that would be a nice name to live here :)

Our little boy (2yo) is called Oskar.

We are expecting a little girl very soon and have made this list:

Maé
Léna
Fleur
Nora
Margaux

Do you think that any of these names are a nightmare to pronounce/write/live with because of some references I may not be aware of?

Thank you very much :)

xx

Margaux reminds me of Margaux Hemingway (and personally I prefer this spelling to Margo / Margot).

I know you weren’t looking for suggestions, but have you considered Sylvie and Madeleine?

I'd find the Margaux Hemingway connection a bit depressing.

Accents won't be used by most people and most systems (e.g. her passport, if British, will be issued without accents). That might bother you, might not.

Fleur sounds much nicer in French than in most anglophone accents. In some of our accents it's really quite horrible actually.

I've come across the Margot spelling more than Margaux.

Mae/May is a super super common name. It's often hyphenated with other first names or is used as a filler middle name.

Lena might be pronounced a few different ways but people will use whichever one you tell them to. You'll just have to be patient and correct them first time around.

None of them have problematic associations really. My inside voice does hear "flaming Nora!" whenever I read Nora but it won't be an issue with her peers.

All the names are fine but for what it’s worth I like Nora the best and it’s pronunciation is totally clear.

Lena could be Lee-na or Lay-na.

They're all lovely but fleur and Nora would be the easiest to say and more recognisable.

Maé - Mae and May are very popular names. I wouldn't know how to say Maé Mah-ey?
Léna - it'll just be Lena
Fleur - I like it but it'll be Fluh in the UK
Nora - prefer Norah
Margaux - Margot is the common spelling in the UK, Margo is better if you don;'t want German relatives to say the t

I only like Fleur from your list

Fleur is lovely. Margaux too, though agree with pp to spell it Margot.

Maé -this doesn’t make any sense to me. How is it pronounced? It’s not aFrench accent.
Léna -I’d pronounce like Leh-na. I think you can drop the accent. Some people will say Lena, but Leh-na is fine too.
Fleur- I like this.
Nora-fine. Not a fan, though.
Margaux- Margot would be the normal spelling.

I think they all seem fine and haven't had an issue pronouncing any of these names.
The accents may be forgotten about though!

The accents are going to cause you and your DD problems on forms in the UK for the rest of her life, simply because they aren't used.

Other than that any of the names will be fine. You will get people misspelling them but that's normal with most names.

They're all beautiful names, OP. I do agree on leaving out the accents though as most people will just take the path of least resistance and ignore them anyway. And I agree with a previous poster about filling in online firms with accents. 🌹

Names with accent are a pita on English keyboards
I have friend with accent on her name (foreign national ) so I have to ditch it if on social media email etc…it isn’t nice to mangle her name like that

I think Mae is nice and fine if you go without the accent and accept it’ll be pronounced as May which was a common uk name ( I had an auntie May). Similarly Lena if you’re happy she’ll be pronounced lean-a

some folks might stumble at Margaux - not so much pronouncing it when they see it, but remembering how to spell it if it’s not written in front of them. I can see all sorts errors in letters. Emails, social media and her birthday cards. I struggled just now having just read it then not remembering the last bit

so do bear that in mind . It isn’t just people knowing how to pronounce it when written, in truth they’ll only get that wrong if not introduced to her face to face. The issue is bigger that when people know her na,e but then try to write it they’ll not know how it’s spelt. That’ll stick around all her life.

I LOVE Margot - haven't heard it in forever.

Wow, really? Feels to me like they're eeeeeeeeeverywhere these days.

Maé- unsure how you would pronounce this and I read French- May or Mae work in English but are often used as a suffix eg Rosie-Mae
Léna- again the accent will not be understood or used
Fleur- pretty name, quite girly, no strong associations
Nora- an old lady name and not in a good way
Margaux- English people will mangle the spelling and pronounciation of this. Margot is familiar but but Margot was the name of a quite snobbish woman in a 70s sitcom, The Good Life.

@StillWeRise , the quite snobbish woman was Margo, not Margot

I like Fleur the most. Tbh, you don't need to make any concessions for your child being born in the UK, but you can try what my parents did. My middle name is from my father's original country and as I've grown older, I love and appreciate it even more because it's unusual and expresses my mixed heritage.

They will all be fine and English speaking people will be able to pronounce them. If you plan to stay in Uk and go with that particular name then I would spell it Margo.

But I would get rid of the accents as they will cause confusion and we don't have them on English qwerty keyboards. (one of my DC has a name which could have an accent but we chose not to)

What? There are loads, and have been for ages. It’s really quite popular.

Honestly haven't heard it for years - I'm in London, if that matters. My daughter is 9.

They are all beautiful. ☺️

Lovely names. I really like Léna.

@Hurstlandshome , there probably aren't that many in your daughter's age group but it has shot up in popularity in the past 9 years or so. (from #725 to #80)

Coincidentally, an actor with the same name shot to fame in a film released in that year.

Margaux. Beautiful name.

I would think English people know how to pronounce Fleur. It's a name from The Forsyte Saga, which was a popular TV show (both in the 1960s and the new version, 2003).