Evie for short. Join now to personalize. Baby Names Difference between Vivian and Vivienne? Original poster's comments 1. If you are looking for the more feminine spelling but the same pronounciation, I suggest Vivien. You can YouTube the difference in the pronunciations. Vivian m or Vivien f is: Vee-vee-ehn more "e" sounding in the beginning. Vivienne f is: vivv-EE-ehn more "v" sounding in the beginning. Like the difference between Mary: mare-ree. Vs Marie: mah-ree. Naming her Vivienne and calling her Vivian is analogous to naming a girl Suzanne and calling her Susan.
Confusing in either case. Yes, you may get people pronouncing it the French way on occasion, but I think it will not be a huge hassle. I would say a good analogue is Adrienne — most English speakers say it with the stress firmly on the first syllable, in my experience.
I would wonder, hmm, well why spell it this way then? Honestly, hardly any Americans have any clue how to pronounce French names. I think most people would see Vivienne and assume it is just a fancy spelling of Vivian and pronounce them the same.
My daughter has a Quebecois name that sounds pretty close to Ray-zhann, since I knew this would be nearly impossible for people, I figured everyone can say Regine ray-zheen so I went with that pronunciation. Some folks that zh sounding J in the middle eludes them completely.
Good luck!! The suggestion that you write the name as Vivianne might improve the situation: Vivianne looks pretty while being closer to the pronunciation you want. Why not just spell her name as Vivian — you love that pronunciation and it will simplify the situation for your daughter and others?
It could be a good middle ground for you? Failing that, I vote to stick with the Vivienne spelling. My Aunt, born in Australia now living in Scotland, is Vivienne.
Not the French Viv-ee-enn. I tell you this because your baby will undoubtedly spend her whole life explaining that she is short pronounciation, long spelling. And it can get pretty tedious. And easier to align to pronounciation…..
Ok, another idea. It has nicknames Liv and Livi. And Not too common. A quick look at British and American name dictionaries for VIVIAN: —the name of a little-known male 5th-century Christian saint, was little used until after medieval times —originally given solely to men —later to members of both sexes —between and , Vivian was in the top most popular names for American girls Vivien was always a secondary spelling in the US —well known bearer: Sir Vivian Fuchs Vivien Lee was born Vivian Mary Hartley.
Was the spelling of her first name changed because the pronunciation of Vivien was preferred? Conclusion: there appears to be a subtle preferred pronunciation difference between Vivian and Vivien ne.
Or you could get the same nicknames from a different, very pretty name — Aviva! I have a Vivienne! I prefer Vivienne to Vivian because I like how it looks. VIV ian. I think that the perception thar Vivienne is "softer and more feminine" than Vivian may stem from the fact that Vivian follows the Germanic stress rule and Vivienne the Romance stress rule.
Vivian is, of course, not Anglo-Saxon. Both names derive from the same Latin root. As is usual with Latin names there were masculine and feminine forms Vivianus and Viviana , with saints of the Late Roman period bearing both forms. Historically in England Vivian was a masculine name until the 19th century when it became unisex. It was used as a masculine name until the early twentieth century similar trajectory to Evelyn, Lynn, Beverly, Joyce , but now of course it is entirely "gone to the girls.
Just realized this repeats some of the same information in the original post, but maybe I am not the only one who lost track of that. I didn't put that very clearly. I know they're both derived from the same Latin root, but the way Vivian is pronounced as opposed to Vivienne indicates an Anglo-Saxon influence. Did it come into English as a male name originally or was it both male and female? I'm curious as to whether more names derived ultimately from Latin have shifted from male to female over the years or if it's more random.
I'm actually not sure whether Vivian is attested as a feminine name in the Middle Ages—I know that it was primarily masculine, but it could have been used as a vernacular form of Viviana as well as Vivianus. The problem with medieval vernacular forms is that names were usually written down in their Latin form, so the vernacular may have often gone unrecorded.
We do know that Julian was used as a vernacular form of both Julianus and Juliana Julian of Norwich is a famous example of a female Julian , and Vivian follows the same pattern. To expand on Julian of Norwich, no one knows what her baptismal name was or indeed anything about her family background or personal life. At one point she became gravely ill possibly with plague , and during her illness she received mystical visions.
When she recovered, she took holy orders and became an anchoress, immured in the church of St. Julian which was attached to the priory of St. Julian was this mystic's name in religion taken from the priory.
Thus the name of Julian of Norwich on its own cannot be taken as evidence that Julian was used as a feminine vernacular name in medieval England. Oddly there is a possibility that both Julian whoever she was and her spiritual advisor Cardinal Adam Easton were members of a crypto-Jewish community in Norwich, descended from a small remnant of Jews who converted to Christianity and remained in England after the expulsion of Easton taught Hebrew at Oxford, and Julian demonstrates a knowledge of Hebrew in her writings.
Easton also owned at least one rabbinical manuscript. It would be very interesting indeed to learn what Julian's baptismal name was and whether it had any association with Jewish naming practices of the time.
But that we shall never know. I didn't know that about Julian of Norwich, that's really interesting. So then, is the name Julian not attested as a female name in any other sources?
Was it common for female monastics to take masculine names when they took religious orders? And what about Gillian, which I've always read developed from the female use of Julian—is that to be considered a separate vernacular form, or an alternate spelling that can be counted as evidence that Julian was used by women?
Gabriel Society, the heralds of the Society for Creative Anachronism. They have pretty well combed all manner of medieval texts looking for names. I don't have the energy to see what they came up with in terms of female usage of Julian, because their site is not user friendly. AFAIK they don't post a master list of attested names. You have to click around to separate postings on specific times and places.
All I can say is that Julian of Norwich cannot be used as an example of a female child being given the name Julian. I would rephrase the question about Gillian: is there evidence that Gillian was used as a male name in that form? I do not know the answer to that, but my offhand sense is no, because Gill like Alison was used as a stereotypical female name like the Jane of Jane Doe. That usage survives today in the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme.
But the two are pretty closely related -- I can't think of a contributor to the Academy who isn't or wasn't at least peripherally involved in the Society.
There are various projects underway to make the Academy's and the Society's name materials more easily accessible. Using that search, it becomes clear that Julian was used as both a feminine and a masculine name in 15thth century England. It seems to be considerably more common as a feminine name, in which use it's often generally?
Thanks for the info that efforts are being made to make the name lists more user friendly. The need to click around to many different sites can be pretty frustrating.
Of course, all of the work on names has been done on a volunteer basis, and as such the extensive information of names, however organized, is a massive contribution. Sorry about the errors in the details concerning the SCA, the Academy and the heralds. Frankly, like a good many professional medievalists, I am not a big fan of the SCA, although the work of the Academy of St.
Gabriel is certainly a worthwhile contribution to medieval onomastics. My personal expertise pretty much ends at with a little overlap into the Scottish Chaucerians. I am really an Anglo-Saxonist by training and inclination. What went on in Early Modern England is not really at my fingertips.
I think Vivienne is quite pretty, but I'd use Vivian myself, except for the fact that we already have two Vivianas in the family. There's also Vivien, which is the spelling Ms.
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