I am 34 weeks pregnant and still considering other names for baby if baby is a girl.
I am hispanic and speak fluent Spanish, I live in the States but am very involved with my hispanic family here and we also travel back home to visit family and friends. Our baby will obviously be included in this culture and will know fluent Spanish as well as English.
I randomly came across the [name_f]Eila[/name_f] and instantly fell in love with it, but of course in my mind, because I’m a native Spanish speaker, I pronounced it with the short vowel E, so Eh-eelah (like [name_f]Ayla[/name_f]; Aye-lah). But, OH NOES! I found out it is technically pronounced Eye-lah? Nooooo! I want it to be pronounced Eh-ee-lah, the way it reads and would be pronounced in Spanish.
So, my question is, when you see the name [name_f]Eila[/name_f], how did you immediately pronounce it? Is it usable as Eh-eelah?
I say EYE-la… I can see how it would easily be pronounce AY-la, too.
Ay-ee-la would be harder to get.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you live in a spanish-speaking area… Like does the general public only speak Spanish in your area? [name_m]Will[/name_m] your child ever be living outside of a Spanish-speaking area?
I understand how, phonetically, you get to the pronunciation you like, but it is kind of unprecedented. The only Spanish (actually Basque) name I can think of starting with EI is Eider, which is not pronounced ay-EE-dehr.
Maybe if you spell it Eíla, like Aída is spelled in Spanish, that will help? But I don’t think the US recognizes diacritics on legal forms, does it? I’m Canadian, so I’m not sure.
I’d also say eye-lah. It’d actually be eh-eelah in my native language as well, but in an English-speaking country I’d still assume eye-lah.
If you love the name’s sound so much I’d just spell it [name_f]Ayla[/name_f]. It’s way less likely to get misspelled where the baby will be living, which I think is more important than the name being easier to pronounce at the place you only travel to and don’t reside in.
Or you could use [name_f]Eila[/name_f] as a middle name!
My brain automatically read [name_f]Ella[/name_f] rather than [name_f]Eila[/name_f], although it is beautiful. I’d only assume that it’s pronounced Eh-ee-la if it was spelled with a diacritic like Eíla or Eïla, otherwise it’s Eye-Lah for me too…
I’d pronounce [name_f]Eila[/name_f] just the same as [name_f]Ayla[/name_f] upon first seeing it. I mean it makes sense— E and I make the Ay sound (Eh + Ee sounds = Ay). There are a lot of replies here saying that they’d pronounce it eye-luh but honestly it could go either way and [name_f]Eila[/name_f] does look like something that could have multiple possible pronunciations in the first place. If you love it then go for it. A correction once in a while doesn’t really hurt, and [name_f]Eila[/name_f] is a beautiful name.
I’d pronounced it eye-luh because that’s the way it’s supposed to be pronounced. I really wouldn’t complicate things by trying to pronounce it differently. Eh-ee-lah just sounds wrong, difficult, & confusing for others. [name_f]Eila[/name_f] isn’t a Spanish name, it’s not supposed to be pronounced with Spanish vowels. That’s like trying to pronounce the name [name_f]Saoirse[/name_f] by English vowels.