Ursula

[Roseyposeypudding]

Every time there is a thread about the name Ursula, it seems to get totally different responses. One thread will be 90% really positive about the name, the second thread will be hating it for the sea witch connection.

I posted about it once and everyone hated it! I saw another thread a few months later and it was almost unanimously loved. So, once and for all: Ursula. What do you think?

Does the sea witch thing make it unusable? I think is got a lovely fresh sound - rare but very old with a strong history. I like the saint connection and I love the meaning!

We live abroad so there’s no sea witch connection here, but got family and friends in the UK (and might end up there one day) to need advice for a British point of view!

I love it but I don't think I would use it.

Native speaker here. There's no "sh" sound in German either. Main difference is the vowel - it's an ooh sound but shorter. Standard abbreviations are Ursel or Ulla as well as Uschi.

That said - definitely not a middle-aged here. My near-nonagenarian mother's an Ursula. Never met any in my generation. Which probably means that give it another then or fifteen years, it'll be due a revival.

Its the uurrgh sound at the start that's the problem

Wasn't there a cow called Ursula in the magic roundabout? Or maybe it was in trumpton?
It conjures up a slightly bossy bosomy matriarch a bit like a formidable Boudicca...at least in my mind...I don't know why as I was at school with an Ursula and she was very petite not at all bossy and lovely in every way!

Yep - both these for me.

Ermintrude

All the same, there are many, many people who have no interest at all in Disney, @R0ckets.

St Ursula in Venice

Horrible name. Really awful.

I don't like it. I don't think it sounds nice.

Reminds me of this character. Not a positive connotation.

Sea Witch for me

Sorry. I think it's an ugly name.

I really like it. My mother's cousin is a nun from the Ursuline convent, who has been teaching in S Africa for many years, so I think of how calm, capable and intelligent she is.

I love it (it's my mum's name 😁).

I’ve literally never heard it said that way in England. It’s always been pronounced ur-suh-la or ur-syoo-la. Never a sh.

Not keen, as well as the sea witch I think of Phoebe’s twin sister in friends which is also not a nice association. If I try and put those two things out of my mind and just think of it as a name, actually it is quite a nice name.

Always reminds me of arse

I love it. If DS2 had been a girl, Ursula would've been his middle name.