Baby Girl Chilelli, Sister to Giovanni Paolo

Abriana writes:

I'm looking for help in naming my second little one due on June 12, 2011. My name is Abriana and my husband is Ryan. Our last name is Chilelli (pronounced chill - elle - ee). Our son is named Giovanni Paolo. I know- Italian overload- but his name has significant meaning to us. He was named after Pope John Paul II who wrote extensively on marriages and families and really inspired my husband and I in our Catholic faith, which is really important to us. I am not tied to sticking with Italian names; we were just attracted to name his Giovanni Paolo instead of John Paul, since John Paul just seemed too ordinary to us. We absolutely love his name, and call him G for short.

For a girl, though, we are stuck. It's odd because I am obsessed with baby names-- I have been doodling baby names and thinking about my future children for as long as I can remember.

My husband loves the name Eilin, which we have heard is pronounced e-uh-lynn or a-uh-lynn by Swedish speakers.

I love that he loves it. He's not the most opinionated guy, and when he gets excited about something, I love it! I just think it would be so cute to be able to tell our little girl that her daddy named her.

Here’s where I’ll be honest, we heard it after hearing about Tiger Woods' wife-- which bothers the crap out of me!!! However, my family is Swedish and this is a really common Swedish name, and I think it'd be a great tribute to our family's heritage.

We would spell it Eilin to help people pronounce it phonetically. The issue is that if we choose to pronounce it a-uh-lynn, people seem to get confused when we tell them how we are spelling it. We like a-uh-lynn as the pronunciation—feel like it’s more feminine, but sometimes when I say it out loud, I hear “alien”. If we pronounce it e-uh-lynn, it seems a bit sharp to the ear.

Her middle name would be Maeva, which is a variation on Maeve. This has been a name that I’ve loved since college when reading an Irish myth about Queen Maeve.


So my questions are:

1) how should we pronounce Eilin? E-uh-lynn or a-uh-lynn?

2) Are there any other names that have a similar feel that might be more appealing? I feel like Eilin is warm, elegant, yet original.

Thanks so much for your help!!