Thoughts on Anya or Cerys

[Liberty179]

Struggling to decide on a baby girl name- we like Anya or Cerys. Middle name will be Josephine. Have a family member called Anna- is it too close?

Both beautiful names but I think I like Cerys more, especially as it celebrates her Welsh heritage :)

Anya is lovely, not a fan of Cerys and I hear it a lot more.

I like them both.

Anya is nice but there are several pronunciations such as awn-ya, ahn-ya and ann-ya. There are also a lot of women with similar names such as Anna or Maya.

Cerys is nice but I think many people won't know how to spell it. She might get Karis or Karys or Kerris etc. Also people might say seh-ris.

I prefer Carys which seems to be the original according to google. But maybe it is pronounced kah-ris? As opposed to keh-ris.

I don't really see how you would get Cece.

I know of a Cerys and she says it with a K-sound. Or would you say Cece like Kiki?

Forvo tells me that the K-sound is correct for Carys and Cerys but maybe I am wrong? Maybe you could ask a native speaker.

You do pronounce it with the hard C as in Ke-ris.

But the name of the letter rather than the sound is Cee. Her initials are C.E so it comes from that rather than the sound of her name .... if that makes sense.

She mostly uses her full name it's only really me that uses Ce. Even her brother uses her full name.

Native speakers say it as Kerris. It's quite dated - Cerys and Carys were very popular in the 1960s. If you are not in Wales she'll get Serris/Cerise a lot.

Anya is nicer, but Anna is better.

Both good & pretty names. I like Cerys more for you bc of the Welsh/heritage connection, and unless you have a Slavic connection (doesn't have to be by family, maybe you just like the culture) Anya might be a bit of a reach. I wouldn't worry at all about people not knowing how to pronounce a name based on the written version - that's just life, and part of getting to know someone/broadening your knowledge :)

Thanks everyone for your input, good to think about all these things! ☺️