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I super love Nell. It kind of works for Cornelia but it works much better if you pronounce Cornelia more like the college Cornell. I also love Penelope nn Nell but Penelope is becoming too popular. Nell also works as a nn for Fenella and Elaine or Elaina.

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You know I hate the name Norm but I actually like Norn except that it is tied up too much in the game GW2 that I used to play where Norn was the Viking like race.

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Nell is a decent nickname, but it doesn’t really work as a full name just imho. It definitely works as an nn for Cornelia.

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Norn just makes me think of the extinct Shetland language. It doesn’t really seem like a name to me.

Nell is a lovely nickname with lots of options for longer names, like Penelope or Helena. You don’t have to just stick with Eleanor. It’s a bit of a stretch for Cornelia though, as I’ve only heard that second syllable pronounced as “neel”

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Norn sounds like a race of aliens from Star Trek.

I can't get on board with Norn as a FN. I think it's a nice and quirky nickname (maybe for Arnold / Norbert / Arnor / Norman / Annora / Nora / Leonor / Norma, depending on gender. Or for Eleanor, bc you love that so much :P), but not as a full name. For a fantasy story it'd be ok, but even there I'd prefer it as a nickname.

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I like Nell. Over here it's usually used as Nel or Nelly as a nickname for Petronella. I think it would work for Cornelia too. Or maybe Marinella / Penelope / Antonella.

Wow, I love Norn. It seems like if Nina or Nan, Lorne, and Moira were the same name. Also Verdandi is one of my favorites.

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And I like Nell. I think it's kind of like Nan in that it sounds centuries old and uncommon but not out of place. I'm more used to hearing Nelly, like I'm more used to hearing Nancy. These are my first associations with it: Nell "Nellie" McKay, Nelly Furtado, Nellie Bly, death knell, "whoa Nelly".

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I've never really thought of it as a NN for Eleanor (I tend to assume it'd be short for Penelope), but I guess El/Nell is like Ed/Ned...as a NN for Cornelia, it wouldn't seem natural to me because I pronounce the nel in that like Neil, but it's doable.

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Some other names that could be associated with it...
Nelda
Prunella
Perenelle
Vernelle
Janelle
Antonella

This message was edited 6/27/2018, 4:29 AM

Nell is fine as a full name: retro rather than dated.

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I can trace two relatives, both born in the 19th century - one on my father's side, and one who married into my mother's - who were both named Nellie. I'd always assumed that Nellie had to be short for something like Eleanor, but not in their day, clearly. Both were born in England.

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I was at school with an Afrikaans-speaking girl whom we all knew as Nell: her given names (Catherine Cornelia) had been in the family for generations, so perhaps they'd run out of all the usual nns. Cornelia doesn't have a Nell sound in Afrikaans at all, but they must have used the spelling to their advantage.

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I don't enjoy Nellie much, but Nell is pleasant. I'd prefer it as a nn for something like Eleanor, Fenella, Penelope just because there would be more (potential) variety built in.

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Norn is amazing: I've seen Norna, though only in a names list in the back of an old dictionary, and I didn't like the idea because it would surely be mistaken for Norma several times a week for ever. It must be the history of the word that appeals, because apart from the Norma issue, I don't like the name Dawn at all and they rhyme.

I like Nell & think it's fine as an nn for any name with nel in it: Penelope, Fenella, Helen(a) etc. It's had some use as a full name here recently, so I don't see it as dated, more as fitting in with the current trend for turn-of the-century name-revivals.
Cornelia doesn't have the nel sound where I live, but I don't see any reason why Nell couldn't work if you wanted it too, and I prefer it to Cora

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Norn is too close to Norman and Norm to sound female to me, but I get the interestingness, and hey, anything goes in fantasy.

Nell is beautiful, but Norn...

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...is tacky imo. IDK why, though; it just doesn't sound namey enough for me.

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I do think Nell would work fine as a nickname for Cornelia, however. :)