When I hear
Petronilla, I think of the American South, circa late 19th-century and Victorian England. I've spent a lot of time going through old newspapers on microfiche/internet doing family research with my mom and I saw that name a lot more than I expected to when researching those locations in that time period. Although, the version I saw the most was
Petronella, and that's the version I prefer.
eta: I actually have several ancestors with this name too lol There's a few
Petronella's, one
Petronilla, and a few
Petronille's.
I think it's pretty but it strikes me as very old-fashioned. I like (well, love lol) a lot of old-fashioned names but
Petronella feels like one of those that would be hard to revitalize. It feels very quirky, in a good way. I don't like how closely it resembles petrol in sound. Maybe that's not as much of a problem in the US, but elsewhere it could be weird. But there are a lot of cute possible nicknames :)
This message was edited 2/26/2011, 9:37 AM