My aunt and uncle had a baby recently. Their older two (one boy, one girl) have cute but unspectacular names, quite trendy but not awful. I was not expecting great things for the third, but being the name nerd I am, I was eager to find out what they were going to call her. When the announcement came, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a sweet name, vintage and on-trend. The only thing…it was almost, but not quite, their older daughter’s name. I mean almost the exact same first and middle combination (think [name_f]Lila[/name_f] [name_u]Clare[/name_u]/[name_f]Lily[/name_f] [name_f]Clara[/name_f]). My mom and I exchanged slightly pained looks. My dad just laughed.
It got me thinking…why do parents do this? It seems to be a fairly common phenomenon. Among the top names for twins are [name_f]Emma[/name_f] and [name_f]Emily[/name_f], [name_m]Jacob[/name_m] and [name_u]Jayden[/name_u]. Many people give all their children names with the same first letter, Duggar style. [name_m]Don[/name_m]'t they realize how much trouble this is going to cause later? It just seems really weird to me. You’ve already used that name; why not take the chance to use another name you like?
Have any of you met siblings with names like this? What do you think?
As a twin, I feel very strongly about matchy names. My siblings and I have totally different names (fitting together in style and popularity [i.e. very uncommon!] but no similar sounds or initials). Apart from the annoyance with constant mix-ups etc., I would hate to have such a similar name because I wouldn’t feel like my own ‘person’ (this applies especially to twins: we’re lumped together so often that you really do need to be set apart sometimes). I was having a little look through twin names earlier this morning, actually, and these were some of the awful combos that stuck out to me (nothing against the names themselves necessarily, just the combinations):
[name_m]Zayden[/name_m] and [name_u]Brayden[/name_u] (bb)
[name_f]Zoe[/name_f] and [name_f]Chloe[/name_f] (gg)
Jaqi and Jaqari (gb) (WHY)
[name_m]Xander[/name_m] and [name_m]Xavier[/name_m] (bb)
[name_u]Evan[/name_u] and [name_m]Ivan[/name_m] (bb) (I actually got angry - those poor poor boys)
[name_u]Alexis[/name_u] and [name_u]Allison[/name_u] (gg) ([name_u]Allie[/name_u] and [name_u]Allie[/name_u]? No)
[name_u]Ruby[/name_u] and [name_f]Rose[/name_f] (gg)
[name_f]Lili[/name_f] and [name_f]Laci[/name_f] (gg) (if you’re going to give them matching names, can’t you at least spell them correctly?)
[name_u]Karli[/name_u] and Kallum (gb) (I see they’re doing the Kardashian thing)
[name_u]Blake[/name_u] and [name_m]Brock[/name_m] (bb)
[name_f]Sophie[/name_f] and [name_u]Sonny[/name_u] (gb)
Sindu and Sidharth (gb)
Slightly different topic, but there were also twin boys called [name_m]Jack[/name_m] and [name_m]Daniel[/name_m]. [name_m]JACK[/name_m] AND [name_m]DANIEL[/name_m]! As in [name_m]Jack[/name_m] [name_m]Daniels[/name_m]! Who allows this?
And there were also twin GIRLS called Jaxx and [name_f]Charlee[/name_f]. The poor, poor girls.
And lastly, twin boys called [name_m]Harry[/name_m] and [name_u]James[/name_u]. The [name_m]Harry[/name_m] [name_m]Potter[/name_m] nerd (not so deep down) rejoiced.
I’ve heard of a set of twins named [name_u]Leslie[/name_u] and [name_f]Liesl[/name_f]. Seems so wrong to me. First, because it’s all the same letters, but switched around! Also, because the style/ethnicity seems mismatched…[name_f]Liesl[/name_f] sounds like the older [name_m]German[/name_m] cousin of [name_u]Leslie[/name_u].
I have nothing against either name, and in fact am trying to convince DH about using [name_f]Anneliese[/name_f] nn [name_f]Liesl[/name_f]. But it’s exactly the opposite of what I would try to do with twin names: match the style/feel of the name but have the sounds and letters be distinct.
I know of a girl named [name_f]Rose[/name_f] [name_f]Camille[/name_f] and her baby sister [name_f]Camille[/name_f] [name_f]Rose[/name_f].
I wonder what they would have done if a third baby had appeared…
I think people do it because they are just really drawn to a certain sound, or they do it on purpose because they think it’s cute (ugh!)
I’m actually really drawn to a lot of M names for girls (many of which are variants of [name_f]Mary[/name_f] or [name_f]Margaret[/name_f]), but I picked one and used it and am not going to use another. I didn’t discuss names with anyone but my husband while I was pregnant, but after my daughter was born I told my [name_f]MIL[/name_f] we had also considered [name_f]Molly[/name_f]. She said she really likes the name [name_f]Molly[/name_f] and we should use it for the next one. When I pointed out that [name_f]Molly[/name_f] and [name_f]Maura[/name_f] are both versions of [name_f]Mary[/name_f], she said we should give all our daughters [name_f]Mary[/name_f] names. And she was serious! She started listing ones she likes! DH and I had joked about doing that at one point, but we wouldn’t really.