{"id":14330,"date":"2019-09-10T08:04:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T12:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14330"},"modified":"2020-02-14T22:08:27","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T02:08:27","slug":"baby-naming-issue-can-they-name-her-mila-and-pronounce-it-myla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/09\/10\/baby-naming-issue-can-they-name-her-mila-and-pronounce-it-myla\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Can They Name Her Mila and Pronounce It Myla?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My husband and I are expecting our third and last child in January. We have 2 boys – Brady Mills and Walker Lee. Brady\u2019s middle name is my maiden name, and Walker\u2019s middle name is my middle name. We all use my husband\u2019s surname, Kershmen. We are not finding out the gender of this baby until he\/she is born.<\/p>\n

For a boy we have settled on Davis Blake (Blake is my husband\u2019s middle name and is what he goes by).<\/p>\n

The girl name is trickier. Since we got pregnant with our first child we have loved the name Mila Blake and that is what we have always called our future imaginary daughter. The problem is, we like the pronunciation Myla, but the spelling\/look of Mila. I have just now realized that naming a kid \u2018x\u2019 and asking people to pronounce it \u2018y\u2019 might be crazy. I like \u2018Meela\u2019 but it doesn\u2019t make me feel the way \u2018Myla\u2019 does. But I\u2019m totally out on spelling it Myla.<\/p>\n

Other names we are now considering, all with Blake as a middle name:<\/p>\n

Cora
\nTaylor
\nMara
\nClaire (would have to find a different middle name for this one)<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts? Do we need to let Mila go and come up with something else? Any other name suggestions?<\/p>\n

Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

My first thought was that it would be okay: I was remembering when names such as Mia first started coming into style, and people were wondering if it was MEE-a or MY-a, and it all worked out fine in the end. My second thought was “…But now we all know it’s MEE-a.”<\/p>\n

I looked Mila up in a couple baby name books, just in case MY-la was offered as an alternate pronunciation, but no. I’m sure there ARE Milas out there pronounced MY-la (just as there are probably Mias pronounced MY-a), but if I encountered one, I would get that little eep feeling of wondering if that was on purpose or if the parents saw the name in writing and guessed wrong on the pronunciation. If I were a Mila pronounced Myla, I would get very tired of correcting people.<\/p>\n

Here I was going to say that on the other hand, the name was not so common that it would be a constant issue. Then I looked up its current popularity and was surprised to find that, according to the Social Security Administration<\/a>, Mila was the 14th most popular girl name in the U.S. in 2018. Well. That does change things for me.<\/p>\n

I am not the name police and I am not the boss of you, but you have asked for my own opinion on this, and my own opinion is that no, you should not name her Mila and ask for it to be pronounced Myla. I think your choices are: (1) spell it Myla or (2) choose something else. (But I am bearing in mind that there is a third choice: saying “Heck with that, we’re doing what we want.”)<\/p>\n

Looking at your list of other options, I wonder if you have already considered and rejected Clara: it’s like Cora plus Claire minus needing to find a different middle name. Clara Kershmen; Clara Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Clara.<\/p>\n

Similar to Myla, I wonder if you’d like Lila. (If you are feeling it’s unfair that Lila looks just like Mila and yet they do not rhyme, I am with you and you have my sympathy.) Lila Kershmen; Lila Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Lila.<\/p>\n

Let’s keep going with rhymes. Twila is pretty and underused. Twila Kershmen; Twila Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Twila.<\/p>\n

Or Isla. Isla Kershmen; Isla Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Isla.<\/p>\n

Maybe Dahlia or Delia? I recently encountered Delia in the wild and liked it more than I’d realized I would. Delia Kershmen; Delia Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Delia.<\/p>\n

Or Maya. Maya Kershmen; Maya Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Maya.<\/p>\n

Or Nadia. Nadia Kershmen; Nadia Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Nadia.<\/p>\n

Or Ivy. Ivy Kershmen; Ivy Blake Kershmen; Brady, Walker, and Ivy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey Swistle,<\/p>\n

Thanks to you and your readers for all the comments and name suggestions. I read through them several times throughout my pregnancy. In the end, we welcomed a precious boy and our indecision on a girl\u2019s name did not matter! Here is our third boy, Davis Blake. We are in love <3\n \n\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My husband and I are expecting our third and last child in January. We have 2 boys – Brady Mills and Walker Lee. Brady\u2019s middle name is my maiden name, and Walker\u2019s middle name is my middle name. We all use my husband\u2019s surname, Kershmen. We are not finding out the gender of this baby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3J8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14330"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14550,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14330\/revisions\/14550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}