I used to really hate it. I thought it was trendy, tacky, insubstantial and boring. It has really grown on me a lot, though. I first started to like
Elissa (click on it, it has a long history) which I pronounce differently (just a very slight difference, though) and it helped me warm up to
Alyssa and
Alissa. I also watched 'Who's the Boss' reruns at the time and
Alyssa Milano made me like it a bit more.
So yeah, I like it but I don't love it. The reasons why I don't love it: it's way too common and 90s dated (it came close to the top 10), it kind of sounds like a combination of pretty sounds with no history (I know it is connected to a Greek word but most people aren't sure whether it is actually Greek and it doesn't seem to have a long history which sometimes makes me think that it was made up based on other trendy names such as
Melissa and
Marissa and that the Greek word link was made later to attach some meaning to it), it is too close to so many other trendy names or dated names such as
Melissa,
Marissa,
Carissa etc, it sounds kind of childish, it is still way too common, there are a million variants and ways too spell it.
I don't pronounce
Alisa and
Alyssa nearly the same.
Alisa is ah-LEE-sa to me.
Elissa might be a variant you could like but many people pronounce
Alyssa and
Elissa the same.
I like
Alissa, but
Alyssa is better. Also people would always misspell
Alissa. I also like
Alyssia.
Alyssa Violet,
Alyssa Rose,
Alyssa Lily. I like it paired with a flower name, it makes the name so colorful.
Haha sorry, this got long :P