Uncommon baby girl names

[PlanBea]

Hi Mumsnetters,

Baby girl is due in August, and is currently nameless. The top pick name is Elodie which we love, but the rise in the 'El's puts me off this a bit especially if people are likely to nickname her Ellie and she's one of 10 in her class. When DS was born, we were going to use Erin if he was a girl, and while we still like it I'm not as in love with it as I was.

Other names we like (but probably not enough as a first name)
Violet
Clara
Imogen
Paisley
Madeline - unlikely to use this as I'm not keen on something with lots of spelling variants
Zara
Autumn

I lean towards names with a touch of uncommon but still easy to spell and pronounce as my name is one people don't immediately know how to pronounce. I'm not worried about picking something 'rare' but also not a top 10 name. Due to surname beginning with an O I don't want to use B or H for the first name and give her the initials BO or HO!

Malina
Nova
Esther

That is cool.

Lydia has similar sound to Elodie and is beautiful

also love Eleanor nn Nell

Catherine
Hannah
Susan
Rebecca
Zöe
Claire

Hi OP, you may already have had your baby girl, but I just came on to talk about the shortening or nicknames. You say you don’t want people calling her “Ellie” and I totally agree with you there, I absolutely detest my name being shortened or my DDs. If I wanted the short versions I’d tell people that.

If your DD’s name is to be Elodie, then that is what you tell people her name is, not Ellie, or any other variation. Just Elodie, no-one has the right to call her anything other than the name you choose for her.

I did this with my own DDS, I wouldn’t accept any shortenings of their names, they’re both adults now and if at any time they had wanted a nickname then that would have been their choice, and I would have accepted that, but they didn’t. Both insist on their full names. I actually changed DD2’s name (the one I wanted) to her middle name, and gave her a first name that couldn’t be shortened, because XH’s family wouldn’t respect my decision and called her the nickname.

I just can’t stand the assumption that children are given names that other people will automatically shorten!