Testing Héloïse

[Esmee44]

Hi,
I am due in March and I want to test out the name my partner and I have picked to see reactions and/or possible issues, without telling friends and family. Note that we live in a predominantly French speaking area, speak both English and French at home, and our child will be attending French daycare and school, but some of our friends and family speak more English, so any name needs to be bilingual.
The name we have picked is Héloïse … thoughts?

It's one of my favourite names.

I prefer Eloise which is beautiful.

Lovely name and I feel a good choice.
Most people are familiar with the name from history.
Best wishes for an easy birth.

I love it.

I would pronounce it hell-wahhz - anywhere close?!

The dieresis over the i indicates that it’s pronounced as a separate syllable. So as in Eloise.

Yes I would probably go with Eloise for ease.

Thank you! So is that hell-o-wahhz?

Isn't it said more like el wahz?
It is OK. There are nicer French names.

As with pp, I think most English speakers would initially pronounce the H. If you don't want that, I'd go with Eloise,

@SheilaFentiman 😂😂

As a French speaker, I would know how to pronounce it, but as a native English speaker, I dislike the fact that it begins with "Hell" and I expect some English speakers would pronounce it (wrongly) with the "H", thereby ruining it. So if you want the name to work in England / for English speakers, I'd spell it Eloise.

I’m genuinely asking :-)

Eh-loo-ease

This is my name! I answer to any variation of Ella-Louise, hell-wahz, hell oyce etc (actual pronunciation Elle-oh-ease) despite that, I love my name and always have. I went by Ellie / Ells as a young girl, and grew into the full Héloïse as an adult.

The pronunciation that annoys me the most is actually elouise- not quite wrong enough to correct without looking petty!

People also revert back to hell-oh-ease even after I have corrected them several times, so be warned your daughter WILL be called that in England frequently. Personally that doesn’t bother me too much as my friends can pronounce it properly, and a few people I don’t interact with much mispronouncing it is fine by me.

You live in a French speaking area now but will you remain? My parents gave me a very Irish name, easy if you live in Ireland. 7 years later we moved to the continent and I had a lifetime of spelling out my name and correcting pronunciation.

Heloise is at least relatively easy to pronounce but I'd lose the accent and ï. It's just a pain to have to type out on keyboards that are not designed for accents. Which if you remain in UK then you don't have that choice

As the mother of one, I can assure that this happens vanishingly rarely!

I went to school with a Heloise - she was absolutely beautiful. She and her family prounounced it Hell-o-ise.

It's a beautiful name. If she will have a British passport though they won't include the accents.

It’s beautiful.

It’s pronounced like Eloise, @SheilaFentiman, but the e acute is a little harder than eh and the oo is a bit softer than in English.

It’s my cousin’s name and she changed it at 18 because she was sick of being called Hellwahz in the UK 😂 TBF Eloise was an unusual name at the time. I went to school with an Eloise and she got sick of people mishearing it as Louise —like every other girl’s middle name back then—. It’s very popular now so that shouldn’t be a problem any more.

I knew one once and she was a bit of a pain so for me it has negative reactions and gets a no.

So, correctly?

I can't tell from your OP if you live in France or a francophone area (you could be describing Lyon or South Kensington!) but as this thread has shown people in the UK will struggle. The diacritics will be missed, and even if they aren't many people don't know what to do with a diaraesis and will attempt to apply their schoolchild French to pronounce it el-waz. Spell it Eloise if you like in the UK.

Thank you! So is that hell-o-wahhz?

No, it's prounounced the same as Eloise. Silent 'h' and the 'i' makes an 'ee' sound.

I'm a teacher and have an Héloïse in my form (in a state school in NW England). Nobody seems to have any trouble at all pronouncing it (including me, but admittedly I do teach French!).

This is my name! I have French heritage, and speak French, but live in the UK, outside of London in a place without much of a French community. It gets mispronounced - usually people pronounce the H, sometimes they add a 'u' (that one annoys me more and I do sound a bit neurotic when trying to correct it!). The pronunciation of the 'H' often slips back in (especially when people see my name written), but it doesn't bother me much. When typing, I write Heloise, so it's a surprise to people when I handwrite my name.

Overall I enjoy it. It's a bit different, while not being too out there. Hardly anyone knows of the H&Aberlard story, but it's fun when people do. It's often a bit of an icebreaker and I get very nice comments about my name.