On Madeline's Name

This post has been sitting in the drafts folder since early March... sorry about that!

It occurred to me recently that lots of you have never heard us say Madeline's name—you've only read it. It's not that big of a deal, but I thought you might like to know that we pronounce it as it's pronounced in the children's book:

In an old house in Paris, covered with vines

Lived 12 little girls in two straight lines...

And the smallest girl was Madeline.

We pronounce the last syllable of her name /line/, as it is spelled, not /len/ or /lin/. We tried to pick the spelling that is most likely pronounced this way, but we know that's hoping for a lot... :-) We also know that this name doesn't have a clearly different spelling, like Carolyn and Caroline do. So far, people pronounce it as we do about half the time just based on the spelling.

Anyway, we won't be offended if you pronounce her name differently; we probably won't correct you, but we will continue pronouncing it "correctly." :-) I answer to several different pronunciations of my own name, but most people realize that I may not answer if they don't say it right.

She doesn't really have any nickname yet, except that we still call her Boo. And "love." And "sweet girl." You know. :-) She does have a few other nicknames now, but they are unique to her. And a funny thing: she's turned strawberry blonde, which we didn't expect. Maybe there's more in the name than we thought... (The heroine in the children's book mentioned above has red hair.) :-)


See the reddish tints? Crazy! She gets it from Aunt Anna.