Looking for inspiration!
My husband and I are due with our second baby soon, and are struggling with girls names. We have Scottish heritage and Iona has been our favourite for years but we might not be able to use it, as we live abroad and there are some major cultural issues with it where we live. We therefore need to find an alternative that we like as much, and are really struggling.
Names we have like but aren’t 100% sold on for various reasons are:
- Ailsa (ideally don’t want a name beginning with A)
- Esther (ideally don’t want a name ending “-er”)
- Esme
- Cassia
- Eliza
- Leonora
For more context
- We are both English but with strong Scottish heritage
- Our current son is Arthur, so we’d rather avoid names starting with an “A”
- Our surname ends “-er” so would also rather avoid names ending in that
- We like strong names with an established history which ideally aren’t too popular
- We don’t want something that is too predictable or “matchy” with Arthur
- We will likely move back to the UK at somepoint and will be based in the south east
Any suggestions? We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and are struggling, so any input gratefully received 🙏
P.S we’ve not 100% ruled Iona out, but it really is problematic where we live and the baby will have citizenship of this country so will likely spend a lot of time here in their lifetime, so we need a strong backup/alternative to consider