Thank you so much, some gorgeous suggestions!
Some really lovely ones people have mentioned have been used by friends already eg Willow and Wren. Some don’t sound right with our surname eg I love Hazel and Cara but they just wouldn’t work. Some DH and I don’t agree on eg he likes Lara and Lois, I love Sylvie, Sage, Robyn, even Olive. Some I can’t think of nice nicknames for (eg Celeste.. Celi, Lester 😂) and I know I’m a nicknamer.
I think I sort of like Saffron, but not sure about Saff/Saffi. Ditto Linea/Linnaea, Demetra and Tula.. Sort of like but not sure. DH particularly likes Ember, but looking at forums it seems a lot of people associate it with dying (while I/we would see it as the ever-glowing, steady spark from which fire can always rise..).
Yasmin I think is a bit ‘exotic’, I’ve only ever known an Arabic Yasmin and it feels a bit like nicking a name from someone else’s culture.. ditto the lovely Welsh options eg Rhiannon, Elwen etc.
@KirstenBlest what pronounciation issues do you foresee with Eleni? (I appreciate this is also totally nicked from an unrelated culture to us)
@bluebirdsongs was it just Leni you liked or was it short for something?
@BeverlyHa Ruah was the name she had first and for ages, my daughter loves it! But put off by rua being ‘road’ in Portuguese/Latin and ruadh being ‘red’ in Irish.
@DurhamDurham I absolutely love Alba, but the Spanish one, and living in UK people are more likely to make a Scottish association I think.. or a brand of radio 🤷♀️
@ghislaine defo love this vibe but Sorrel sounds a bit apologetic and Linden is a boy’s name to me.
@Aerielview i think Fia sounds too much like ‘fear’ where we live. Síofra is a very cool name but tooo much correcting pronounciation/spelling issues!
@Mumofgirls2017 yes right vibe! None quite right though, totally the story of all this name-hunting. Thank you for trying though!
Finally I came across Solenne, could be nickname Leni and would celebrate the solstice, which at this rate I reckon she might stay in until! What do people think of that?
Thanks so much for all your thoughts, really appreciated.