I am due on the 15th and we keep selecting and then tossing out names. We have a short list and I would love your insight/advice.
This is our second child. Our first is named Dahlia Carmel. We love her name. Dahlia is after my husband's grandmother, and Carmel is the place where we were married. Our last name is three syllables and starts with a B and ends with "nik", so my husband likes soft feminine names that end in "a". I like French names as I am half-French. I also like unusual names, but not something terrible unrecognizable or hard to spell.
Here is the short list:
-Camilla (is this usually spelled with one or two l's?)
-Camille
-Kira (would you spell it like this or Keira which seems more complicated to me)
-Amelie
-Clara (my husband and I realized after deciding we loved this name that there are two ways to say this name and he likes one and I like the other)
-Nadia (we like slavic sounding names too)
-Tea or Teya/Taya (we love the name but are not sure how to spell it)
Now, for her middle name we were thinking of calling her Royale. My husband is from Montreal, and we have spent a lot of time there. Mount Royal is what Montreal is named for. The only problem is that we have shared this with a few people and they keep telling us that it reminds them of the bit in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta talks about what cheeseburgers are called at MacDonalds in France....Royale with Cheese. Did you think of that?? I also thought of using Monique (MONtreal, QUEbec), but my husband isn't sure. Other middle name options could be other places we have been/love like Rio (many places in India, Morocco, China, Australia, South Africa---we love to travel), or after my grandparents which would start with an A or H.
Please help us. We don't have much time left!!!
Thanks!
Any other ideas? Which of these do you like from the list?
Thanks for your help and advice!
If I hadn't looked it up, I would have been absolutely certain that Camilla was the standard spelling and Camila an odd variation (odd because it's not phonetically correct for the U.S. English pronunciation cah-MILL-ah). But I DID look it up, and according to the Social Security Administration, 547 girls were named Camilla in 2009, and 3707 were named Camila. According to The Baby Name Wizard, "Camila" is the Spanish version. Sometimes when I suggest the name Camilla, someone will say they associate it too strongly with the Camilla who married the Prince of Wales; perhaps the Spanish version lacks that association completely and so is more often used.
The spelling Kira lends itself to more mispronunciations: it could be KY-rah or KEER-ra. Whereas Keira is only KEER-ra. I'm not sure what I'd do, either: I prefer the look of the first spelling, but the ease of the second.
The primary downside of the name Téa is, as you say, the problem of how to spell it. I sat here for awhile puzzling it out, wondering how I'd spell it. Taeya, maybe, if what you want is the TAY-yah pronunciation. I wonder if you'd like Tia instead? Another option is to name her Mattea and call her Tea for short.
I didn't think of Pulp Fiction when I saw the name Royale. I also like Rio and India and China from your list---but both Royale and Rio seem more masculine to me, and India and China don't seem to fit well with any of the first name possibilities. I would lean toward the family names, if they fit better, or perhaps use one of the other first-name options.
My favorites from your list are Camilla and Nadia. Dahlia Carmel and Nadia Amelie, or Dahlia Carmel and Camilla Taeya.
