Husband and I are expecting our first child in [name_f]April[/name_f], and we are having our gender reveal party on Thanksgiving! We are so excited. We do already have the names picked out. [name_m]Knox[/name_m] [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] if it is a boy, and [name_f]Helena[/name_f] [name_f]Joy[/name_f] if it is a girl
[name_f]Helena[/name_f] would be pronounced Hel-[name_m]LAY[/name_m]-nuh and both my husband and I were thinking that if we spelled it Heléna that it might be easier for people to know the correct pronunciation when reading it. Now, we are both familiar with how accents are used, so it makes sense to us… but I’m not sure if it would just confuse other people.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you think the accent would help or hinder the pronunciation?
sidenote: We actually like all three pronunciations of the name and are prepared for correcting people, but the name is already decided.
Definately use the accent mark. ! Helaina or Helayna or Helaena. My friend’s daughter is named [name_f]Helen[/name_f]'a. Spelled with apostrophe.Pronounced helen-a,.Her mothers name was [name_f]Helen[/name_f] so she wanted to be sure it was pronounced that way. Different for sure.
[name_m]Just[/name_m] use [name_f]Helena[/name_f]. What country do you live in? I’m in [name_f]Canada[/name_f] and both Helenas I know pronounce it hel-AY-na. [name_m]Even[/name_m] so, if you had to explain the pronounciation you’d most likely only need to do so once.
I would stick with [name_f]Helena[/name_f]. I know a hel-ay-na pronunciation and a hel-ena pronunciation, and it only takes one correction to get it right, seeing as people dont don’t know too many helenas to start!
Thanks guys. We live in [name_u]California[/name_u], so the accent mark makes sense to us because there is so many Spanish speakers and we are familiar to it. There is also a town close to us called St. [name_f]Helena[/name_f], which is pronounced St. Hel-ee-nuh so I was thinking that may be people’s default pronunciation. But I think you are all right about maybe just keeping it as is. We are prepared to raise a confident daughter who will have no problem correcting people when needed to
I am personally tempted to use accented names, but unless someday I move to another country where accents are commonly used, I won’t. [name_f]Helene[/name_f] [name_f]Joy[/name_f] is really lovely, btw.
I would just use [name_f]Helena[/name_f]. I don’t think the accent mark makes the pronunciation any more clear, it just makes the spelling more confusing. [name_f]Helena[/name_f] is a name I would ask about anyway because there are three pronunciations that, while they may not be used with equal regularity, they’re pretty close. So I would expect a [name_f]Helena[/name_f] to always be saying it’s he-[name_m]LAY[/name_m]-na, not HEL-en-a or he-[name_u]LEE[/name_u]-na.
Also, the accent mark doesn’t change the pronunciation in Spanish. [name_f]Helena[/name_f] would be pronounced the same way as [name_f]Elena[/name_f] (the H in this case would be silent). The accent would not be used because the penultimate syllable is emphasized and it ends with a vowel.
I would personally go Heléna I think it’s one of the better known accents (like no matter where you go, most people recognize the é in café, cliché, touché etc. If my name didn’t have the é it would sound very different haha. And even though I live in NZ where there are practically zero accents used in writing and it’s very [name_u]Brit[/name_u]-centric, almost everyone when they see the é on my name realize how to pronounce it.
Visually, which do you like better? Whichever you prefer regardless of any considerations about pronunciation is what I would suggest choosing.
My personal preference is without the accent.
I’m leaning toward without the accent, as well. Is there a nationality where the accent is traditionally used? It may be in [name_m]French[/name_m], although I feel like they’d just use Hélène (ay-[name_m]LEN[/name_m]). If I planned on including an accent in my child’s name, though, it would be because it’s culturally appropriate, like for Amélie, Esmée, Agnès, or Hélène, not to emphasize a pronunciation, mainly because accents in the US are extremely uncommon (I’ve even heard you’re not able to include it on all legal documents, and I feel like I’ve even heard that you aren’t able to include accents on birth certificates. I don’t know if it’s true, though–I’m nowhere near close enough to having a child yet to have felt like I needed to research it out.), and I would think that enforcing the accent would be harder than enforcing the pronunciation.
heh-[name_m]LAY[/name_m]-nah is one of the top 2 pronunciations for [name_f]Helena[/name_f] (the other is HEH-len-ah. Although I did have a friend who had a daughter heh-[name_u]LEE[/name_u]-nah, too, so I know it is used), so I wouldn’t especially expect too much confusion? It only takes a simple correction and then you’ll be fine.
