Orla or Sophie

[SJay401]

Which do you prefer? Sibling to a Harry with a J surname

Both lovely, but I have two little girls and they're collecting Sophies at a fierce rate which would put me off.

Orla is lovely but as said above I wouldn't pick it if either parent has a non-rhotic accent or you live somewhere where most people do.

Sophie goes better with Harry I think!

I prefer the sound of Orla but accept that I, with my non-rhotic accent, cannot actually recreate that sound and do the name justice, nor can anyone where I live. Autocorrecting to oral is also not ideal.

So, assuming you also have a non-rhotic accent (could be wrong I suppose), it’s Sophie.

Hard agree with this.

Sophie is considered 'overused', not a term I like very much.
I have two children in primary school who go to lots of clubs and I know zero kids called Sophie.
Of the two, it's the lovelier by far.

I'm a 30-something year old Orla, who spells it as Orla (have also seen it spelled Orlagh, Orlaith, and even Orfhlaith)! I've never been bullied over the name even with the autocorrect to oral, but even in the most professional of situations, have received emails saying Hello Oral instead of Hello Orla!

I voted Sophie. I think it flows better with Harry. Also Orla can be mispronounced, over the years I've gotten Ur-la, Aaarr-la and Aw-la.

Both are lovely! Where are you based? From MN it would seem large parts of the UK are really funny about non English names. We lived in a progressive city and zero issues (or at least none said to us !). Some areas will have lots of Sophies but that’s okay too!

I understand why you dislike the term, but it's only a way of saying there are lots of them so the name seems a bit ordinary. I don't know any primary school age Sophies, and I really like the name, but Sophia and Sofia are so popular that it would put me off using it.

Similarly, I don't know any little Isabels, only two about my age, but i know so many Isabellas and Isabelles that Isabel seems overused.

Some names get called overused (e.g. Anna) when they aren't particularly popular. I know ones of different ages. Sophie, Isabel and Anna seem quite timeless.

An example of a name that was overused is Chloe. I remember thinking it was nice and unusual in the 1980s but by the 2010s it had been given to tens of thousands of baby girls. Babies called Chloe in England & Wales since 1996 (darkgreener.com)

Sophie

I’m not sure. Sophie used to be very popular but I don’t know any under 15. Sophia is very popular and it’s possible that people will assume your daughter’s name is Sophia out of habit.

I am a bit prejudiced against Sophie because it was an old boyfriend’s favourite girls’ name. But this is firmly my issue, not yours.

Orla is nice (probably one of my favourite Irish girls’ names). Do you have any Irish heritage? Because people will probably say “How lovely! Are your parents Irish?”. This may get annoying for her.