Obviously both are ideal, but do you pick middles with a special meaning in mind or to round out the name?
If you have a mn philosophy I’d love to hear it!
Meaning always trumps flow for me. I would never choose a middle name just for a nice flow. Like you said, if you can have both that would be ideal! Flow isn’t that important to me. I like names and combos that are a little offbeat or even singsongy!
I’m with @uselesskitty. Most times flow doesn’t matter a huge deal to me, anyway, but family is the world to me, so I say meaning would trump flow, every single time. Although I don’t really think any of my combos flow badly…
I very much base the middles on the imagery/colour of the first name, and I try to find middles that match the feeling the first name gives me. I like it when they have nice flow, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Flow is important to me, but I wouldn’t pick a name [name]JUST[/name] because it sounded good. There are plenty of names out there that have pretty sounds but are vile as names. And equally there are plenty of names that have fabulous meanings but are absolutely horrible as names. [name]Ozias[/name] means salvation, but I’d never use it.
So I think it’s just a matter of balance. Finding something that has enough meaning for you and that sounds okay, or something that sounds good enough for you and doesn’t have a terrible or no meaning. I’d probably err on the side of flow, but I’m not sure.
In almost all of my current combos flow and sound are more inportant than actual meaning, but that just because I’m making them for fun as I’m not having childrren for a long time yet.
But when the time comes to give my own children names meaning is going to be far more important than just sounding nice. However I don’t mean the literal meanings of the name I more mean what the names mean to me (and my future SO whoever he happens to be) as in family names etc.