I am not sure if anyone else has faced this question, but I thought I’d ask for opinions. When you say, have two girl names that you adore, would you be inclined to use them together for your firstborn daughter, or would you use one and save the other in case you have another little miss in future?
[name]Feel[/name] free to explain in detail.
When we were naming our daughter, we were choosing between a few names that were all derived from [name]Mary[/name] ([name]Molly[/name], [name]Moira[/name], [name]Maura[/name]) and we also liked the name [name]Lucy[/name]. We ended up choosing [name]Maura[/name] and giving her the middle name [name]Lucille[/name] after my grandmother, which essentially took all of the names off the table. I’m not sure [name]Maura[/name] and [name]Lucy[/name] (and [name]Patrick[/name], the son my husband is hoping for!) would have made that great of a sibset anyway, so it’s not a big deal. We need another Irish name.
I understand the impulse both ways. You want to be able to use the names you love in case you never have another daughter, but you also don’t want to end up pregnant with little girl #2 and have nothing to name her because you gave the only good names to your first born. Honestly, though, I doubt that will happen. There will be other names.
I am in a weirdly reversed situation- this hoped for baby will almost definately be the last so I keep trying to make favourite names mesh because I know this is my last chance! LOL
Sometimes two first names don’t match together anyway- I guess it depends on what the names are.
[name]One[/name] comment I’d make though is that by the time you have another girl/ if you have another girl you may evolve and like a different names anyway.
So if they match, I think perhaps use them.
thatkathryngirl: It is hard to think of having a second girl and not being satisfied with any names for her. I have a supremely tough time getting attached to girls’ names. I can like some, but I don’t get that feeling of “Yes, this is something I’d absolutely use” as I do with boy names. I wish I had more confidence it would work out. Though, your answer does make me feel a bit better about the prospect.
emiliaj: Good luck on naming your last little one! There’s another situation I don’t envy, because I can totally picture the difficulty in it. My names thankfully do “flow” so if I can buck up a bit, it would work out.
I wouldn’t if the two names sounded great together, because chances are your opinion of what your favourite name is will change in between this one and the next baby!
I know mine have changed every time - the names I considered with my first aren’t the ones I considered with my second and none of the ones I considered with the other two is in my mind now.
Thanks for the advice so far, everyone.
I plan on saving them. My three favorite girls’ names are [name]Isabelle[/name], [name]Arianne[/name], and [name]Olivia[/name]–I couldn’t imagine having a daughter named [name]Isabelle[/name] [name]Arianne[/name] [name]Olivia[/name]! It’s pretty, but those have been my favorites for over 3 years now, and it really hasn’t changed. If I had a second daughter, I’d be so afraid of being disappointed that I couldn’t have an [name]Ari[/name] or a [name]Livy[/name]. Besides, I love so many names, this way, I can also have meaningful middles that I really love, but to a lesser degree than the FNs, and I’ll get to save all my favorites for later. I have too many top-tier favorites to use, anyway–I don’t plan on having more than 5 kids, and the likelihood that all 5 of them will be girls are pretty slim. And even if they were all girls, I’d have about 15 extra favorites left over. 
I really do understand your fears. Honestly, I have the same ones. [name]Maura[/name] has been my favorite name pretty much forever. I started my list when I was in high school and I’m 26 now, so it has probably been my #1 favorite “this [name]WILL[/name] be my daughter’s name someday” name for like a decade. It’s going to be a tough act to follow for me for sure. There are definitely other names I like, and even some I love, but it isn’t even as straightforward as just loving a name. 1.) I don’t get to name the babies all by myself. My husband has definite ideas about what he likes and looks for in a name. Fortunately, we have similar taste, but still somehow the area where our respective name pools overlap is pretty small. 2.) Now that we have named 1 kid, it’s not just about the 1 perfect name anymore, but a sibset that has to work together. I know saying that could potentially make this situation more scary, but it’s actually not. I feel like having parameters and rules to work within is making the decision less overwhelming. There aren’t infinite possibilities anymore. In our case, we need an Irish-ish name, sort of vintage-y, that is easily recognizable/spellable/pronouncible in the US. There aren’t that many. Some of them I would never have considered before, but seeing the way HE loves them is making me think of them differently. They’re growing on me. Also, having a loved one with a certain name tends to make people think more fondly of that name, so even if you end up naming baby #2 something that wasn’t on your list of all-time-favorite names, it will now be the name of one of your all-time-favorite people. I’m pretty sure you’ll learn to love it
This is why I did family/honor names in the middle. That way instead of pairing up favorites that sound nice, I use a favorite name that suits baby paired with a family name to honor someone dear to me. It makes me happy to remember the deceased family member that way and I don’t feel I have lost a favorite name to the forgotten middle spot! I know I probably won’t use all of my favorites, but I’m OK with that!
thatkathryngirl: I hope so. I am really waiting for the shoe to drop, with names. Right now I’m in a definite funk as far they go, which makes me blue.
taz: That would make it easier, but unfortunately that is not an option in my situation. Grew up with a family name as my FN & NN, didn’t like that much. Now by the time I’m grown up, my family is pretty much estranged to me, so… there isn’t anyone I’d want to honor, sad as it sounds.
Ahhh, such a tough question! Assuming the names you love go well together in a fn/mn pairing and would also go well as fns for sisters…
Reasons to use both in one name:
Reasons to save one of the names:
I have a lot of names I love, so I don’t really have this problem. : )
I used my 2 favourites on my daughter, after having 3 boys. I figured we were done, and this was my one chance to use my top choices, plus they sounded really good together. Then we had another boy, and now #6 is due in [name]August[/name], but we don’t know the sex. If it’s a girl, part of me wishes I still had one of those names to use, but both are SO my daughter now, I can’t really imagine either on somebody else. And it’s 4 years since DD was born, so being the namey (they say ‘foodie’ for the food obsessed/aficionado, right? 
) that I am, of course I have several new favourites I’m ready to use if this one is team pink. (There’s a much better chance I’ll have another boy though, if our track record is any sort of predictor!)
I definitely would save my other favorite for another daughter. I love the names [name]Claudia[/name] and [name]Violet[/name] but I would never use [name]Claudia[/name] [name]Violet[/name] or [name]Violet[/name] [name]Claudia[/name] because I love both too much for the middle spot! I think I like to use middle names that honor someone or something, and if I love them a lot too that’s a plus but I don’t really see the middle name as a place for one of my favorites.
Well usually my two favorite names don’t mesh well and there are names I only like as a mn because of meaning. I was faced with this too! But decided, both times, to go with mn with meaning and flow
Oh and I’m very happy with my decisions to do that, times 2! Happened to be names I would never use as a first name. Very glad I did that cause if I had used my DD 2 name as mn for DD 1 I would be sooo upset! Haha. I say save it and go for meaning. Also I agree with the PP’s that your favorite name today might change in a few years. Also the mn is rarely spoken, I look at that spot more for what story can you tell your child about it when he/she gets older. I love word names as mn’s too. I’ve always loved my mn for that. Hope that helps!
Since we knew we wanted a large family, dh and I initially didn’t use any names in the middle that we might want to use as a first name. But, with our last son we did use one of dh’s favorites as a middle name. I’m generally in favor of saving names.
We named our first daughter [name]Madelyn[/name] [name]Esther[/name], after my favorite grandmother and my husband’s favorite grandmother. When we had girl #2, we did kind of wish that we hadn’t already used [name]Esther[/name]. But on the other hand, [name]Madelyn[/name] [name]Esther[/name] sounds so lovely! And now that she is older, I can’t see our little [name]Genevieve[/name] as an [name]Esther[/name].
That happened to me with my daughter. When she was born I realized that my top choice didn’t really suit her, but it would’ve flowed beautifully with the first name I ended up picking. However, I still loved it so much I decided to save it in case I have another girl, rather than relegate it to the middle spot.
I am thinking about this right now. I think I’m just going to go with the two girl names I love the best at this moment. If a second girl comes along in the future, I’ve just gotta have faith that I’ll come up with something good at that time. Also, tastes and times change, and you might have a great idea a few years from now that would work perfect for a second daughter!
We hope for a large family, so I’m not concerned to pile all my favorites onto one child.