In my family it is tradition to use a family name as a middle name. My daughter is due on my mother’s birthday in [name_u]December[/name_u] and we have chosen to use her middle name for our daughter. Her name is [name_u]Noel[/name_u], pronounced no-ell. This is how I would want to spell it except for it being technically pronounced nole-rhyming with mole here in the US. So I need help choosing between three options.
- [name_u]Noel[/name_u]. Keep it originally how she has it spelt, and hope that people just pronounce it as [name_u]Noel[/name_u]. It’s never been an issue for my mother and it is just a middle name which isn’t commonly spoken from seeing it on written paper. I like this because my mother has a lot of [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] things to pass down to her that say “[name_u]Noel[/name_u]” and I would prefer if it was spelt that way.
- [name_f]Noelle[/name_f]. Everyone would know how to say it, but I’m not in love with the fact that it’s be completely different spelling than my mother’s. Aside from her, I would also prefer it be spelt like the [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] word. Another big factor is my husband has someone in his family with this spelling as a middle name in which he doesn’t get along. So he’s pretty much vetoed it.
- Noël. This seems to be the best of both worlds because I’m getting the spelling we want, kind of, and it’s pronounced the way we would like. However I’m from the US so people don’t really use umlauts and I feel like it might be kind of odd. I have seen it done with [name_m]Zo[/name_m]ë before but I have also seen [name_f]Zoe[/name_f] spelt with no umlauts pronounced the same - like zoey. Would it be weird if I officially made it Noël? I have a hyphen in my name and although it isn’t the same as umlauts I sometimes do or sometimes don’t include it. I’m wondering if it’d be something like that? Anyways please help!