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 wouldn’t know how to pronounce it either , is it a made up name

Yes I'm aware of that. But their names mean something to me culturally. The children love their names and the fact they link to our history. They're fine with it and are glad they're not one of many Elizabeth/ lilly/Amelias in their school.

You named your child something that looks like a spelling mistake of a very common name?

It doesn't matter if it's super speshul because it's not a UK name. I'm not from the UK, and I still know that doing this is a silly idea and setting your child up for a lifetime of mild but irritating inconvenience.

It's not 'lazy', it's the perfectly normal way that the brain processes written words.

Once we have learned to read, we don't read every letter in a sentence. We process words as whole units.

Taht's why yuo’re albe to raed tihs vrey easliy.

Emilia is a common name and our brains use context to decode it.

I understand your frustration, but it's a completely normal mistake for people to make - it's not lazy at all.

It reminds me of Emla the topical anaesthetic cream. I had an annoying maiden name and I'd constantly have to explain it and spell it out. People would even argue with me and try to correct me. It was so annoying. I was glad to change it when I married.

Your dd might be okay with a lifetime of explaining her name, but I never got used to it. She'll likely end up with it shortened anyway and official documents might end up spelling it incorrectly due to autocorrect.

Awful name and if she's a shy child she'll never correct it.

Kids at school will call her "Em" anyway.

official documents might end up spelling it incorrectly
Prescriptions and bank transfers usually in my case.

Surely it's her friends that should be able to get to grips with her name - as it might take them a day or two and then they know her name for the rest of the time.

I think it would be more helpful to use Emmy as a familiar name as then the person is half way there to knowing her name - they only need to add the la (if my understanding is correct.

E.g. "Hi this is Emmy"
"Hi Emmy"
Later .. "is her name Emma or Emily?"
"No it's Emila - Emmy with a la on the end"

I have a similar name in that it's an unusual variation of a couple of more common names. I have spent literally decades spelling it for people and getting landed with all sorts variations. If it were me, I 'd change it to Emilia or Amelia or use some abbreviation because it does get annoying when almost nobody gets your name on the first try. I even had to get my driver's licence reissued because they'd misspelt my name!

Is it a feminine form of Emil? Would explaining that help people to remember, and pronounce correctly, as otherwise I can see it is easy to get it 'wrong'.

No need to be nasty, Olivia is also a lovely name.

I noted it wasn't Emilia.

But I'd still have thought it Em-ill-a (rather than the ee sound in the middle)

So you have a double set of correction to overcome.

It’s a typo name. Now it’s kids duty to inform everyone that typo is not a typo but chosen name.

I have a pain-in-the-ass first name that I spent most of my life correcting people who mis-pronounced or shortened it. Now that I'm over 50 I don't care, I will answer to near enough anything.

But I made sure my kids had really pronounceable, non-confusing names so they didn't have to go through the same thing for decades.

I would definitely shorten it for common use / friends etc.

She would not be compromising for other people. Other people don’t care. It has no impact on them.

She would be compromising for her daughter so she does not have life time of this mild irritation starting conversation with people with correcting them.

I looked into it and it has come back as a feminine form of Emil used in Poland and a Kashubian (region in Poland) form of Emilia.

It is a nice name OP. It will get frequently mispronounced here but people who matter will get used to it.

I can empthaise. My parents also decided to be different and gave me a weird spelling name. Every time I had a email with a new colleague or a client, spelling was wrong. I rarely correct people, it’s waste of my energy. I have corrected people mispronouncing it though.

It’s not about people getting used to. It’s about her dd correcting and starting every conversation with a correction.

I think it is a lovely name, and unusual, @Laura3091 - but as others have said, its similarity to Emilia is probably what’s causing people to mispronounce it.

As a pp suggested, I think Mimi would be a lovely nickname, as would Mila - and people would probably pronounce that right because of Mila Kuniss.

Nice one, were you aiming to insult pretty much all respondents in this thread?

Are we all lazy readers?

You say the name's not uncommon, but it is really: it is very rare. That is literally why so many people are getting it wrong. What is more, by declaring Olivia to be boring - thanks, that's my niece's name by the way - you've pretty much admitted that your attraction to Emila is its rarity.

You can't have it both ways.

I can only hope that Emila is not as bothered as you seem to be by the natural consequences of your choice of name.

Imagine wanting your daughter to go through a lifetime of people not knowing how to say, spell or misreading your name.

In Poland also spelling is Emilia. I don’t have where you got information but any search on Emila, give information about Emilia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia_(given_name)

I've never seen it before - I initially looked at it and thought oh, Emilia, like her from Game of Thrones. Pretty.

Then saw it wasn't.

My name has four different possible spellings. Every time I see me spelled wrong I feel 'that isn't me.'

It's going to happen for the rest. of. her. life.

My first name is spelt different to how it usually is known (my mum chose the biblical spelling I believe) and my last names a colour that has 2 spellings. Having to spell both names out everytime is a pain in the arse.