Holly or Hollie?

[dadtobe22]

My wife and I are due a baby girl later this year. We'd settled on the name Holly.

However, my wife sprung a surprise on me Tuesday night be saying she wanted to spell the name Hollie. I don't feel this is the traditional spelling and I worry that they would spend their life correcting people. It is also a different spelling to holly, the plant, which the name is obviously derived from!

It's a shame I can't do a poll but what do people think. It would be helpful to get a sense check.

Holly or Hollie?

I’m a Holly, I’m in my 30’s. I’ve never had to correct the spelling of it until the last 5 year or so when some people have started spelling it Hollie or asking for clarification (Y or IE?) - so I guess Hollie becoming more popular.

Holly

Holly

Definitely prefer Holly, I would feel the same & prefer a different name than compromising on the spelling.
For what it's worth it is definitely a joint decision so there is no point in one person settling for something they really don't want.

Holly.

Hollie is (a) wrong and (b) terribly cutesy.

Normal spelling. I have a variation of a classic name and I hate saying hoop, spelt HOUP... not comparable but...

Holly!

Holly.

Hollie reminds me of that awful Hollie Dance.

Holly. From experience of having to constantly spell one of my DC names. After that I used the most common spellings.

I prefer Holly but Hollie is hardly an unusual alternative and even if you go with Holly, she will likely have to spell it out anyway because people will ask and some will assume Hollie.

(Speaking as someone who has a name which ends in 'y' and many people automatically spell it -ie)

The reason why Holly is a nice name is because it calls to mind the plant.

Why you would then disassociate the name from the plant by spelling it differently, I don't entirely understand.

I'm on Team Holly.

I’m with you OP - Holly is much nicer. Hollie feels twee and insipid in comparison.

Holly

The alternative spelling is daft and will be misspelt all the time

My friends child is poppie.
Such an unnecessary change of spelling. Poor child must be correcting people constantly

It just looks silly as does Hollie

Holly

I love Holly as a name!

Hollie looks so wrong. If your wife can’t accept Holly, maybe another name that will shorten to an -ie ending.

It seems a real shame to argue about this. Maybe you should drop the subject for a while. You can keep referring to the baby as holly/hollie in the meantime but just don’t worry about the spelling for now. It really doesn’t make a big difference either way.

If you’re arguing over such a small thing, could it be that the pregnancy generally is just stressing you both out and this is an outlet? Maybe you need to take some time to look after each other for a couple of weeks and solve any underlying issues.

FWIW DH and I are having the same debate over Melody vs Mélodie as he’s French and I’m English. Whichever we pick, it’s going to look misspelt in one country or the other. We asked our mums, thinking they might have strong feelings and they couldn’t care less so 🤷🏻‍♀️

Im spelt with an IE and honestly it used to be annoying correcting people, but in the recent years people now ask me which way it is spelt

☝️this

Please don’t saddle your daughter with what sounds like Hol-lie. Spell Holly correctly or chose another name.

Holly.

Otherwise her name will actually be 'Hollie with an ie'.

You baby is already unique, it doesn't need a name with a altered spelling to do this.

Same here! Usually just get 'with a Y or IE?' I don't think it's that unusual, I've met others...even one 'Holleigh' which is definitely more out there.

Holly is nicer and more classic.