What do you think of the name Esmée?

[kankuraon]

We will find out next week if we’re having a boy or girl but seriously considering this one if it’s a girl!

For context, my husband is French but we currently live in an English speaking country. Our baby will grow up speaking both English and French.

Also curious to hear what nicknames come to mind :-)

I don’t know what IPA is. I’m talking about my lived experience as a French speaker who has lived in several different regions. I would say the ay sound is the common misconception when confronted with an é for most non native French speakers. It still sounds nice- the English accent in French is cute. And I can understand that the difference is very subtle.
I didn’t come on the thread to be a dick or to start a back-and-forth. I was being helpful (in my mind).

I'm not challenging you, it's just that letters from other languages is hard to convey in English.
IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet, but it has limitations.

Hélène is probably a good example of a word with e acute and e grave.
The transcription into English is 'ay-len' but the IPA is e'lɛn not eɪ'lɛn.

If I read that Hélène was 'eh-len' or Esmé ez-meh, I'd understand that as meaning both Es in the names sounded exactly the same.

(It happens with other languages not just French.)

The mouth opens differently for each accent é and è it’s so difficult to write it down when it’s also about tone.
Which is why I said (before being picked up on it for whatever reason), that Ez-meh is the closest way I can think of to convey the correct pronunciation to an English non-French speaker. It just is.

Esme is such a normal name in Edinburgh that I thought it was of Scottish origin!

We have a nearly 19 yo Esme - pronounced Ez-me. And yes, it’s from the Scottish tradition we got the name. I’d actually never heard anyone say it Ezmay and claim it was French till a couple of years after she was born.

Don’t like Ezmay at all, sounds like Dismay to me, but there you go.

before being picked up on it for whatever reason - the reason being that
the 'eh' sound in French is è.

I work in a rural secondary and we have 10 across the school. Spellings vary and include Esme, Ezmay, Esmae and Esmé. All but one is pronounced "ez-may" and none use nicknames. It's very popular.

A word never ends in è in French. I understand where you’re coming from if you’ve been taught French as a foreign language in high school with the basic è, é differentiation but actual French is so much more nuanced, for example we know that your ‘that would be a è sound’ is moot, because a name/word would never end in one. It’s place is mid-word. I engaged with you even though your first quote to me was rude…’what are you talking about?’ :/ and now you’re continuing to try and school me on my mother tongue, when it’s obvious you don’t know much about it. I won’t be responding further. To everyone else: sorry about the thread derailment. It’s been boring 😂, I know.

Agree I have an even older Esme and I had only ever met a Scottish Esme .We are not Scottish BTW ,I actually wince when I hear people say Ezmay. It just sounds so harsh .

I used to adore Esmée. Unfortunately it got way too trendy and ruined it for me.

I know a baby who is Esmae. I think it is a pretty name

I met someone through work who had an Esme. I thought it was a nice name till I heard it in her Liverpool accent (imagine Ez-maaaaaaaaaaay with the y a screech). It put me off, but pronounced properly it's a nice name.

I’m not sure your “meh” is what a native English speaker thinks though. I’m not native in French but fluent and lived there. When you say meh I would assume a schwa sound, but I don’t think é can ever be a schwa so that’s not quite right.

It’s like fiancée - the “ay” is a diphthong in English but is more like a short “e” sound in French (which largely doesn’t have diphthongs).

It’s more of an open vowel so “meh” doesn’t really capture it, which is why ée is anglicised into “ay” because I think that is our actual closest sound as we don’t really like open e or a sounds at the same end of words.

Yes ive had to instill into my kids

One is not a killed off character in Eastenders (i dont even think shes ever watched an episode)

The other is not named after a pop star!!!! Mine was born before she became world famous......

Exactly what @WheretheFishesareFrightening said.

I understand where you’re coming from if you’ve been taught French as a foreign language in high school
I learnt French as a foreign language but not in an English school.

Love this name so much. We know an Esme taken from the vampire book era. It doesn’t date, it’s classy yet baby girly at the same time. A winner for me!

Ez-meh with the ‘meh’ being short and clipped is a more accurate pronunciation than Ez-may is (because the ‘may’ tends to then have that almost ‘yuh’ sound at the end which just doesn’t exist if saying it correctly.)
That’s all I’m saying and I won’t be told I’m wrong 🤣

Yes. That's why I included the IPA. It's e not eɪ.

Please stop.

I know an 'Ezmai' 😬 not a fan!

OP's DD will be bilingual but the name will be said in several ways.
the French way or Es-mi, Ez-mi, Ezmay, Esmay, ... and it will probably get misspelt in the UK.

Ah, you see, I thought it was fair enough. I remember meeting a woman who was considering the name Genevieve for her second child (she was half French). “Oh Genevieve - how lovely” I said. “No, it’s Genevieve”. “Yes, Genevieve”. This went on for a while and I honestly wasn’t trying to be an arse - I couldn’t hear the difference between the way she said it and the way i did.

If you won’t like the way that people around you will pronounce your child’s name then that is important.

I think it’s a classic name that you like, and whether someone else likes it or not doesn’t really matter here because it’s a very inoffensive name. Common or uncommon, vampire book or not, no one is looking at it going “what a stupid name” even if they don’t like it for themself, if you see what I mean.
I’m sure plenty of people hate my children’s names, but they are names people have heard of and they’ll never spend their lives cringing at some made up monstrosity of a name.
My only concern with Esmée would be the spelling as it will be a name she will always have to spell for people (“Esmée with an ‘e’”), but then that’s true of so many names. And as someone who always has to spell out both my names or regularly seeing them written down wrong it is sometimes annoying but you do just come to accept and pre-empt it.

Lovely name, please don’t spell it Esmae or Esmay!

When there is a baby name question on here I usually hate it but that is a beautiful name (provided it’s for a girl)