I have a great-aunt
Eleanor, who is... maybe 70? Very kind and gentle and soft-spoken, with a lazy eye that always freaked me out when I was a kid. She loves cats and science fiction (she watched the TV remake of Battlestar Galactica religiously).
That's the only
Eleanor I know. I have a good assication with the name because she is so sweet, but sadly my family says the name like "Elner" and I find the sound unappealing. I do like the spelling
Eleanor more than, say,
Elinor, which I find very visually jarring. If I was to consider the name, I'd probably lean more towards
Lenore or
Eleanora, which are more my style.
I can see how it is getting popular, what with fancy old fashioned names being all the rage these days. It's like a neccesary bridge between frilly popular names like
Isabella and soon-to-be hot picks like
Helen and
Vivian.