Posted this on a different forum, but for the sake of getting my questions at the end answered, I thought I’d try here, too, since it’s the forum for sibling names…
Okay, so let me just say right away that my kids’ names are NEVER going to be in the top 1000. It’s not like we set out to come up with “unusual” names or that we were determined we wouldn’t do the trendy thing… but it just happened. My DH and I are both kind of picky with what we like/what the meaning of the name means to us, and what came out of that were the two names of our kids that are not exactly “matchy” or a “fit” by some people’s standards.
Without further ado, our daughter (almost 2) is [name]Amar[/name]é [name]Elyse[/name]. Her name is the present infinitive of “to love” in Latin, and we pronounce it with an accent on the end, so it sounds (phonetically) like Am-uh-[name]RAY[/name]. We chose it because of its meaning, and how it just felt right. We knew it was for her right away! Since [name]Amare[/name] is a Latin word-name, the pronunciation most likely would’ve been same stress all the way across. We did choose to put emphasis on the last syllable (and yes, of course, no one gets it right at first)–but we still love it and think it’s so special. She says it beautifully and all the kids I know get it right 99% of the time–on the first try. I’m pretty sure adults have a hard time because of preconceived notions about how a name is supposed to sound. Anyways, so far, so good. It hasn’t been as hard/bad as some predicted it would be.
Our boy is due Nov 4th (on or around…maybe before? wishful thinking…), and we’re naming him [name]Job[/name] [name]Marcellus[/name]. We call him [name]Joby[/name]. Now, I know [name]Job[/name] is not a really popular name for many, but we love the story behind it, the meaning to us of a man of faithfulness, and the strong, traditional sound. [name]Marcellus[/name] is after a family member.
So, I had originally wanted [name]Caius[/name], and to call him [name]Cai[/name]…and I thought [name]Amar[/name]é and [name]Cai[/name] would be the perfect sounding sib-set. But we ended up falling in love with [name]Job[/name]–and we went for the feelings on the name and how much we wanted it, rather than basing our full decision on being cutesy or wondering how it sounded with his older sister. But, as I say their names together more and more, it seems to fit. [name]Amar[/name]é and [name]Job[/name] (or, as we call him, [name]Joby[/name]).
I know everyone has different criteria on what they consider “fitting” or going together for sibling names, but has a name itself ever appealed to you so much that you forgot that you worried about its “going” with the existing sibling name? And btw, it would be interesting to know–what are people’s various criterion for judging whether a name fits, or not?