View Message

I don’t think they’re too old fashioned but they do strike me as very boring names.

I don't know about other English-speaking countries, but it feels to me like Emil has never become "naturalized" as a truly "American" name in the USA. I would expect that any American man I met named Emil had parents who were recent immigrants from some European country.

---

Cecil, on the other hand, seems like it has a rather "snooty upper class British" stereotype for Americans, similar to those than Nigel, Percy, and Cedric have.

---

Cecil itself was regularly used as a woman's first name in the USA in the late 19th and early 20th century. If you look at the USA popularity figures, you can tell it was really being used for girls instead of this just being an instance of wrong sex codes in the SSA data because the peak for girls comes five years before the peak for boys. One of the earliest women members of the U.S. House of Representatives was Cecil M. Harden of Indiana:

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_M._Harden

---

Because of my knowledge of the above, my emotional reaction to Cecil is that it does sound more "feminine" than Emil.

I like Emil but not Cecil. I can’t seem to shake the Cecil Rhodes association.

This message was edited 3/21/2023, 5:13 AM

They're both very dashing. They deserve contemporary use!

My father was Cecil. I would gladly name a daughter Cecily but a son named Cecil in these times of (belated) opposition to Cecil John Rhodes makes Cecil for a boy seem like a political statement.

---

I don't enjoy the sound of Emil. Too close to A meal!

Don't like either or Cecily

I don’t think Emil is that dated. Cecil sounds like a good name for a turtle for some reason.

I don't think Emil is old-fashioned. It's a natural nn for Emiliano, which is currently somewhat popular in my country.

---

I knew a millennial who mentioned (circa 2009) wanting to name a kid Cecil but don't know if he actually ever did. I also know a (different, unrelated) millennial named Cecil, and he is the reason I don't like it. But I think it's about like Basil or Cyril or (before it became popular) Silas, dusty but wearable enough.

This message was edited 3/19/2023, 2:30 PM

I like these names a lot. Cecil would be a harder sell in my area, because Cecily is also almost unheard of. Cecil seems archaic, on par with things like Jarvis and Cyril, and that can be alienating. Emil is more familiar and would be easier to bear because of that.