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?

“It’s pretty and better than being a boring Olivia for example which has been done a million times over”

Try-hard ‘unique’ names are as ubiquitous and ‘boring’ as the Olivias and the Archies imo.

Natural that people will glance at the name and then add an “i” as Emilia will be what they are expecting to see spelled out. I expect she will end up being called Em, Unless you are members of the Royal family or characters in Downton Abbey, so it will sort itself out.

Disappointed to see the OP defending her name choice and in the same post slagging off the name Olivia. What happened to live and let live?

Aren’t there a few ways to pronounce Alicia ie you can’t know just by seeing it written down.

It's a beautiful name and also Mila as a shortened version is probably what her nickname will become anyway. It is nice to have something a bit different and there are many more unusual names given to babies these days. I called my eldest daughter Elisa (El -is - a) and people called her Alisa, Ailsa, Lisa, Ellisa to name but a few but eventually most people got it and it didn't frustrate us at all. Her father gave me a card in hospital when she was born and it said to myname and Alisa. That was because he can't spell! 😁

Try-hard ‘unique’ names are as ubiquitous and ‘boring’ as the Olivias and the Archies imo.

Just because it's not common in English doesn't mean it's try hard or "unique"...

My point is that she doesn't realise how much she's going to make her child suffer.

My name isn't English, I haven't suffered by correcting people on how to pronounce my name. I'm a Londoner and "different" names are super common in schools, big companies etc because it's a diverse & global city.

So you expect people to know how to say a name you made up, oh dear poor child she is going to have that for the rest of her life, and you will have people thinking you brought it on her.

Did you make that name up?

I have an Emilia and no one ever spells it correctly but at least they say it right.

At a school I worked at, a girl called Shital had to be renamed Sheetal by the school, to avoid persecution...

My baby’s name. Unless you have more than one baby called Emila?

Whether you like it or not, she will spend her entire life correcting people who call her Emilia. As an adult, she will go by "Em" or "Mila" to avoid this.

That's you though. I know some people who use a 'nickname' because people do have trouble with their names, or they put up with the way it gets said.

I'd say the misspellings and mispronunciations are a PITA, and the nickname tolerable but not ideal.

Call her by her name, the name you chose. Explain it to her and why she's special to own that name. And other people perspectives? They will have to adjust their brains space, adjust and accept it.

I did read it emila and pronounced like you said… saying this, when my daughter was born I like Milia (Mee-Lee-ah) my husband went to boots to get something and the lady who worked there who knows us asked what her name was, my husband said ‘no name yet but we’re thinking Milia’ and she replied ‘oh yes Amelia is nice’ he came back and told me and I was like nope, changed my mind! She’s called Mia instead!

For some reason I read it as Emilia when reading your OP: O think it’s always going to get confused with Emilia 🤷‍♀️ You will just have to keep correcting people.

That’s what I was thinking too - A-lee-sha, or A-liss-ee-a are the two that sprung immediately to mind, @limescale.

The obvious and predictable pitfalls of making up a name.

The poor child will have to correct people 1000’s of times throughout their life. They won’t thank you for the name choice.

People are very Puritan about names on here. Don't change it , hold strong. Just correct people until they fucking get it. They are all stupid. God forbid they encounter an Indian or Vietnamese child in their life. People need to get used to different names and stop being fuckheads.

ah well, at least when she is 16 she can change her name by deed pole - maybe she will just choose to put the missing ' i ' in.

Everyone here who is saying 'poor child' I bet your kids have got really boring common names. Poor them! I hope they change it one day out of embarrassment for having boring parents.

Never heard of it.

I actually read Emilia

My sister is Julia, in the 60s it was all Julie, most of her friends called her Julie.
My youngest is called Gareth, but lots of people call him Garth, even his nursery teacher wrote Garth on one of his paintings!
I picked my fights, and this wasn't something I was going to argue about. He's 6'4" and 21 stone, good luck to anyone who wants to argue with him about it.

I’m a teacher and we constantly get names that are slightly different, very different, sound different to how they are spelt etc. we have kids from lots of backgrounds and I just learn to say their name. What’s your name? Then pronounce it how they do. Or how do you pronounce it ? Ok then that’s how I’ll pronounce it too.
it’s not hard!
the more you call her by it and the more her friends do everyone will know. She may need to explain it as she gets older but hey. I’m an Eleanor and I always have to spell my name. Not because it’s an odd spelling but because there are different spellings.