My husband and I have a beautiful daughter named [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] [name_f]Paige[/name_f] and are expecting baby girl #2. Recently we came across the name [name_f]Avia[/name_f] (ay-vee-uh) and have fallen in love with it, but we have a few concerns that make us hesitate to use it. I’d really appreciate some outside opinions or thoughts as I’m hoping it will help us make a decision.
We tend to like uncommon names ([name_f]Gemma[/name_f] is very uncommon where we live) but the problem with this one is it’s uncommon but also very similar to [name_f]Ava[/name_f], which is extremely common. Seriously you cannot throw a rock without hitting an [name_f]Ava[/name_f] around here. I imagine a girl named [name_f]Avia[/name_f] would spend her whole live correcting people who call her [name_f]Ava[/name_f] and always misspell her name. [name_f]Do[/name_f] you think she would resent that?
[name_f]Gemma[/name_f] and [name_f]Avia[/name_f] sound rather clunky together, at least to me. Could they work as sisters?
Is it just too unfamiliar to use? My sister said people would always think we were just too special snowflake-y/kreative to use [name_f]Ava[/name_f] and I think she’s probably right. Not that I feel like what other people think should stop us from using it but it would probably bother me if nobody believed it was a real name.
Thank you in advance for any opinions or advice. We had [name_f]Gemma[/name_f]'s name picked out before I was even pregnant with her so these struggles are very new territory for us!
I’m just gonna second everything @bellaczh said, and add that it sounds like “avian”, which honestly puts me in mind of bird flu: not a creative form of [name_f]Ava[/name_f].
Yikes. It reminded me of ‘avian’/bird things too, which is part of what drew me to it…but I was thinking of sweet little songbirds, not bird flu. I certainly wouldn’t want that to be what people associated her name with.
Thank you for the input everyone. I guess we just need to go back to the drawing board - a shame because this is the only name so far we’ve both loved. I wish we would have thought back when we named [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] about sibling names needing to go together. It’s giving us a really hard time.
I’ve liked it since I heard the name used by the Shaytards on YT but I would also hesitate bc of the [name_f]Ava[/name_f]/[name_f]Avia[/name_f] problem. I like [name_f]Avalon[/name_f] as an alternative. Also loved [name_f]Aria[/name_f] before it became super trendy. Perhaps [name_f]Alessa[/name_f] or [name_f]Alessia[/name_f]?
I do think people will constantly mispronounce either is [name_f]Ava[/name_f] or as AW-vuh. I can’t really speak to whether I think she will resent it because I have an easily pronouncable name myself, so I’ve never experienced that, but people always do spell my name incorrectly (with one L instead of two - [name_u]Hillary[/name_u]), and it’s kind of annoying, but not really a big deal at all.
I think [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] and [name_f]Avia[/name_f] sound fine together as long you don’t mind that they both end in that “-uh” sound (I tend to prefer that sibling names vary the ending sounds of the names, but that’s just personal preference!).
Yes, it does sound like a made-up name to me.
[name_f]Ava[/name_f] is a personal favorite of mine, so here are a few names I consider nice alternatives if you like the sounds of those “AYs,” “VEEs” and “ee-uhs”:
I don’t think she will resent that at all, sure it might happen but I think people would see it as a breathe of fresh air rather than a burden. I feel the conversation would be more often than not people saying how pretty it is, Also with spelling these days nothing can be spelt right even the most popular names
[name_f]Isabelle[/name_f]/[name_f]Izabelle[/name_f]/[name_f]Isobel[/name_f]
and you could go on forever, even though these are different spellings of the same name it is the same sort of thing the only [name_f]Ava[/name_f] i know is spelt [name_f]Ayva[/name_f] and [name_f]Avia[/name_f] could also be spelt Ayvia or Aviah so theres not really any dodging the spelling pronounciation thing because some names even have diffrent pronounciations
Is [name_f]Aida[/name_f] pronounced Aid-uh or Eye-ee-da
Is [name_f]Megan[/name_f] pronounced Me-gan or [name_f]Meg[/name_f]-an
I think [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] and [name_f]Avia[/name_f] sound nice together, and if you meet the syllable count with there middle name than it will make the names flow nicer, examples
[name_f]Gemma[/name_f] [name_f]Elise[/name_f] and [name_f]Avia[/name_f] [name_f]Grace[/name_f]
[name_f]Gemma[/name_f] [name_f]Cassandra[/name_f] and [name_f]Avia[/name_f] [name_f]Tayla[/name_f]
I think is is not to unfamiliar to use, I think it is a nice in between. Because of [name_f]Ava[/name_f], [name_f]Eva[/name_f] and [name_f]Aria[/name_f] , [name_f]Avia[/name_f] feels familiar enough that people won’t be looking at you funny but there won’t be people saying oh another [name_f]Ava[/name_f]/[name_f]Eva[/name_f] or [name_f]Aria[/name_f]
So if you love it I say use it and don’t listen to anyone else but if your really not feeling it anymore here are some suggestions
Not only will people confuse it with [name_f]Ava[/name_f], but [name_f]Aria[/name_f] too if they are giving it a cursory read on a page for the first time, especially handwritten. [name_f]Avia[/name_f] isn’t a smooth-sounding name will [name_f]Gemma[/name_f]. I think the gorgeously-named [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] deserves a beautifully-named sister to go with her. (Also, your sister is right, and let me add that it also sounds like a kreativ version of [name_f]Aria[/name_f]! Yikes!)
I really like [name_f]Avia[/name_f]! When I first read it, I thought of [name_f]Aria[/name_f], not [name_f]Ava[/name_f]. I didn’t even think [name_f]Ava[/name_f] until you mentioned it.
I do think [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] & [name_f]Avia[/name_f] are quite different, but I don’t dislike them together. But then again, I’m of the mind that you should name your kids the names you love, unless they are really different from each other ie. [name_f]Eleanor[/name_f] & [name_u]Rylan[/name_u] (g) would never work for me, but like, [name_f]Eleanor[/name_f] & [name_u]Riley[/name_u] (g) would.
Thank you for the different opinions. I hadn’t even thought about [name_f]Avia[/name_f] being close to [name_f]Aria[/name_f], but we don’t really hear that name a lot where we live. I get that it’s probably not a good idea. We just agree on names so rarely…it figures we’d finally both love one that seems unusable. The husband and I have vastly different taste, I guess; some of the alternative names you’ve suggested are lovely but we just don’t like the same ones. Finding [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] so easily must have been a fluke, and it figures again that [name_f]Gemma[/name_f]'s name, which we both adore, sounds so clunky paired with every name we’ve tried to consider with her sister.
I like the mindset that people should use whatever names they love, but we got some pretty harsh reactions to [name_f]Gemma[/name_f]'s uncommon name that honestly I really just don’t want to deal with again. “Too special for [name_f]Emma[/name_f], huh? She’s going to hate you when she has to explain to everyone that her name isn’t [name_f]Jenna[/name_f] for her entire life. People are going to think you made that up. [name_f]Emma[/name_f]/[name_f]Jenna[/name_f] is perfectly normal, you should have used that instead of going all creative!” I suppose I’m a bit sensitive to it; it made me a complete wreck postpartum and I still worry sometimes that we might have done [name_f]Gemma[/name_f] a huge disservice choosing her name. Of course we chose another name open to all the same criticisms, and I’d never even thought about sibling names needing to flow well together before but it’s exactly the kind of thing family will rip us a new one over if they don’t. I think this little girl is going to remain nameless until she’s about five years old. Or maybe we should just go with [name_f]Ava[/name_f].
but if your really not feeling it anymore here are some suggestions