It’s hard enough to name one little baby? But how about multiple? What what would you consider to be “a big family” and when deciding on names do you base it off theme? flow? or just chose the ones you want? I ask this question because I am from a big family myself and I feel that can contribute to baby naming! I notice couples who want 1-3 baby always tend to prefer themed names, but I know couples who have 5+ who by the end of it just chose names they liked or family names 
We’re baby name freaks so I feel it’s easier for us to say “if I had five children this would be the names” but in general I’m interested to see if there’s any correlation or am overthinking it!
I intend to have 2-3 children, so when I’m thinking about the names I like I always like to group them into pairs and threes and see how they sound and look together. When I play name games on here that require me to name many more kids, it gets really stressful and difficult trying to find ones that go together nicely but aren’t too matchy, I can’t imagine having to do that in real life!! I would like future kids names to go together nicely, but if there’s a name I love that doesn’t quite fit with the others I’ll probably still use it, it will only be a small group anyway so it’s not like an odd one out will be super obvious!
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I have a top 3 for each gender which are definitely my favourites for a real person and they were partly picked based on how well they go together, then I have a “second 3”, which don’t go perfectly with the rest but would probably be my next choices if I had more than 3 kids of the same gender (or if my top names were vetoed).
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I have twin boys and will likely have only one more. Naming multiple babies definitely played a role in the names we chose. Very early on DH was really liking [name_m]Arthur[/name_m] and I had always liked the name [name_u]Jasper[/name_u] but originally wanted names that were more uncommon.
Once we settled on [name_m]Arthur[/name_m] for one of them I felt like I needed to pick a name that matched.
I ended up going with [name_u]Jasper[/name_u] because I loved it and because I didn’t feel like I could name [name_m]Arthur[/name_m]’s twin a really uncommon name.
For our third I’d like to keep the same general Victorian era/British name feeling but go with a name maybe outside the top 500. We will see though. Since this will be our last baby we may just choose whatever name we happen to like best even if it doesn’t match perfectly.
And if it’s a girl it may be a more common name because DH likes more popular girls’ names. 
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I would like the have at least 2 kids, but if I got to pick (like in an ideal world) I would like 4-6. I’m one of the rare few that don’t care if sibling names match, but I do like to just do it for fun. When it actually comes down to naming my children, I think i’m just going to go with the names I truly love and not worry about “do they match” because they’re not going to be grouped together their entire lives, just the first 18 years.
Ok back on topic:
Unless you’re the Duggars (who by the end obviously ran out of names when they started picking names like Justin and Jennifer), I feel like big families don’t usually use a theme just because it’s so difficult to keep up with it. And then you run into not liking the remaining themed names you haven’t used. The only families I know that have themed sibling names only have 2-3 kids, bc (I’m guessing) it’s easy to come up with 3 names you like that start with S, instead of coming up with 19 names that start with S.
Also, I would consider 3 and up being a big family. The average number of kids per household in the US is roughly 2 (I think the exact number is 1.9). Most things (such as theme park deals, phone line deals, etc are based on a family of 4). Hope this makes sense.
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I would consider a big family to be 4 or more children. I agree with @AdroitArtemis that the world is set up for families of four (two parents + two children). I’m one of three, and there are some people who consider us a big family, but I never have. We’re somewhere in the middle lol. I’d love to have 4-6 children but in reality, I’ll probably end up with 2-3.
I knew a family who had 11 kids but most of them were adopted and they didn’t get to choose their names (fun fact: they had two sons named [name_m]John[/name_m] because of this so they went by Big [name_m]John[/name_m] and [name_m]Little[/name_m] [name_m]John[/name_m]). One of my good friends is the oldest of five and I don’t think her family’s names are themed as much as they just had a style and stuck with it. They are H@illey, Mich@ela, W!ll, R!ley, and K@ra (four girls and one boy, with W!ll being the boy).
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I’d like to have 2-4 kids when I’m older and I’ve definitely already thought about sibsets. Fortunately, most of my names go together, and they are all the same style. That means I can basically just go with my favorites!
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I totally agree with both of these. And, though I’d love to have 4 children (with the possibility of adopting 2 more), I’ll more than likely have 2-3. My choice for sibset names has already caused some people to scratch their heads as there doesn’t seem to be a connection, but, imo, it’s more important that my SO and I love the names (with some honour names mixed in) we’re giving our kids than to be matchy.
There are 3 of us in my family, though most people don’t realize it because we were all raised in different households for much of our life, with only my younger brother and I being raised in the same house at for the first few years before our parents divorce, and our older (half) brother being raised by his mom. I’m not sure how my older brother’s and my (original) FNs were chosen, but my younger brother’s FN was to honor family. My brothers’ MN (same) is our father’s FN. My MN is to honor my Papa, but it was originally supposed to by the same as my brothers’ MN. No real theme here other than honor MNs.
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I believe our family is larger than average (we’re expecting no. 7). We didn’t know how many children we would/will have when we planned a life together, therefore we didn’t have a set of names to use, a theme or a pattern to follow. We’ve chosen names we like, some of them inspired by family members, though we don’t use the exact same name, and most were just what we thought was neat and easy to grow up with.
We do have three naming rules: 1) a different initial for each child, 2) no rhyming names and 3) Hebrew or Yiddish middle names only. To be honest, it’s only now that we’re expecting number 7 that we’re encountering difficulties in the naming process. With our first three boys, there was an abundance of names to pick from and not too many initials that had been taken, baby number four came ready named and babies 5 and 7 are girls, so we had plenty of flowers to cut from that garden. This time around things are different and some boy names have been lost in the process: [name_m]Tobias[/name_m] rhymes with [name_m]Jonas[/name_m], so does [name_u]Elias[/name_u] and it has [name_u]Elliot[/name_u]’s initial, [name_m]Hugo[/name_m] rhymes with [name_f]Margo[/name_f], [name_u]Milo[/name_u] has [name_f]Margo[/name_f]’s initial, [name_m]Simon[/name_m] has [name_f]Sylvie[/name_f]’s initial.
The individual initial rule was established by my DH. He shares initials (FN and MN) with his four brothers and grew up thinking it was impractical and “lame” (his words). In a practical sense, it’s great to write one letter on each pair of rain boots, lunch bag, school materials, laundry baskets and sports equipment.
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I’m pregnant with number four and I 100% agree that it gets harder as you go along. The first three had
- No matching first initial
- [name_m]Long[/name_m] names which are unusual where we live but still real names
- A first middle name that is an honour name
- The first middle name begins with J
- A guilty pleasure second middle
As we get to number four, our boy name fulfills all criteria. With the girl name, as it will be our third girl if it’s a pink bundle, fulfilling all criteria and getting a name we both like that fits perfectly with our sibset has been virtually impossible. At the moment it looks like we will fulfill 1 and 2, maybe 4 depending on which combo we opt for but not 3 or 5 (the second middle is pretty traditional)
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My mom is from a family of 12 ([name_f]Mary[/name_f], [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f] “[name_f]Libby[/name_f]”, [name_m]Thomas[/name_m] “[name_m]Tom[/name_m]”, [name_m]William[/name_m] “[name_m]Bill[/name_m]”, [name_m]John[/name_m], [name_f]Theresa[/name_f], [name_f]Margaret[/name_f] “[name_f]Meg[/name_f]”, [name_u]James[/name_u] “[name_m]Jim[/name_m]”, [name_f]Katherine[/name_f] “[name_f]Kate[/name_f]”, [name_u]Michael[/name_u] “[name_m]Mike[/name_m]”, [name_f]Martha[/name_f] “[name_u]Marty[/name_u]”, and [name_m]Brian[/name_m]) and my dad is from a family of 8 ([name_m]Robert[/name_m] “[name_m]Bob[/name_m]”, [name_m]Ronald[/name_m] “[name_m]Ron[/name_m]”, [name_f]Cyndi[/name_f], [name_m]Jeffery[/name_m] “[name_m]Jeff[/name_m]”, [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] “[name_f]Debbie[/name_f]”, [name_f]Vicki[/name_f], [name_f]Barbara[/name_f] “[name_f]Barbie[/name_f]”, and [name_f]Tammy[/name_f]) so those are more what i consider large families. [name_f]My[/name_f] mom’s family was very catholic so they seemed to stick with those type of names while my dad’s family just went with names they liked (or named after my grandparents [name_m]Robert[/name_m] and [name_f]Barbara[/name_f])
For me I would prefer 1-3 kids and intend to just use names I like or some honor names instead of worrying about a theme or if they sound good in a group
[name_f]My[/name_f] grandmother comes from a large Irish-Catholic (with Prussian, [name_m]German[/name_m] & [name_u]French[/name_u] to boot) family. She is the baby of the family of 11 siblings. Their names are/were [name_f]Ann[/name_f]@, [name_m]Edw[/name_m]@rd, M@rg@ret [name_u]June[/name_u], Minett@ ([name_f]Minnie[/name_f]), [name_f]Elsie[/name_f], J@mes, [name_u]Juli[/name_u]@, Theres@, Berth@, [name_u]Louise[/name_u] & M@rion [name_f]Agnes[/name_f].
Her mother came from a large Prussian/German/French family of 13 siblings. They were named [name_m]Willi[/name_m]@m [name_m]Augustus[/name_m], [name_u]Min[/name_u]@/Minn@ ([name_f]Minnie[/name_f]), M@rg@ret (M@ggie), [name_u]August[/name_u]@ ([name_u]Gussie[/name_u]), Berth@, [name_f]Lin[/name_f]@/Len@, [name_u]Juli[/name_u]@ [name_f]Josephine[/name_f], [name_m]Andrew[/name_m] H@ns & [name_f]Elsie[/name_f].
I’m pretty sure I’m missing a sibling in there somewhere, as I’ve seen one name with two different sets of dates, but I’m not entirely sure as she was too young to remember and her siblings are all long since passed.
Most of the names were family names from what we know, but we only know back so far on her side of the family. With a family that large, they weren’t going for themes as far as she has been told, but names that meant something to them. With this many names, it would have been a challenge to find a theme in back then or in modern day to stick to. If anyone can find a theme in these names, I’d love to hear it.
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I’m from a [name_u]French[/name_u]-Catholic family and the oldest of 4. Our names are both themed (we were each named after a saint), and ones my parents liked.
[name_f]My[/name_f] grandfather was the youngest of 10; [name_m]Ferdinand[/name_m], [name_f]Honore[/name_f], [name_m]Leo[/name_m], [name_m]Bernard[/name_m], [name_f]Alda[/name_f], [name_m]Augustin[/name_m], Gildore, [name_m]Rolland[/name_m], [name_f]Edna[/name_f], and [name_m]Gerard[/name_m]. And my grandmother was the oldest of 6; Dolorese, [name_f]Theresa[/name_f], [name_u]Basil[/name_u], [name_m]Roger[/name_m], [name_m]Richard[/name_m], [name_f]Beatrice[/name_f]. As far as I know those names were just popular among my little [name_u]French[/name_u] community at the time.
For me personally I would love to have a big family, which I believe would be around 5+ kids. The names I have in mind are ones that I like, and while they don’t want them to be matchy or themed, I do want them to sound good together. I will probably use family names for some of the middles. Being a name nerd I have my top 3 girls names that I all equally love and a top 3 list of boys names that I also love. If I end up having 6 kids (and none of the names are vetoed) I’m all set. 
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I definitely fit into the “small family, matching names” category. We want 2 kids (sometimes I dream of 3 - [name_m]Bob[/name_m]’s Burgers makes me want to make sure we get a [name_u]Louise[/name_u] to shake up our lives). Having names that feel like a pair or group of three is important to me. If I have 3 I imagine them being The Lastname Kids - X, Y, and Z. I care more about names for the same gender matching than names of different genders matching, though I wouldn’t want them to be TOO off the mark (no [name_f]Mary[/name_f] and [name_u]Bradley[/name_u] for me, or [name_f]Brynlee[/name_f] and [name_m]John[/name_m]).
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I only want 3-4 kids max. I feel that I do have a naming style (vintage, literary hipster names that were probably considered very posh 20 years ago) and if for whatever reason I did have a bigger family, whilst I might not stick to a theme religiously, I would probably stick pretty close to it.
For example, I already have two boys: [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m] &
J a s p e r, which I feel has a distinct style (incidentally there’s a [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m] & J a s p e r in the novel, Brideshead Revisited, which I’m currently reading and I love other in it such as names such as [name_f]Cordelia[/name_f] & [name_f]Celia[/name_f]!)
I plan on having another kid in the next five years. I’d plan on calling him: [name_m]Elijah[/name_m]/Atticus, her: [name_f]Cora[/name_f]/Beatrix, which I think goes with my style. However, if we say had a few more kids and these names were already taken, I would probably widen my horizons and maybe accept a more popular, trendy name like [name_f]Lily[/name_f]/Ava or [name_m]Jack[/name_m]/Alfie. So something that would still work with the names but isn’t necessarily the style.
I feel like
[name_m]Sebastian[/name_m], J a s p e r & [name_f]Lily[/name_f]
Or
[name_m]Sebastian[/name_m], J a s p e r & [name_u]Alfie[/name_u]
Still kind of works but isn’t necessarily themed