Comments for the name Leni

I absolutely love this name, I think it is adorable and if I ever have a child, I will name it this regardless of the sex.

The proper way to pronounce Leni is Lain-ey. And it is also the name of supermodel Heidi Klum's daughter.

Heidi Klum and Flavio Briatore's daughter's name is Leni.

Heidi Klum's daughter's name is Helene, but she goes by Leni.

I much prefer "Lay-nee" to "Lee-nee". It sounds much more dignified.

Heidi Klum says it lay-nee, she said it on a talk show somewhere.

In Germany it would not be pronounced Lain-ey but LE-nee, like the -le part in Helena. [noted -ed]

Listen to the German pronunciation of Leni here:
http://www.nordicnames.de/Aussprache.html.

Unfortunately, there was a filmmaker named Leni Riefenstahl who made Nazi propaganda films.

Leni Riefenstahl made Nazi propaganda films, but she made a lot of other films, too and did photography and underwater films. She is generally considered one of the first women to be involved in the film industry.

In German this can also be a nickname for Magdalena or Magdalene. [noted -ed]

I love this name as a nickname for Lennon.

I would never consider naming a child this. While I think Leni is a very pretty name, I can't get over the association with Leni Riefenstahl. I once asked on a German baby names website whether anyone else was worried by this particularly dubious namesake, the response was simply that it is still perfectly acceptible practice to name a child 'Adolf'. So why not Leni also?! On baby-vornamen.de Leni Riefenstahl is listed simply as "actress".

It's always difficult to transcribe the correct pronunciation of a largely foreign name. Techically, Leni falls somewhere between "Lainie" and "Lenny." Most speakers of English would likely say the former as an approximation of the German name.

If you've studied French, German, Spanish or almost any of the commonly taught European languages, you likely had a teacher point out to you that "long" American vowels tend to be diphthongs (i.e. they have a bit of an "off-glide"). Long vowels in the main "Continental" languages tend to be tenser or "tighter." Thus technically, Leni Riefenstahl's name is not pronounced quite the same as Lainie Kazan's. On the other hand, that's still a bit closer than the more masculine sounding "Lenny."

My cousin's wife is named Leni. She pronounces it Lay-ne. And this isn't some non-German thing, because German is her first language.