Everyone is getting my baby's name wrong

[Laura3091]

So my baby girls name is Emila - It is pronounced as Em-ee-la.

Everyone keeps calling her Amelia and can’t get their head around Emila. Don’t think it’s that hard to grasp tbh but I know she is going to have trouble as she grows up with people mispronouncing her name.

Do we just shorten it to Mila? (Mee-La) to make it easier for everyone?

I'm going to be honest the first time I read it I thought it was Emilia, I did that speed reading thing where you glance and your brain automatically guesses the word. It's because the written word looks so similar to Emilia and also it's not a name I've heard before so I wasn't looking for it....in the way you would easily spot the difference between Ellie and Elsie because the letter shapes are obviously different.

Boring Olivia’s mum isn’t on here moaning though that people are getting her child's name wrong. Either shorten it or correct people - don’t complain on mn and then be rude to people who are saying they understand why the name is commonly mispronounced. You trying to be edgy and different clearly hasn’t worked for you.

I read it as Emilia as well, not because we're lazy but because the brain looks for familiarity so you will find this continues to happen

You may enjoy this passive aggressiveness but maybe op does not want her daughter to go through such hostile interactions especially when other party is well intentioned, complimentary.

If you chose ridiculous names what to you expect. I don’t know why people try to be ‘out there’ when they just sound stupid.

On reading that, I'd pronounce it as Emilla said like Emily but with an A on the end. I don't see it as Em ee la at all. Or I'd read it and accidentally see Emilia, like Amelia.

I don't know whether you've chosen a name from a non-British culture because you are from that culture or your partner is, but if you are going to pick an unusual name where the pronunciation isn't obvious in English then this will happen. Learn to live with it. Your child is going to have to.

Yes, this with bells on.

Either OP made up the name and then this is just 100% stupidity.
Or she picked it as a other-culture-variant on Emil/Emily/Amelia and then the name is 100% just as common/boring/for the masses as Olivia.

It’s an unusual name which is close to a more common name so you just have to get used to it.

Yep!

If it particularly bothers you though OP then yes, maybe shorten it to Mila for day to day. That'll probably get mispronounced too, but my guess is a bit less than Emila.

This is what happens when you make up names.

Ok but you have also made errors in your post, presumably in a hurry, so you can’t really blame “lazy readers”.

“babies name” > baby’s name
”shorting” > shortening

Your baby is of course the most important person in your life. However, to most people she will come across in life, she will not be their top priority and they will be rushing.

Emila is incredibly similar to Emilia, so much that even my phone autocorrected it. You can find plenty “non-boring” or rare names without completely making one up. So yes, I would shorten it to Mila. You and your daughter can also just spend the rest of your lives correcting people, up to you really.

Kinda obvious that was going to happen 🤷🏻‍♀️

Emila is a perfectly nice name (the feminine form of Emil) but obviously in the UK it is very unusual and therefore likely to be confused with the much more common Emilia. Or Amelia. Not all names travel well, for all sorts of reasons.

I’d suggest changing the spelling. Emila looks like a mistake, and even though you typed out a pronunciation, I still stumble over it in my head as ‘Mila’ can be pronounced like “mee-lah” and “my-lah”.

Could you maybe spell it Emilah? The H at the end would at least stop people from making assumptions, and it looks like a deliberately different name rather than a misspelling. Or Emmila, if you’re after a harder “em” sound at the beginning.

She may end up with a totally different nickname when she’s older at school - there’s a lot of options with that kind of name. She could be Emmy, Mimi, Milah etc.

Laura3091 · Today 12:05
I’m not changing her name fully for the purpose of lazy readers lol but thinking of how to shorting it for her to maybe go by it by her friends etc. it’s not a weird name, it’s just uncommon in the uk…and it’s not ‘poor baby’. It’s pretty and better than being a boring Olivia for example which has been done a million times over
.........
Emelia is a splendid name. No doubt friends will call her 'Emmy', 'Em' or 'Melly' when she goes to school, no need to think about that now.

However you were not very nice to say 'Olivia' is boring. That too is a beautiful name and classic.

As someone who has an unusual surname you wouldn’t be changing her name for other people, you’d be doing it for her!

Neither Emilah nor Emmila are real names though, unlike Emila which is a perfectly classic name.

Emilia and Amelia are perfectly classic names. Emila is a more unusual and significantly less common and accepted variation on those names, and it’s causing problems for OP and will likely cause annoyance for her child.

I’m not a fan of unnecessary “tragedeigh” spellings or adding unnecessary, extra letters to names but in this instance, I think it could help solve OP’s complaint. Just my opinion.

Same.

My cousin called her baby "Ayla" but wants it pronounced like "Isla". I know this, but every single time I have to think about it in my head because it looks like ayyyyyy - la.

This is what happens when your baby’s name is one that nobody’s ever heard of before.

If you changed it to Emilia the problem would go away.

I wouldn't be too scathing of lazy readers unless I was absolutely sure my typing was error free

I knew a few Milas and not a single one pronounced her name as Myla lol.

She wants it pronounced basically like island, did I understand correct?
What is the other way one might pronounce Ayla? Is it "say la" without the S?

It's not a made up name though.