It depresses me how similiar and cutsey some of these more popular combos are. I mean, come on people, just because they’re twins doesn’t mean they can’t have their own identities!!
Oh lord… [name]Don[/name]'t get me started on these twin names, they make my jaw drop in shock. I will go through all the ones that I think are the worst (by the way, most of them are pretty bad). Then I’ll say the ones that I think are decent.
[name]Taylor[/name] and [name]Tyler[/name]: I know about 20 Tylers, and about 15 Taylors (both boys and girls). I often call my close friend [name]Tyler[/name] “[name]Taylor[/name]” on accident. So, I can’t grasp this idea of naming kids nearly identical names, especially if you add one letter to [name]Tyler[/name], you get [name]Taylor[/name].
[name]Ella[/name] and [name]Emma[/name]: You change one letter and they’re the same name. It’s just ridiculous. [name]Evan[/name] and [name]Ethan[/name] is pretty bad, too.
[name]Faith[/name] and [name]Hope[/name]: They just seem like a package deal to me. It’s cheesy, too.
[name]Christian[/name] and [name]Christopher[/name]: I don’t which is worse, these twin names or [name]Taylor[/name] and [name]Tyler[/name]. For [name]Christian[/name] and [name]Christopher[/name], they pretty much both have the same nickname! [name]Chris[/name] and [name]Chris[/name]. Or [name]Chris[/name] and [name]Topher[/name], or [name]Christian[/name] and [name]Chris[/name]. I can’t grasp this one either.
(the next ones are farther down on the list, but really bad)
[name]Jayden[/name] and [name]Jaylen[/name]: Change one letter and they’re the same name.
[name]Jayda[/name] and [name]Jayden[/name]/other variations: They’re so matchy! I think they’re even more similar than [name]Jayden[/name] and [name]Jaylen[/name].
[name]Autumn[/name] and [name]Summer[/name]: Might as well name them Left and Right, seriously.
[name]Heaven[/name] and [name]Nevaeh[/name]: This has to be the cheesiest, tackiest, and worst twin names on the popular twins name list. It makes me lose faith in humanity.
My favorites from the ones you listed:
[name]Isabella[/name] and [name]Sophia[/name]
and
[name]Caleb[/name] and [name]Joshua[/name] or [name]David[/name] and [name]Daniel[/name].
I can’t understand this either. It’s bad enough being too matchy, but what I really can’t grasp is choosing names that sound almost identical. Surely it’s just cursing yourself to a lifetime of mishearings? Mind you, if they’re identical, it might help to have one name for them if you can’t tell them apart…
Some of these are pretty cheesy…not to mention confusing. My mom would accidently call my brother and I by each other’s names (and I’m female, and our names sound nothing alike). I can’t imagine how moms of [name]Jayden[/name] and [name]Jordan[/name] manage. And [name]Christian[/name] and [name]Christopher[/name]…do they both go by [name]Chris[/name]?!
However, (popularity aside) There are a few that aren’t too bad:
6 [name]Gabriella[/name], [name]Isabella[/name] 42 - similar sounding, but [name]Gabby[/name] and [name]Izzy[/name] works
8 [name]Madison[/name], [name]Morgan[/name] 38 - both unisex (but I think the alliteration is too much. [name]Taylor[/name] and [name]Morgan[/name] would be better)
9 [name]Elijah[/name], [name]Isaiah[/name] 36
15 [name]Isabella[/name], [name]Sophia[/name] 28
16 [name]Olivia[/name], [name]Sophia[/name] 28 - my favorite since I love both of these names despite their rise in popularity
24 [name]Caleb[/name], [name]Joshua[/name] 24 - nice biblical reference without the names sounding similar
My cousins who are twins are JimmyJohn, collectively. They are older now, but this is a precious twin thing. Now this is a chain of sub shops (hasn’t hit my area yet). I don’t like precious matching names, I don’t mind the same initials, but I can sort of respect any given parents’ seeming “cluelessness” for how to go about wanting the names to sound “equal” instead of disparate. My cousins seemed essentially the same person to me growing up, these weren’t opposite kind of kids. When they are born, they are essentially equal, if you have a favorite name and a second favorite name, or two names that are sort of different, how do you fit the name with the child - I guess it is two for the price of one, since with a singleton, you don’t know either. But when you have two, and one grows up to be the jock and one is very studious, and their names are too similar, I somehow think this is more freeing of personality than the two very distinct names, which might seem fit to switch once their personalities emerge. I don’t know how to, say, have a list of names I like, figure out which ones would make a good twin pair, and then go on to decide which twin gets which name. It always figures to me like one is favorite, and to have two similar names is to say one is not really favorite. In a singleton situation, one name wins. If you have a list of favorites, it might be like winning the lottery to get to use several names at a go, but I don’t know how many parents really think this or use this to their advantage. It seems like many must, due to so few picking such similar names overall.
I do not think this is uncommon, I guess if these are the most popular pairings - most parents who like one name will very likely try to find a default name that’s close instead of the random chance that if one kid is named [name]James[/name], the other one would be [name]William[/name] or [name]Henry[/name] or [name]Connor[/name] - those combos will be overspread with [name]John[/name] just coming out more common because it’s more obvious. Not everyone is a name nerd or tries to find some balance and distinction. I would take this list, as it still seems these combos are rather more rare than they seem - that more parents choose a lot of other names and very few parents choose the same two names. Essentially, statistics will only point to the chance pairing of alike names. If you count the number of these pairs, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of this going around, just that there are more of them than others.
People obviously don’t think about confusion or even that these are two children, not two halves of one or something, when they use these names. At least I didn’t see [name]Gabrielle[/name] and [name]Gabriella[/name]–a combo which really peeves me.
Farther down the list, in case you didn’t check, are both good and bad combos. One of the worst I saw was [name]Ethan[/name] and [name]Nathan[/name], #41, given to 19 sets of twins in 2008. I mean, come ON! Also, tagging on with the virtue train was [name]Faith[/name] and [name]Grace[/name]–not even going to talk about it. Not to mention #85, [name]Adrian[/name] and [name]Adriana[/name]. You’d think people had developed some sense by now.
There were some good ones, however. Here are the ones I’m seeing right now, though there are probably (hopefully) more–
[name]Gabriel[/name] and [name]Michael[/name]
[name]Joshua[/name] and [name]Matthew[/name]
[name]Emma[/name] and [name]Sophia[/name] (Also [name]Olivia[/name] and [name]Sophia[/name] and [name]Isabella[/name] and [name]Olivia[/name] and all those)
[name]Benjamin[/name] and [name]Abigail[/name]
Sorry about the rant. It’s just so annoying! Twins are people too, not factory-issue [name]Barbie[/name] dolls.