Which name for baby girl

gabycat

Mine is pronounced Ashling.

jellyhead

Some of the comments on here are quite harsh I think

Personally I wouldn't choose any of those names due to them being very popular, but that's because my name is Sharon and I hated having half a dozen other Sharons in every class. Other people's snobbery can be quite mean too. I'm nothing like the Sharon and Tracey in Viz. I'd be wary of calling a child Bella because people will make assumptions about the parents being Twilight fans (I've read Twilight myself, but there's a lot of negativity surrounding it).

Isabella (or Isobel) would be an alternative, as others have said. You could choose Ella or Bella as a nickname from that, if you like them. I know an Isabella who is known as Bella Boo to family and friends - Boo is not her actual middle name, but it's an affectionate name and she likes it. Her cousin is Maisie Moo, again she doesn't actually have Moo as a middle name

You can call her whatever you like as a pet name - Bella Boo is cute, but I wouldn't want it on my birth certificate, or to have to write it on job applications.

Janepig

Soleil_lune wrote: »

Funny you should say that. My friend said she was going to call her daughter Daisy - back in 1996, and I was horrified; It just conjured up this image

http://doghealthdoc.com/images/blog/driving-miss-daisy-revisted.jpg

The jury is out with me on 'longer names.' I see where you're coming from, but something like Alexander is good I think, as his mates can call him Alex, and that can be his informal name, but Alexander is a good name if he wants to enter a serious profession.

See I don't even hold with that really - I work with a couple of Alex's and a Ben who work in a legal capacity and that's how they're known all the time, never Alexander or Benjamin (I'm sure I have never heard of a grown adult known as Benjamin). Jon's the same, know loads of Jon's none of them known as Jonathan. I know a lawyer who is known by everyone including in Court as Nick not Nicholas (his partner in his firm is Jon), and also another lawyer known as Steve not Stephen. These are the ones off the top of my head.

Years ago my grandmother's GP was Ben. Not Benjamin, and he was Dr Ben to everyone not Dr (surname).

Jx

Laurajo_2

I'm the other way round....I love Benjamin but not so much Ben...I'd call mine it if I didn't know it would get shortened!

Does no one call their kids David or Sarah anymore?

I quite like having a hyphenated name myself, but when I was born it was a lot more unusual...

Why not wait til she arrives and see how she 'feels'?

I think all three are perfectly nice names, although I do hope you're not going to put boo on her birth cert....it's all very cute for a baby, less so for a grown woman having to fill out application forms etc....

*max*

I really like Isabelle actually! I think it sounds classier than Isabella (to my ear anyway, I feel like it's not "trying as hard"), and it's one less syllable.

notanewuser

*max* wrote: »

I really like Isabelle actually! I think it sounds classier than Isabella (to my ear anyway, I feel like it's not "trying as hard"), and it's one less syllable.

Isabelle looks odd to me - the "le" doesn't do anything. At least all the letters in Isabella do something!!

notanewuser

Laurajo wrote: »

Why not wait til she arrives and see how she 'feels'?

.

The OP says she arrived this week.

*max*

notanewuser wrote: »

Isabelle looks odd to me - the "le" doesn't do anything. At least all the letters in Isabella do something!!

Well, I'm French, so I may be biased.

leather5

Congratulations on your new arrival It's such a responsibility choosing a name for your child, we kind of picked a theme and stuck with it - first son George (I'm english), second son Andrew (hubbys Scottish), third son James ( tricky that one I liked David - carrying on with the theme but hubby didn't like that or Patrick so went with James being the first king of England and Scotland together!) They all have pretty solid middle names as well Alexander, Robert and Douglas and all get called by the long names by everyone. If we had had a girl however she would have been Faye - don't know where that came from !!! As for your names, out of the three I prefer Ella although think Elle would be nicer, eldest son has a friend called Elinor and she's lovely so really like that too - good luck with whatever you choose but please let us know x

paulineb_2

lostinrates wrote: »

Or call her Magueritte, from which Daisy is a natural diminutive.

Tbh, Ive never heard of people who are called Magueritte being called Daisy even though it might be a diminutive. One of my middle names is Margaret, Im in Scotland and up here Margarets get shortened to Mags, Maggie or Peggy. But I think Scottish names tend to get shortened a bit differently at times.

It can be different where you are in the UK as well, someone else mentioned Sophie, up here thats not such a popular name as down south.

Im not really fond of the name Isabel to be honest, no offence to any Isabels, but its quite a common name up here and Ive get to meet an Isabel who didnt end up being referred to as Izzy.

I dont like shortening names as I said before and people dont tend to shorten mine. Im Pauline to everyone, people dont tend to refer to me as Polly.

Im in my 40s and a lot of people of my age are called Karen, Sharon, Lesley, Linda, Tracy. Karen seems to be a very popular name up here. Michelle and Yvonne, Joanne as well, know a lot of people with those names.