I find this very hard... (m)
in reply to a message by BrilliantBlue
As it is, I love the name. But I've always thought it would regularly be spelled Briony - I didn't even know of the English word for the flower and that that is basically the original spelling of the name. To me, Briony looks much more elegant and harmonic; I find two "y"s in one name very critical in general, often it doesn't *look* harmonic to me. But the reason I find the decision between Bryony and Briony particularly hard is that the first time I've come across the name was in Ian McEwan's gorgeous novel "Atonement", and I've associated the name Briony spelled like that with England in between two wars and all this terrible and sometimes romantic, but in any case fascinating and beautiful period. Bryony, on the other hand, looks very trendy to me, although I realize that Briony is the "trendy" form and not vice versa. But "y"s I associate with trendiness anyway, because there are many people who spell Addison Addysyn or Willow Wyllow just so it looks trendier and more "kreatyve". That's why Briony looks much more elegant and beautiful in my opinion. But since I know that Briony isn't the original form, I sometimes even tend towards Bryony, because I dislike many variants of names. I think I'd say that I find both variants acceptable, but the "look" of Briony more beautiful, while the "story" behind Bryony makes simply more sense.