What do y'all think?

[lolacat.livejournal.com]

Hi folks,

I'm not pregnant and won't be for a few years, but I still think a lot about the names of my future children.

I ran across a name that I find really striking even though I've never heard it before - Mireille, pronounced meh-RAY (more or less). It's french/dutch, and means 'miracle' or 'admire' depending on what website you look at.

I love names with the "mir" sound in them for some reason, and I love french names. What nicknames could you use for this name? Does it sound too wacky, is the spelling too crazy? I think it looks beautiful and I love the meaning of it.

- L.

Comments

[chapatti.livejournal.com]

Mireille is originally a name from South of France (Provence).

It is actually an invention of 19th century Provencal author Frederic Mistral, who wanted to give the heroine of his book a truly Provencal name, and came up with a nice Provencal version of Marie.
Originally, the name was spelled "Mireio", and was then "francicized" as "Mireille".

It's difficult to find a good way to express the pronunciation in English, but it's more or less "Mee - RAY - (very very slight) y(uh)".

It's still mainly a name given in Provence, but in the 50s, it gained popularity outside of the area and was rather common in the whole of France and Belgium.


(my mom's name is Mireille, and her entire family is still in Provence, just so you know I'm not pulling this out of nowhere ;))