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This has been my husband's favorite name since I was pregnant with my daughter four years ago.
When considering it as a first name, we thought about Elan Victoria.
I've done multiple posts about it over the last four years trying to find a good middle name, and finally decided on Elanor nn Elan to appease my husband! (This is the girl name for the baby we are trying for).
We pronounce it like the word, Ay-lahn, and the definition is just lovely.
I think it is a male Hebrew name meaning tree, but it sounds very feminine to me.

My first thought is that it's feminine, and very simple/almost noble, along the lines of Mulan. I could pronounce it ee-LAN, rhyming with Milan, or more like Ellen, but I prefer the first.

I had never seen it until a previous post of yours. I'm beginning to like it, simple, pretty but having some depth to it. I'd just pn it eh-lahn. I'd use it for a girl.

I pronounce it eh-LAWN or ay-LAWN (something in between those) and I think it seems feminine because of the meaning. The word is borrowed from French élan, and I think the word makes it a little too flakey and pretentious as a name, to fit my own style. Like Esprit used as a name, but not quite that bad. I think of it as a word you might read in, say, a review of a ballet performance, but not a word you'd speak aloud in very many contexts. Or maybe the name of a perfume. There's a Lotus model Elan... see what I mean?

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A little flakey is okay with me, though. It's alright. Namey enough, easy enough to say, not ugly. I could call someone it without groaning inwardly.

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This message was edited 8/13/2011, 9:37 AM

Masculine. It reminds me of Alain, and I pronounce it much like that.

I don't really know much about it. It looks kind of foreign. I'm not so sure about this honestly it looks like a trendy version of Ellen or Elaine. It seeems more feminine and I'm pronounceing it like El-an almost the same as Ellen. But I could also see it being pronounced EE-lan.