My husband and I are expecting a baby girl in [name_f]October[/name_f] (she’ll be our third and final child). Girl names are hard for us to agree on so we’ve just kind of been casually discussing names but probably won’t settle on anything for sure until the baby gets here. One name that I do keep coming back to is [name_f]Aya[/name_f]. We’ve had it on our list for years, I love the sound of it and it honors my Japanese heritage. Recently though, I’ve been thinking that instead of a full name, we should use it as a nickname for [name_f]Aylin[/name_f], which is Turkish and would honor my husband’s heritage. So now I’m just trying to figure out what to do. If we did use [name_f]Aylin[/name_f] as a first name, then we’d use a Japanese name in the middle. At the same time, we’d be calling the baby [name_f]Aya[/name_f] most of the time and while using a Japanese name is very important to me, using a Turkish name isn’t important to my husband.
So I’m looking for advice on what to do. [name_f]Aya[/name_f] as a first name? [name_f]Aylin[/name_f] as a first name with [name_f]Aya[/name_f] as a nickname? Which would you go with?
I would use [name_f]Aya[/name_f] as the full first name for two reasons. Number one, it is beautiful and distinctive. Number two, I am generally not a fan of all the names that end in lin, lynn, lyn.
With [name_f]Aya[/name_f], you could use a Turkish mn.
I prefer to name the child what she will be called as it is just sleeker and also, easier for her, so in this case I would go with [name_f]Aya[/name_f]. [name_f]Aya[/name_f], and I like the suggestion of a Turkish middle?
I prefer just [name_f]Aya[/name_f]. [name_f]Aylin[/name_f] isn’t bad, & it’s most definitely a real Turkish name. But it just seems like another one of those made up-y trendy 2020 names like Rylin, [name_f]Adelyn[/name_f], etc. [name_f]Aya[/name_f] is simple & elegant. It’d be nice to find a beautiful Turkish name to put in the mn spot to honor both of your heritages.
I prefer [name_f]Aya[/name_f] as a full name. If using a Turkish name isn’t very important to your husband!, Maybe you could use a Turkish middle if you still want to honor his heritage.
I much prefer [name_f]Aya[/name_f]. It’s a beautiful, distinctive name and if using a Japanese name is more important to you than using a Turkish name is to your husband, then it makes sense. Plus, if that’s what you’d be calling her all the time anyway then you may as well have that name on the birth certificate.
While I personally prefer [name_f]Aylin[/name_f] – if pronounced [AE-lin] as in cay/hay/way – my suggestion is a resounding recommendation to name the baby what you’d actually call her. If you’re going to call her [name_f]Aya[/name_f] anyway, naming her anything but [name_f]Aya[/name_f] is going to just be annoying at the end of the day, and you’ll wish you just went with [name_f]Aya[/name_f] in the first place.
I’d say, go with [name_f]Aya[/name_f].
PS… If you guys like the sound of [name_f]Aylin[/name_f], though, maybe consider a middle name that starts with an L, so the fullname has a similar flow.
I would say them differently: [name_f]Aya[/name_f] as EYE-ah and [name_f]Aylin[/name_f] as AYE-lin. So if you want to call her [name_f]Aya[/name_f] then I also vote for just [name_f]Aya[/name_f] I know an infant called [name_f]Aya[/name_f] and it works well. Her parents were considering [name_f]Amaya[/name_f] but chose to just use [name_f]Aya[/name_f] in the end.
Amaya is also nice and I believe corresponds to “heavenly valley” in Japanese (according to nb anyway).
Thanks to everyone for all the feedback! In regards to using [name_f]Aya[/name_f] upfront and a Turkish name in the middle, odds are that just isn’t going to happen. I have some family names from my side that I’d like to honor, so we’re probably going to use one of those. The only family name my husband liked from his side was a Turkish boy name, so we would have used that if baby had been a boy instead. Also, most of the Turkish names that both husband and I have agreed on ([name_f]Ayla[/name_f], [name_f]Aylin[/name_f], Alanya) are all very close in sound to [name_f]Aya[/name_f], so that just wouldn’t work. And [name_f]Aylin[/name_f] is pronounced eye-lin, for those that were confused about the pronunciation.
I think we’ll probably go with just [name_f]Aya[/name_f] up front instead of as a nickname, though we’ve still got about two months to decide, so that at least gives us some time to mull it over (or decide on a different name entirely).
