I’m just curious. Does it mean more to you for the names to ‘flow’ together? Or does it mean more for you to have names that mean something, like a family name?
Flow, for sure. I don’t want a name to mean something bad (like [name]Claudia[/name] does), apart from that I don’t really care, is kind of a bonus. When it comes to family names, personally I feel there are many more ways of proving you love someone… 
I think that [name]BOTH[/name] are important! But for me personal meaning trumps name meanings any day…I love [name]Claudia[/name], which is anything but lame to me cause of my own personal associations. I wouldn’t name my kid [name]Irena[/name] [name]Eugenia[/name] despite both names having family connection to me though, cause flow matters too.
Meaning! Though flow is fairly important too. A good example is my new favourite combo, Peter Richard. Most will dislike the 2-2 syllable flow and the fact Peter runs into Richard, but those names have special meaning- familial, literary, magical, secret… so I don’t really mind that the flow’s not perfect
I would rather use a name that has family signifcance than use one that has less meaning to me but that makes the name combo sound better. For example, [name]Roberta[/name] [name]Nicola[/name] doesn’t exactly “flow well” but [name]Nicola[/name] is my mum’s name and I’d rather use it than something else.
Meaning is most important.
Flow should be taken into consideration.
Meaning is more important to me (and by that I mean personal significance, not necessarily the name meaning listed in a baby name book), but I also wouldn’t want the names to sound ridiculous together either. It’s pretty important to me that the first and last name sound decent together because that’s how you introduce yourself. If a middle name was very special to me, but didn’t flow perfectly with the rest of the name, I would still consider using it as long as it wasn’t atrocious. For example, if my husband had suggested it, I would have been willing to name our daughter [name]Maura[/name] [name]Ada[/name], even though the first ends in A and the middle starts with A, because [name]Ada[/name] is his grandmother’s name. We actually named her after my grandmother and it flows much nicer. Anyway, we’re considering the name [name]Pauline[/name] as a middle name for our second daughter. If we decided on the first name [name]Colleen[/name], though, we would definitely choose a different middle!
Flow. [name]Don[/name]'t care if name means something bad, I hardly ever look. But one of my fave names are [name]Freya[/name] and love it because of meaning, I am not fond how [name]Freya[/name] sound.
[name]Both[/name] are important, but meaning is more important to me, but I don’t mean the literal meaning of the name, I mean more the personal meaning.
Meaning. I honestly care very little about flow. As long as it’s not 2-2-2-2, I couldn’t really care less. I don’t think honoring is really trying to show someone you love them, I think that sort of misses the point of honoring. And honestly, even if it’s not for family, but it’s in honor of something–where you met your SO (or honeymooned), your favorite writer, your love of history, etc… I would take meaning over flow any day.
Yes, I agree with others that the meaning of the name to me personally is the most important and if the name also has a wonderful literal meaning then that is a bonus. I’m not very fussed on flow as long as it isn’t appaling. Besides, if you say anything enough it tends to start sounding all right anyway as you get used to it. Well, that’s what I find.
Definitely flow, the only two names we could use are my boyfriends middle, my fathers name and my grandfathers nick name which he was given by a teacher. So we did come up with one combo to represent that but then I feel I would have to continue that tradition. And we so do not have that many usable names. I can not picture naming our child Concetta, Rudy, Aloysius, etc. so flow has taken the lead in our case. I would of loved if we had usable names that are our style and we liked of course but that is not in the cards for us.
I think flow is more important. But meaning is pretty decently important too. However, I would probably choose a name based on flow before I chose one based on meaning. Flow will be mentioned every time the kid hears his name. But meaning is only brought up at certain times.
I don’t really care about meaning as far as what the traditional meaning of a name is (e.g. [name]Sarah[/name] means “princess” or whatever), but the meaningfulness of a name is important to me (e.g. if it is a family name or to honor someone). I would say flow is definitely more important than the meaning, but flow and meaningfulness go hand-in-hand.