Name Help is a series at Appellation Mountain. Every week, one reader’s name questions will be discussed.
We’re relying on thoughtful comments from the community to help expectant parents narrow down their name decisions. Thank you in advance for sharing your insight!
Table of Contents
UPDATE
Thanks to everyone for their comments. We went back and forth about it, but ultimately decided to change the spelling. My husband decided he was really okay with Violet. As soon as we filed the paperwork for her updated birth certificate, I felt this incredible sense of calm. I didn’t know how much I’d been feeling the stress from this decision until it was over!
Jenna writes:
I could really use some help deciding what to do about our four month old daughter’s name.
We didn’t find out what we were having before, and went in with a pretty good idea of what we’d name a boy. For a girl, we didn’t really agree.
My husband wanted Juliette, but he has a J name, just like me, my brothers, and my sister, and my dad. I really didn’t want another J name even though I like Juliette a lot.
My favorite was Scarlett, but he couldn’t get over the “scar” sound.
After she was born, someone suggested Violet and I liked it instantly, but then I thought that spelling it Violette would be prettier, like Juliette.
My husband left it up to me.
Her name is Violette Mae LastName.
I’m happy with it, but was surprised that lots of people try to say it VEE oh LET or ask how to pronounce it or just kind of stop and look at it for a minute. I say “like the flower” a lot. Now I know that Violette is French, which I didn’t when we were in the hospital, but I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard.
Do we:
- Change the spelling legally. I asked and I can actually “correct” her birth certificate until her first birthday, so it wouldn’t cost anything that I can tell.
- Just use the Violet spelling, but not change it officially. This is sort of happening already. Everyone just writes Violet.
- Stick with Violette and just know it will sometimes be something I need to explain. I feel like it’s already getting old to have to repeat it all the time, but maybe it gets easier.
My husband – again!! – says it’s up to me. Could really use some advice.
Please read on for my response and leave your thoughtful suggestions in the comments.
Abby replies:
Congratulations on your new daughter, and I’m so sorry you’re going through this!
Parents often do choose a different spelling to signal a specific pronunciation. It’s not always successful. And most of us, most of the time, probably default to whatever pronunciation is most familiar.
So yes, lots of people will see Violette and say Violet, just like Juliette = Juliet. It’s logical.
Me? I’d guess that Violette is pronounced differently than Violet. (I blame many years of high school French followed by a few semesters in college.)
Which makes me think the confusion is understandable, too.
Let’s go through your options.
LEGALLY CHANGE THE SPELLING TO VIOLET
This seems like the easy choice, right?
Except I wonder how you feel about the spelling Violet? Is it lacking, or less special, in any way?
It seems like you’re attracted to the sound and relatively neutral on the spelling … but it’s worth sitting with that for a minute.
If you do find that Violet and Violette feel equally appealing, then correcting her birth certificate seems like the right decision.
USE THE VIOLET SPELLING, BUT NOT MAKE A LEGAL CHANGE.
This feels like the worst of both worlds! If anything, it delays the problem for a future time … when making a legal change will require more paperwork and cost.
The only advantage I can see? Potentially it’s your daughter who chooses. But do you really want to go through years of ambiguity until she voices a preference?
STICK WITH VIOLETTE AND GET USED TO EXPLAINING.
This feels like a perfectly viable path forward.
First, yes, I do think it gets easier. People know you. You enroll your daughter in school, do lots of explaining and then … well, she’s in. Unless you move frequently, there’s a good chance you only have to repeat this routine a handful of times over the course of her life. (And, truly, by the time she’s old enough to go to middle school, she’s the one explaining.)
In our world of Sophia and Sofia, Isla and Ayla, Everly and Everleigh, and many Madelyn/Adeline variations, Violette feels a) understandable and b) not really that big a deal.
SO … VIOLET or VIOLETTE?
My advice is to stick with the dominant spelling, unless there’s a compelling reason to make a change. (Like it reflects your heritage, indicates a preferred pronunciation, or follows a naming custom.)
The numbers are clearly on the side of Violet.
In 2022 alone:
- 6,434 girls were named Violet.
- Another 391 were named Violeta – where there’s clearly a different pronunciation.
- Just 233 were Violette.
- 133 were named Violetta.
- There were also 72 called Violett.
- An additional seven answer to Violeth.
- Lastly, five girls were named Vyolet, plus five more called Vyolette.
So I say changing the spelling of her name is the right decision. But I’d love the hear others’ opinions, because I’m wondering what I may have overlooked?
Would you change Violette to Violet? Any other options to consider?
I would correct the spelling immediately and be done with this dilemma. You chose the name Violet, but spelled it as Violette (Vee-o-lette), not realizing that Violet and Violette are pronouced differently. This could be an issue for your daughter her entire life. Best to correct the spelling to the standard way Violet is writtenin in this country. You — and your daughter Violet — are fortunate you can do this easily and at no cost if you do this before her first birthday.
Unless you plan to say it in the French manner change it to Violet.
You want her to feel comfortable in her name.
I’d probably change the spelling to Violet. I have a daughter named Gemma and it is so frustrating for her to get frequent misspellings (Jemma, Jema, Gema) and mispronunciations (saying her name with a hard g). She has reverted to calling herself Emma at Starbucks!
If you had asked before she was born, I would have encouraged you to use Violet. But now that Violette is here, I say keep the spelling and let the world adjust. There will be some misspellings and mispronunciations, but that’s okay – even Violet will be mistaken for Velvet or Lila or any number of other names. You chose the spelling for a reason and don’t feel an overwhelming desire to change it, so I’d say stay with your initial impulse. It’s a lovely name (spelled either way).
Our 14 month old is Violette Sage, pronounced the American way. We actually only had the robocall from the doctor’s office pronounce it the French way. That said I also like the French pronunciation, my husband thought that Americans wouldn’t get that version or do it naturally, so I wouldn’t correct it if it happens. Usually kids are introduced orally and not with their written names so I just default to what the parents/kid says anyway.
When I see Violette in writing, I assume a French spelling means a French pronunciation, so I pronounce it Vee-oo-LET.
If you want to make it simple for you and, especially, for your daughter, for years to come, just change the spelling in the birth certificate.
But you seem to love the double T (Juliette, Scarlett), so you might like the spelling Violett. Since it’s not French, I would pronounce it the same way as Violet.
I agree with much of what’s been said already. When I saw your spelling, I immediately thought “how pretty” and assumed the French pronunciation, which is familiar to me because I know a few people who have that as a surname. The American pronunciation is lovely too, but it would probably be easiest to spell it Violet, in the absence of a compelling reason to the contrary.
I would probably go with the birth certificate correction. Your letter makes it sound like the spelling preference for Violette over Violet was a relatively small one, motivated in part by your previous attachment to Juliette. And it sounds like you’re getting a little tired of the spelling and pronunciation corrections.
If that’s not a correct reading and you either dislike the Violet spelling or like it much less than the Violette one, then I think the third option of keeping the spelling and pronunciation as they are and consistently correcting people until they get it right is the better choice.
It depends on how big a deal it is to you. Chances are good someone will get her name wrong if you do change the spelling because so many names have multiple spellings. I would pronounce Violette like Violet and I tend to agree it is prettier with that spelling.
I would absolutely change it to Violet. Or, I suppose, start calling her by the French pronunciation (it is pretty!). Choosing the less popular of two spellings of the same name, or coming up with an entirely new spelling, can involve pronunciation and spelling struggles, but I can see the arguments for pushing through those if there’s a reason for the choice.
But this spelling isn’t a slightly less popular version of the same name, it’s already taken as the typical spelling of an entirely different pronunciation. It actively dissuades most readers from getting the pronunciation right, and virtually no one is going to spell it right having only heard it aloud.
It’s like naming your baby Henri or Marie and then calling them Henry or Mary. Can you? Sure. Will people adjust after enough corrections? Probably most of the time. But it’s setting your kid up for having to “correct” people who are arguably already correct in their pronunciation by everyone else’s understanding during nearly every first interaction forever.