Mrs. Taylor writes:<\/p>\n
I like more unusual names, but prefer if they can be read and pronounced correctly. So the name that I am debating over for a girl is Evie which I really like, but I want it to be said like “Stevie” and not “levee”. I’m worried that it would be pronounced wrong her whole life (which I have had to deal with and it gets old).<\/p>\n
So I’m wondering what you think of the name and also if Evie is a stand alone first name or makes a better nickname. I like the idea of using it as a nickname, but I can’t find any names that I like as much that it could be a nickname for. I have thought of Evelyn, but then that lends itself more to Evie said like “levee”.<\/p>\n
My other idea is a first name that starts with E. and middle name starts with V., then she could be “E.V.” and we could use Evie as nickname. But again I don’t really like any of them as much. This will be for our first child so no sibling names to worry about yet.<\/p>\n
So what I am hoping to discuss.<\/p>\n
\n
- What do you\/readers think of Evie and can it work as a first name, not a nickname? <\/li>\n
- How do you most likely think that people would pronounce it the first time they see it?<\/li>\n
- Any other names that it could be a nickname for, or an E. first name, V. middle name?<\/li>\n
- Middle names for Evie Taylor.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Hope this isn’t too confusing!!!<\/p>\n
Thanks so much for your help.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It SHOULD be clear-cut: Evie should be EE-vee, and Evvie should be EH-vee. But my eye does sometimes get confused: I think because I see the “Ev” first and say it as in Evelyn and Evan, and then I see the “ie” and tack it on. So even though I KNOW it’s EE-vee, I might stumble over it.<\/p>\n
I did a little test just now: I wrote the name on a piece of paper and showed it to Paul, and I said, “How would you pronounce this?” He immediately said it the EE-vee way. Anyone who has someone nearby to run the test on, will you run it too? And let’s make a first poll for test results: Did they say it EH-vee (like Evan and Evelyn), or did they say it EE-vee (like Eve)? Let’s get an idea of how serious a situation we’re dealing with.<\/p>\n
Now, to the other issues. I prefer Evie as a nickname, but I also think it works as a stand-alone name. What I would do is name her Eve and call her Evie: I love the name Eve and think the nickname Evie is an excellent way to use the name without calling the “Adam and Eve” thing QUITE so quickly to mind. You could also name her Eva and call her Evie, although that seems less natural to me. I realize the mind balks a bit at the idea of a nickname that’s longer than the given name, but banish the balk! It’s totally legit: John can be Johnny, Scott can be Scotty, Rose can be Rosie, Ann can be Annie, Lynn can be Lynnie, and Eve can be Evie.<\/p>\n
I also like the way the Eve\/Eva idea pushes the mind to the correct pronunciation of the nickname: if someone knows the child’s given name is Eve, they won’t be tempted to pronounce the nickname Evvie. So this is my top choice. Eve Taylor and Eva Taylor are both excellent choices, and I think the movie E.T. is old enough that her peers won’t have seen it or even heard of it.<\/p>\n
I admit a fondness for your clever E.V. solution. I don’t usually lean toward initial names, but this one has sass. Most people find they are drawn again and again to names that start with certain letters, and one of my letters is E, so I find lots to love here. Plus, Verity and Victoria are both on my list of names I like but don’t want to use as first names. Erin Verity Taylor. Elena Victoria Taylor. Eliza Violet Taylor. Emily Victoria Taylor. Well, clearly this is my personal playground—but it’s still not what I’d do if I were you. If what you love is Evie, I think we should get you Evie.<\/p>\n
If you want something longer than Eve\/Eva, I think Evemarie is pretty. You could also go with Genevieve. Evemarie Taylor. Genevieve Taylor. Nice.<\/p>\n
If you decide to go with straight Evie, let’s look at some middle names. I like to use the middle name to honor a relative, so if you’ve got anyone you want to honor, now’s the moment. It’s also a good place for names you like a lot but have ruled out as first names. I notice that there are a lot of middle initials that work with E and T to spell a common word or acronym: EAT, EDT, EMT, ENT, EST. None of them are a huge deal—more in the “good to take into account, but not necessarily dealbreakers” category.<\/p>\n
Well, and the main thing here is to choose your ROUTE. Will you name her a shortish<\/span> name such as Eve or Eva and call her Evie? Will you name her a longish<\/span> name such as Evemarie or Genevieve and call her Evie? Will you give her the initials E.V. and call her Evie? Will you go with straight Evie?<\/p>\n
And that’s what I think we should vote on here: the ROUTE. We’ll make that a second poll: the first poll is a survey to determine pronunciation issues, and the second is to vote on which direction you think the Taylors should go to get the name Evie. [Polls closed; see below.] If you want to be more specific and vote for a particular long\/short\/initial name, you can put that in the comment section. And if you’re feeling chatty, you can get into the middle name issue there as well.<\/p>\n
[Poll results:<\/span><\/p>\n
First poll (pronunciation):<\/span>
EE-vee (like Eve): 135 votes, roughly 89%
EH-vee (like Evan): 17 votes, roughly 11%<\/p>\nSecond poll (route):<\/span>
Shortish name (like Eve or Eva): 83 votes, roughly 50%
Longish name (like Evemarie or Genevieve): 37 votes, roughly 22%
Initials (E.V.): 12 votes, roughly 7%
Just go with Evie: 33 votes, roughly 20%]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mrs. Taylor writes: I like more unusual names, but prefer if they can be read and pronounced correctly. So the name that I am debating over for a girl is Evie which I really like, but I want it to be said like “Stevie” and not “levee”. I’m worried that it would be pronounced wrong […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1SF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7233","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=7233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}