They sound same enough that I can't usually tell them apart when spoken. When I'm speaking quickly and not paying attention, they're both umMEELya.
Like Anneza says, the initial unstressed vowel goes all soft. A reason why I don't prefer names that have it. They sound too much like "uh,
Melia" or *uh, Lizabeth."
But they should be slightly different, and I *feel* like I"m saying them differently when I think about it. I do try to distinguish them, when I'm mentioning the
Emilia I have met, and don't want people to mishear her name as
Amelia.
Emilia starts like "embargo" and has a shorter I - em-MILL-ya, and
Amelia is am-MEAL-ya, starts like "ambivalent" and has an EEL sound. So they *could* sound different in English, if you wanted to distinguish them, and it wouldn't be weird.
To me
Amelia seems sort of aging and prim, but more librarian than matron, and pretty. At best it's like
Olivia and
Camilla - names I don't see as youthful or energetic, but they seem to have become perceived that way recently.
Emilia seems European, less 'traditional English,' and more youthful and sophisticated. It's a little less "foreign"/Euro than
Gianna, a little more so than
Isabella.
- mirfakThis message was edited 6/10/2019, 9:48 AM