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Clelia
What are your opinions on these? Not neccessarily together, but individually?Clelia's a name I've only recently discovered and am currently slightly in love with. It's derived from Cloelia (which I gather is pronounced something like klow-EE-lyah or klo-EL-yah, or basically like the name Chloe with a flourish on the end). Cloelia was an ancient Roman heroine. She was given to the Etruscans as a hostage as part of some sort of bargain, and she escaped, taking some other hostages with her, and swam across the Tiber River to get home. I think that makes for an awesome story and namesake. I prefer Clelia (which I believe is pronounced something like kleh-lee-ah), just because the the pronounciaton strikes me as being slightly less cumbersome. I like the idea of Clely as a nickname, which I saw in use when I was researching the name.So, Cloelia? Clelia? Clely? What do you think?
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Clelia looks like a misspelled Celia. Cloelia is kinda cool, and you could have Chloe, Cloe or Clia as a nickname. I think people would be able to pronounce it OK, although they might say KLO-lee-uh
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I love names with histories but there's too many l's for my taste. :/ You're right about Clelia being the easiest to pronounce though. If I had to use one of them, that version would be it.
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As both a classicist and a name lover, I endorse this heartily.
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I remember reading about Cloelia just last week! I was reading Livy for one of my classes and he talked about her. *feels like school is finally relevant* :P
Anyway, I like the look of Cloelia better then Clelia. I'm not sure why, but Clelia looks a little more awkward IMO. Clely... also a bit awkward. Clo, Cleia (is this a stretch?), Clia, Lia?
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I love it when school turns out to be relevant!I was pronouncing Clely basically as if it rhymed with Haley. The French form of the name is Clélie, which I believe is pronounced like that. There's a young Italian actress named Clelia who goes by Clely, and for some reason in my head I pronounced it the same as the French version of the name.I like the idea of Cleo has a nickname as well. Is that too much of a stretch?Thanks for your comment!
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I think Cloelia is still pronounced "klee-lee-ah", just like Clelia. In most cases the Greco-Roman "oe" is said that way (like in Coeliac, Phoebe, etc)."klo-EL-ia" would be really pretty though!I find the name Cloelia very beautiful. Clelia is a little less elegant somehow, but still very pretty. And the namesake is indeed awesome!
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That makes complete sense, actually! I was getting my ideas about pronounciation from Appellation Mountain.All of this trouble with pronounciation might mean that this name might not be especially usable for real life, but I'm still a bit enamoured with the idea of it.Thanks for your reply!

This message was edited 10/19/2011, 6:35 PM

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