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Madeleine
Hey, what are your thoughts on 'Madeleine' said as (MAD-ə-line) which is the prn I prefer especially with this spelling. I'm starting to reeeally like this name. BQ: Do you think that the diminutive of 'maddy\maddie' is unavoidable?
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I've known many people with the name Madeline/ Madeleine. Two of them I was very close to. One pronounced it -lien and the other was -len.The Madeline -lien I know mostly goes by Maddy and her sister is Genevieve but mostly goes by Gigi. They were named after the children's book characters. I didn't read the books as a kid but I loved the animated TV show - it was one of my favorites. I spent a lot of time with Maddy and Gigi as a kid since their dad was my father's friend from childhood and they lived nearby us.I think that it would be easy to not give a Madeline/ Madeleine any nns. The Madeleine I know who pronounces it with the -len ending is like an aunt to me and she has never used a nn, only her full name.My aunt Madeleine is an interesting person who has a very dramatic flair and will call you darling and is always fashionable in a very French way. I truthfully never asked but I suspect she is probably mostly of French ancestry, either that or she is just in love with French culture - she doesn't have a French accent so I doubt she was born in France. She always reminded me of Edith Piaf and Coco Chanel - well at least how they are portrayed. Before she got esophageal cancer she used to always smoke up a storm. About a year or two before the cancer Madeleine had retired to Vietnam with her best friend Richard "Killer" since there is so much good French and Vietnamese food and your money goes a long way there. I haven't seen her in years even though they moved back to the US because of her cancer, which is gone now, but I did run into Killer more recently - if you are wondering his nn was originally Killer the Klutz because he almost accidentally killed either himself or someone else, it got shortened to Killer by the time I was born.

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This message was edited 2/15/2017, 4:14 AM

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Madeleine, if you were to use the Line pronunciation (as opposed to Leen or Len), would have to be pronounced mad-uh-LIEN-uh. That's because the Eye pronunciation for "ei" is German, and in German they would also pronounce the final E. That pronunciation doesn't make sense in French, which is this variant's origin.Madeleine should be pronounced MAD-uh-len. If you want the Line pronunciation, using Madeline makes much more sense.I used to shy away from this name mainly because of the Maddy nickname and that it seemed unavoidable (that, and the name starts with Mad). It's probably inevitable once the child is in school.
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I had a tutor-marker named Madeleine last semester and it made me really like the name, she was in her late twenties, but I never heard anyone call her anything but Madeleine.
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I do love Madeleine except I prefer it pronounced mad-uh-LEN although I'm willing to accept that it would probably be pronounced mad-uh-LYN or mad-uh-LINE some of the time. I love this spelling. I love how elegant it is. What I don't care for is that the most common spelling in the US is Madelyn followed by Madeline. That does bug me since I'd always have to spell the name out to people. Still, dh and I love Madeleine. Our youngest dd is almost grown, but if we were to ever have another dd, this might be on our list.Re: Maddie, I think it could be avoidable. I certainly wouldn't call my Madeleine by this nn. Avoiding the nn is doable, I should think.
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I love Madeleine, truth be told. It's a beautiful name.As for the diminutive, it really depends on if you stick with calling her Madeleine. My mother always called me Becki, so that (or Rebecca in formal situations) was my preference even when others tried calling me Becca. My neighbor goes by Matthew even informally because his father is Matt. People will get used to using whatever the child likes to be called, and in their early years it will probably be whatever you call them.
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