My husband and I wanted to honour our fathers by using their middle names for our baby ([name_m]William[/name_m] and [name_m]Grant[/name_m]).
We decided to go with [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]William[/name_m] over [name_m]William[/name_m] [name_m]Grant[/name_m], since [name_m]William[/name_m] is a much more popular name and we wanted our baby’s name to be easy to spell, without being too common (plus, my name also starts with a G, so that’s kind of fun).
We’d been calling our little one [name_m]Grant[/name_m] for at least 2 months, and then my cousin had a baby, and called him [name_m]Grant[/name_m] (different middle and last name then ours). Though we don’t see those cousins very often, other family members have already expressed the opinion that it would be strange to use the same name.
What do you think? Would you keep [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]William[/name_m], switch to [name_m]William[/name_m] [name_m]Grant[/name_m], or try something completely different?
Other options we briefly considered (once we found out about the other baby) were [name_m]John[/name_m] [name_u]James[/name_u] (my husband and his grandpa are [name_m]John[/name_m], and our baby would be J.J.) and [name_m]Benjamin[/name_m].
All thoughts and perspectives are greatly appreciated.
This is tricky. I wish I could say don’t change but if the same thing happened to me I would probably not use the name. I wouldn’t want my kid to share a name with his cousin and especially not when his cousin was given the name first. This is of course only my opinion if it happened to me but it is definitely not strange or uncommon for two cousins to share the same name and [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]William[/name_m] is absolutely divine.
If you are unsure about the popularity for [name_m]William[/name_m] you might want to consider another [name_m]Will[/name_m] name like [name_m]Willem[/name_m] or [name_m]Wilfred[/name_m] for example.
OP here: [name_m]Just[/name_m] wanted to clarify that [name_m]Grant[/name_m] was used by MY first cousin to name his baby. So if there were two Grants, they would not be cousins themselves, they would be second cousins. [name_f]May[/name_f] or may not change opinions. [name_m]Just[/name_m] wanted to clarify.
We wanted to use [name_m]William[/name_m] as the first or middle of our baby to honour my dad (since that is his middle name). Right now I’m thinking if we changed it to [name_m]Wilfred[/name_m] (or another derivative) then we’d lose the connection, so I’d rather just change it entirely (also, my husband’s middle name happens to be [name_m]William[/name_m] too).
Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated. Interested to hear other thoughts as well
[name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]William[/name_m] is a very nice name, and one that is clearly significant to you. On top of that, you got used to calling your baby that name for 2 months, and I expect it could be difficult to change. Therefore, since you don’t see your cousin often, it seems perfectly appropriate to approach them and ask how they would feel about it, given that you have had this name picked out for a while. If they feel uncomfortable about it then I would look into another name, since their baby was born first, but if they are understanding about the situation I don’t think it would cause undue distress to have two Grants; your other family members would, I am sure, grow used to it, and the occasions where they are together you could make a point of distinguishing them by using both first and middle, or even just call them “big [name_m]Grant[/name_m]” and “little [name_m]Grant[/name_m]” in reference to birth order. My SO, for instance, shares a name with a first cousin born 10 days after him and another born 6 years after him, and it actually causes less confusion than you would imagine, because each is distinguished by the addition of another name or a nickname.
Keep it. You’ll get over the weirdness pretty quickly, but if you don’t use it you might regret it. In my family there are 2 first cousins with the same name and it wasn’t all that noteworthy. I’d reconsider if the parents of the other [name_m]Grant[/name_m] had a problem with it and it would be a possible source of tension with them, but other than that I wouldn’t worry about it.
Personally I definitely wouldn’t give up a name I had my heart set on just because a relative happened to use it first due to unfortunate timing. And since you don’t see them very often, I think it’s even less of an issue.
