My mom went to the hospital to have me, totally undecided on a name; she decided on [name_f]Destinee[/name_f] [name_u]Lynn[/name_u] (don’t get me started on how much I dislike my name). Three years later, when she was pregnant with my brother she fell in love with the name [name_m]Damian[/name_m] - the shared first initial was totally coincidental - and she then thought she would make it “cute” and his middle name is [name_m]Lucas[/name_m]. I thought it was cool when I was really young. Our initials were on everything “DLF1” “DLF2”. [name_m]Even[/name_m] as I grew older it was never a problem because there was just two of us. Then, my mother remarried and had my second brother a month before my 18th birthday. This was supposed to be her last child and she didn’t want him to feel left out, despite my step-dad having children with all different initials, and chose [name_m]Dalton[/name_m] [name_m]Levi[/name_m]. That was just enough to me. At this point I wasn’t too big of a fan of the matching initials but I felt it kind of made him “ours”. A little over a year later, my mom had a surprise baby and was wishing she had switched initials with [name_m]Dalton[/name_m] - she chose initials over the name she loved. Finally our last little guy is [name_m]Duke[/name_m] [name_u]Lennon[/name_u] (I was rooting for [name_u]Dean[/name_u]). So, here we are DL4 and I think it’s too much. Is this something that is okay for only so many children? Cute? Or distasteful?
It seems that a lot of families end up with “all one initial” unintentionally, like your family. The Duggars are pretty infamous for their all-J set at this point, but they also stumbled into it by not wanting to “leave out” the third.
I think if you’re going to break a “same initials” trend, you almost have to do it for the third, otherwise it gets established as your “thing.” On the other hand, I do know a family that used M names up until their sixth, and then they introduced [name_f]Lily[/name_f]. Everyone was really surprised, but they said they had run out of M names that they really liked. I really admire them for going with a name they love (and they ended up having nine so it was a REALLY good call on their part).
Matching initials are really not my “thing,” and I think that there are a lot of other more creative ways to unify a sibling set, but a lot of people do like matching initials. Really, I think it only becomes a problem when 1) you start misspelling names in order to get the same letter, and 2) if you’re passing up names you really love just because they don’t match.
I don’t know of any families personally who went with both first and middle initals matching, but I do think it’s…problematic. It makes it harder, when the kids get older, to know things like whose mail is whose and so on. On the other hand, it’s not dreadful. I know its nice as a child to have a theme you are part of (my siblings and I share biblical names) but it’s not my style. My grandmother was the youngest of six. Their names were: [name_m]Harold[/name_m], [name_m]Huey[/name_m], [name_m]Homer[/name_m], [name_f]Hildie[/name_f], [name_f]Harriet[/name_f] and…[name_f]Zada[/name_f]. Lol. I don’t know if that was better or worse then not finishing the h set. And I don’t know why they gave Grammy the name [name_f]Zada[/name_f]. Still, people will do as they will! P
I think matching first initials are adorable, but only safe if you know you’re gonna have less than say four kids. First and second initial would be really hard!
I think it’s okay on first names so you could have initials like DL,DT,DH,DS,stuff like that, but four DL’s is to much.
I think it is nice to have a theme with sibling names but I prefer one that is not based on first initial. The problem I see is that it’s is limiting and can force you to choose a name you don’t love to go with the same initial.
It’s not something I particularly like and it can get very tiresome after more than 2 or 3.
It isn’t a huge deal though.
I know a family with 5 kids–four girls all with A names and 1 boy without an A name (he got a family name). I actually think that’s a really good way to get yourself out of a pattern. Use a family name that you like and say, “Yea we had two L’s but we wanted to name him/her after my grandma/grandpa/dad/mom, etc.”
I can definitely understand likely several names with the same letter. There are a few letters that I seem to prefer over all the others, but people really over think the “leaving one out” thing. I can’t imagine siblings using the fact that 2 of the 3 or 3 of the 4 have the same initial as a thing…
I don’t like the idea.
Personally, I’m not a fan. However, I will say that my brother and sister both share the middle name [name_u]Ray[/name_u] (yes, spelled the same for both) and when I was younger I felt a little left out with my middle name being [name_u]Jean[/name_u]. Now, it doesn’t bother me a bit!
I have a cousin with two sons [name_u]Dyllan[/name_u] [name_u]Michael[/name_u] + [name_m]Dayne[/name_m] [name_m]Matthew[/name_m] both intinially spelled with D and Y and the middle initial as an M. Since she knew these would be her only children I actually don’t mind it as much.
I’m currently pregnant and our first daughter is named [name_u]Pepper[/name_u] and my [name_f]MIL[/name_f] thinks we should go with something else in the “spice” family such as [name_u]Rue[/name_u] or [name_f]Ginger[/name_f]. However, we never meant to name her [name_u]Pepper[/name_u] as a spice. I just genuinely loved the name on it’s own so I’m against it and my Husband is for it.