About names, Nutella and me

So, I am babysitting an adorable 3-year old. Not only is she adorable, but very VERY observant. You see, the family is Dutch-speaking, so I am speaking Dutch with her. Yes, "my Dutch". I do my best to explain things to her, and to play with her, alles in het Nederlands. But, to the point. Last Monday, both of us are sitting at the table to have breakfast, and while I am spreading some Nutella in her toast, she looks at me and says:

- Kijk, dat is bijna jou naam in Nutella- she said.

- Daar heb je helemaal gelijk in. - I agreed, evidently!

I was flabbergasted!!! She recognised the coda sounds behind the beginning of the names Nutella and Gisel·la to be the same. I cannot be sure if she had seen my name written down, though I doubt that. She is defintely at a syllabic-literacy stage, though not literate yet, BUT FAIRLY CLOSE, isn't she?! To my amazement, her middlename is Gisèle. That would be the French version of my name. Funny enough, when I tried to explain to her that she and I share the same name, with slight differences, she strongly rejected the idea and said:

- NO, My name is not that.

And for a 3 year old that was a determined NO.

Understandably, her identity has been build around her "first" given name, not her second name. That is why she refused finding the connection. She could not see the similarities even though Gisèle and my name were shown in written form in front of her. On the other hand, her family tends to call me with a hard [G]'Gízeʎa instead of ʒɪ'zèl ( in Catalan ʒɪ'zɛɭə ) so probably in her head this huge difference in onset , and therefore in the place of articulation, already constrains the auditive possibilities of the names to sound the same to her. And she is fantabously right. Short story long, I think it is a gift that I get to spend time with such a witty young person, and to have an anecdote of how Nutella and I have more in common than meets the eye, the ear ;) and who knows the taste! P.s. Thanks to FlorN to encourage me to write this story.