Zoë?

[Teaandbiscuits12]

Hello!

What are your thoughts on the name Zoë?

I love the meaning of Zoë and, whilst I know a few in their 30s and 40s, I have not met many little ones.

A classic or a little dated? How common is it in your area?

Thanks in advance!

I love it

It's a classic now. Not overused but I know several, my age (50's), my goddaughter (28) and my daughters friend (17). Very nice.

I love it when spelled properly as Zoë.

Zoe doesn't look right and Zoey looks even worse.

Thank you so much everyone for sharing your thoughts! It’s great to see so many positive comments (and to hear from those who are Zoë/ have little Zoë’s!) I really do love the name and, personally, prefer it with the ‘ë’ but thank you to everyone who has flagged potential issues with the spelling (on passports etc) and for examples of shared name usage - I wasn’t aware of some of these and it’s good to know.

Thanks again everyone - it has been so helpful to hear your thoughts and any further comments very welcome!

zoya thank you. I didn’t know that.

Love it, preferably with the diaeresis. I think it hits that sweet spot of classic but not common, and could be any age. I love that in a name. Bonus points for not being “frilly”.

I really like it. My daughter has a friend called Zoë.

If you use it, how much will it annoy you if someone spells it Zoe or Zoey? Or if they pronounce it Zo? It’s a common enough name but people are annoying.

I quite like it.
Used enough for people to recognise it and know how to say it, but rare enough to probably be the only one in any class or group.

I wouldn't use the dots or any other accent though. Too many people won't know how to even find them on a keyboard / phone etc. Will just end up with them missed off most of the time, so why put them on in the first place.

so why put them on in the first place

Because Zoë tells people how to pronounce the name correctly

Zoe would be pronounced like Joe!

By that logic, why put an ‘e’ on the end of ‘Jo’ to spell ‘Joe’? The diaeresis in Zoë at least has a phonetic purpose and it has never been easier to use diacritical marks. On an iPhone / iPad / MacBook you just press and hold the letter and choose from the options - see pic.

If I press and hold e I get eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Èėęěĕəéêëē

There are three in my DDs nursery so it's definitely making a comeback.

I like it.

At least there won't be 3 in the class.

Yeah one of our other kids is Joseph so the dots are important to us 😄 but you have to decide and teach your kid to let it go otherwise it will be annoying. Seems OK for Joe and Zoë Sugg (our Joseph goes by something other than Joe so far).

I like it! Would've had it on my name shortlist but my cousin had a zoey and there's plenty names without having the same as someone else in the family 😂

Funnily enough there are three in DD’s KS2 class! One is French, one is Greek (and both use the ë) and one is HK Chinese and uses it as her ‘English’ name. I was surprised as I hadn’t thought of it as popular.

www.olbg.com/insights/name-calculator/

Quote:
There have been 473 babies born in England & Wales called Zoe since 2020.
The popularity for the name Zoe peaked in 1996 - with 1,897 born in that year alone, making it the 31st most popular name that year!
Last year, Zoe was the 107th most popular name. Talk about a fall from grace!

@TeenDivided , Chloe was very popular in that timeline, and if your friend, neighbour or acquaintance had a Chloe, you'd be less inclined to use Zoe. Similarly, Zara had become popular, and that would put one off using another Z name. #31 to #107 isn't really a fall from grace given those circumstances.

For comparison, 9628 Chloes were registered in 1998, compared with 932 in 2021, and Zoe went from 1341 (#45) to 433 (#116)

@ZoyaTheDestroyer eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee is what I get when I hold the letter on my laptop.

@Pinkdafodils I think (in the UK, anyway, I can't speak for the rest of the world) Zoe is a well enough known name that everyone knows how to say it. It doesn't need the dots to tell you that. English is the most irregular language in terms of how things are pronounced.
We can work out how to say words that are the exact same letters, differently when we need to, (read / read for example) - I think people can remember how to say a fairly normal name like Zoe.
Plus, of course, the overwhelming majority of the population - who won't have studied linguistics - actually don't know what any particular symbol above a letter does to the pronunciation of that letter.

@UsingChangeofName I did say MacBook, not laptop. If it’s a Windows laptop you will need to use alt + 137.

Lovely name, overdue a revival.

I had Zoë for a girl but had 2 DSs. So it's a yes from me!

the overwhelming majority of the population - who won't have studied linguistics - actually don't know what any particular symbol above a letter does to the pronunciation of that letter.

You certainly don't need a linguistic degree!

You don't need a linguistics degree, but I think the point was valid. Most people won't know what the dots are for or what they are called.

Most people can't go beyond an acute on cafe (and slightly related on here, think of the number of times you see click when people mean clique)