We did it. I apologize in advance to our sweet baby girl. For the rest of her life, she will have to deal with her name being mispronounced. In waiting rooms everywhere there will be a pause, and then a tentative calling of "Ay-lee Valenti?"
Not that I don't like the name Ay-lee; in fact I was thinking of it as a serious contender, but was worried that people would think the first letter of her name (like a B or H or K) was left off.
For the record, our daughter's name is Ailey Marie Valenti (and no, it doesn't bother me at all that all three of her names end in an "ee" sound). Ailey is a name of Scottish/Irish origin and means "light" and "pleasant." You pronounce her first name as eye-lee, but we didn't want to spell it that way because it is a bit too...too...functional and puts the first thought into someone's head of an eyeball.
Phonetically speaking, our nephew Sam informed us that her name does not "play fair," because "when two vowels go walking the first one says its name," hence it should be "Ay-lee." Maybe we did misspell it according to the rules of the English language, but when did this language ever really play fair?
Welcome to the world!
