As in,
Lillian Scarlett Mahalia, my older daughter. :-)
For combos with
Mahalia in fn position, I personally favor
Mahalia Claire; but also love
Mahalia GraceMahalia HelenaMahalia JadeMahalia LeilaniMahalia MargueriteMahalia MireilleMahalia NaomiMahalia PatienceMahalia Rainand
Mahalia Salomé (SAL-o-may).
You'll probably have noticed that only
Claire and
Marguerite stand out as
not having an assonant long-A sound, but
Claire has assonance with the short A's at the beginning and end, and
Marguerite has alliteration instead. I ♥ assonance and alliteration. :-)
I disagree with jeziana that
Halie, et. al. (my preferred spelling, since it's the -hali- portion of the name lifted straight out) would "be a bit of a stretch" for nn's of
Mahalia. That seems to me to be the
obvious nn, since the syllabic emphasis is on the second syllable, which sounds like "hail." For the record I wish to note the difference between
Halie [HAY-lee] and
Hallie [HAL-ee].
However, even having defended it I'm yet not particularly in
love with Halie. I prefer
Mailie (prn the same way [MAY-lee] but taking some modest liberties with the otherwise orthodox spelling).