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Bit of a guilty pleasure for me. It's not terrible (neither is Hortense, but only with a French accent). It sounds like the name of a goddess.

Hortensia - hor-TEN-sha to me, and it's the botanical name of the hydrangea.

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South Africans are, generally speaking, not good at French, though we did have French Huguenot immigrants in the 17th century, who gave us some fns and lns. I was at school with an Elizabeth who had a little sister Hortense, which they pronounced Hor-tenss and nicknamed Tahnsie. That's as close as I can get, but it was the nasalised French version of -ten-, and then -sie on the end like Topsy or Nancy. I found this unfortunate.

No, but it's a bit "too much". I don't hate Hortense btw, Napoleonic names are kind of cool.

Yeah. Don't like it at all

Ooh, Hortensia is so stuffy and grand, like an ornately upholstered chair or a gilded mirror.

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I love it.

I have mixed feelings on Hortense. I love the sound when it's pronounced correctly, but I'm so terrible at any kind of French pronunciation that it feels very affected to me when I try to say it right. Also, I would be very tempted to "misspell" it is Ortense to cut down on its visual ugliness. ;-)

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Hortensia: neat! Maybe not something that I could find a lot of practical applications for, but it's pretty cool. I'd admire someone's guts if they went for it for real.

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Thanks for bringing these up. I'd forgotten what I liked about Hortense. :-)

No Hortensia isn't as bad as Hortense. Not my favourite name, but I do think it's kind of neat.

I like Hortense - when pronounced or-TONCE, and not 'whore tents'. Hortensia confuses me, as I don't know whether to say it or-TON-sha or whore tents-ee-a. There's something appealing about the first prn, but not so much the second.

I once knew a woman named Hortensia. Nice person. But I still can't get behind the name (I despise the first syllable, and the middle syllable is "tense").

This message was edited 10/15/2010, 11:59 AM

Yes. It has the same problem Hortense has, beginning with Hor-, with the added negative of sounding very pretentious.

No, but I still don't like it.

maybe... maybe almost and maybe worse.

I find it a bit heavy sounding, but I don't know why. I also think it is very outdated. In my mind, Hortensia is a posh old lady.

I like it. I wouldn't name my daughter Hortensia because she'd probably hate me, but I'd use it for a pet or psuedonym.

While I like Hortensia more than Hortense (I tend to prefer -a names in general), neither is to my taste. I think I dislike the 'hor' part (same with Horace, Horst, Horatio, etc.). BTW, hortenzija is the Croatian name for the hydrangea flower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrangea) and while I love the flower I can't like the name.

This message was edited 10/14/2010, 10:27 PM