Dear Swistle-
I am currently 30 weeks pregnant with identical twin boys. My husband and I are having a very hard time agreeing on names for a few reasons.
1. My husband really wants to use family names either first or middle. ( we did not use family names for our daughter…Stella Claire) His reasoning is ” because that is what you do with boys”. Ok, so I am not opposed to family but I feel like it should be equal share from each side of the family since we are having TWO boys. The problem is some of the family names are usable and some are so not. For example, my FIL is Phillip Dean. I can work with that. My dad is Rick Donald. Not so easy because hubby doesn’t think it is ok to change the family name to say Frederick or Donavan. How do you honor one father and not the other? Going back a generation, my grandfather is Dominic (which is actually one name we agree on!) his is Marvin (can’t do it, just can’t). How do you honor one grandfather and not the other? We would use hubby’s first and middle but his middle name is his dad’s name. Am I being too picky? Is this something that you would worry about? Why do I feel guilty if it isn’t fair share?
2. It seems as though we have different naming styles. My husbands top picks are:
Oliver ( can’t decide if I like or really dislike)Lewis ( ok for me, this is a family name as well)
Dean ( to reality TV with my daughter being Stella? And a family name)
Silas and Jasper ( I am really not a fan)
My picks
Graham ( husband likes but not his favorite)
Elias ( no go)
Bennett ( he doesn’t like nn Ben
Everett ( no go)
Nolan ( he says maybe)
3. My husband is WAY more opinionated about these boy names then our daughter ( Stella Claire).
Can you help so these babies aren’t A and B forever! Our lasts name sounds like Carmen with a T. Thank You!
Let’s start with the concept that family names are “what you do with boys.” It sounds as if this might be an idea your husband developed naturally (perhaps because that’s the way it’s done in his own family or because he’s familiar with how in our culture boys might be junior/III/IV but girls rarely are), without really thinking it through. This would be a good moment to really think it through.
I love family names, so I’m all for the idea of them. I also think it’s fully fine to give family names to some of the kids but not others: many parents run out of honor names, or only have girl honor names they like, or have a first name they want to use that doesn’t go with any family names, or have multiple traditions/preferences they’d like to follow, or whatever. Some of my own kids have family names while others don’t (and in fact we’ve honored one grandfather and not the other, two great-grandfathers and not the other two, etc.), and there’s been no fuss yet about that being better for one group or the other.
But I react negatively to the idea that boys get them and girls don’t. The cultural practice of giving boys family names (and making them juniors/IIIs/IVs) comes from some rather ugly ideas about worth. Those ideas may be long since squashed for this particular situation, but it seems like the symbolic expression of those ideas is something to think through before signing up for it. If you wanted to give your boys family names because you had two male honor names you wanted to use and didn’t have any female honor names you wanted to use for your daughter, I would go along with that without a peep. Or let’s say you had been too nervous about picking one side over the other side to choose an honor name for a singleton birth, but with twins you felt like this was a great chance to use honor names without offending anyone; again, no peeps from me. But in this situation, your daughter didn’t get a family name because she was a girl, and the boys are getting family names because they’re boys, and in fact trying to find two honor names is causing problems but you have to persist because your husband says “that’s what you do with boys.” Peep.
All right. Let’s say the two of you go over this subject as thoroughly as you like, and you would still like to take the fun opportunity of twins to honor both sides of the family at once. In that case, the next issue to address is whether it’s okay to honor one grandfather but not the other. Answer: Yes. And it’s true it can still feel awkward. The reason it’s okay, I think, is that there is no way to honor everyone. If you used your grandfather’s name and your husband’s grandfather’s name, would you then need to have two more sons to honor the other two grandfathers? And if you use both of your fathers’ names, would you have to have to make sure you used both of your mothers’ names too? Anyone giving the situation a moment’s thought is going to realize that there are fewer babies than family members. But as I say, this can still get awkward, and I do think it’s a good thing to think of people’s feelings. Many parents choose not to use family names for this very reason: they’d love to honor one family member, but not at the risk of hurting another family member. I could perhaps have given this a little more thought myself, when naming babies. On the other hand, I’m glad I didn’t, because I think I would have gotten paralyzed by it; as it is, I love the kids’ family names and I’m really glad we used them. (What we did was we up-played the honor names only to the honored person; to everyone else, we down-played them. “It’s Robert James AFTER YOU, GRANDPA!” to my grandpa, and “We’ve named him Robert James” to everyone else.)
In short, I would definitely go with your idea of making sure both sides of the family are honored, but I don’t think the names necessarily have to be parallel: both from the boys’ grandfathers, for example, or both from their great-grandfathers. It would be fun if it worked out that way, but it looks like it isn’t going to. Nor do I think that using a name from one generation of the family means that everyone from that generation needs to be honored. Spin can be your friend here: you can say cheerfully that with twins you wanted to honor both sides of the family at once, so you looked at both sides for names you liked that worked with other names you liked. It makes it seem less like the specific person is being specifically singled out (leaving others specifically unhonored), and more like each honor name is chosen to honor the whole side of the family. Which is in fact your goal, so it isn’t even spin.
I might look at family surnames, if first names aren’t working out: perhaps one boy could have your husband’s father’s name and the other boy could have your maiden name, or your mother’s maiden name.
On a more general topic, I want to pass along a naming tip from a friend of mine who has twin boys. She too has a husband who thinks boys get family names, and furthermore he wanted a junior. She felt this was especially awkward with twin boys: she had originally agreed to it assuming their first boy would be a singleton birth. So what they did was, they made the secondborn twin the junior, so that both boys had something special: one was firstborn, the other was the namesake. You’re not planning a junior, but I still like this general concept: that if one honor name is perceived to be more special than the other name, that that name could be given to the secondborn twin to balance things out (and to improve the perceived specialness of the less-special-seeming name). If, for example, you were going to use your husband’s first and middle names, I’d suggest giving his middle name to the firstborn twin and his first name to the secondborn twin.
Another way to balance the perceived specialness of names is placement. For example, if you were to use your husband’s father’s name and your grandfather’s name, you could use your husband’s father’s name as a middle name, and your grandfather’s name as a first name. The non-parallel placement can also help it seem like less of a slight to your father and more of a “These are the names we liked” issue.
(All of this assumes that it’s “better” to have the honor name and “better” to be born first, both of which are arbitrary as well as up for debate, though perhaps not here and now. But our culture does in general believe both of those things to be the case, which is why I take that into account.)
One idea is to use initials, giving one twin your father’s initials and the other your husband’s father’s initials. But this idea isn’t compatible with your husband’s preference of not altering the honor names (which is also my own preference).
However, all of this assumes the two grandfathers’ names won’t work out. I think Rick is very useable, particularly as a middle name. It could perhaps be a little choppy, but my guess is that in the long run you’d be happy with the choice and how it honors your dad; and middle names tend to nearly disappear after the birth announcements go out. I think my first choice would be to use Rick and Phillip as the middle names: it’s fun to get to honor both grandfathers like that, and it’s a very simple and non-feelings-hurting way to use honor names. Another idea I like is your father-in-law’s middle name as one boy’s first name, and your dad’s first name as the other boy’s middle name. Dean _____ and _______ Rick.
On to first names. I searched online for what the Stella and Dean connection could be, but found mostly hits for the model Stella Dean. The only other thing I can think of is that I think Tori Spelling has a husband Dean and a daughter Stella, but that wouldn’t occur to me or bother me if I encountered siblings named Stella and Dean.
Taking out the names each of you has vetoed, we’re left with this list:
Oliver
Lewis
Dean
Graham
Nolan
If the two of you don’t find two names you both love, I think it would be nice if one twin had a name from your list and one from your husband’s list—perhaps each parent could choose a favorite from the other parent’s list. All of those names pair up nicely, I think. I like middle-name Rick best with first names of more than one syllable; I think it’s okay that the -r of Oliver blends into it, but I’d still prefer to avoid it.
If it is mostly your husband’s preference that the boys be given family names, and so you are doing a fair amount of compromising of your choices to achieve this goal, then for balance I would more heavily weigh your preferences on which names should be chosen.
If you like Bennett but your husband dislikes the nickname Ben, I wonder if either/both of you would like Beckett. The -t runs into your surname a bit, though; I wonder if that might make the first name sound like Becca.
Since he has Silas on his list and you have Elias on yours, it feels as if we must be very close to finding something there. But since you’ve both vetoed the other’s choice, perhaps not. Lucas, Tobias, Mattias, Marcus, Phineas, Simon, Levi, Cyrus, Elijah, Charles, Angus, Davis, Harris, Lyle?
Since he has Oliver on his list and you have Everett on yours, would you like the name Elliot?
If he doesn’t quite like your suggestion of Graham, would he like Grant?
I quite like Nolan Rick & Dean Phillip, because of the association of the endings (both ‘n) , without being too matchy. The Dean / Stella association is not at all obvious, I wouldn’t think of a father / daughter combination from a reality show as having any influence on your choice!
It may be that your husband just had fewer opinions about girls names than boys names and it is not that he is really saying that boys are more important than girls.
I do like the use of honor names as first or middle names and think you have some good names to work with. I also agree you should use names from both sides.
Dominic Dean and Phillip Donald work well together.
I also really like Dominic Philip and Oliver dean together.
However, my favorite pair for you is Graham Donald and Dean Philip.
Love all of these options!!
I think Dominic and Dean are darling together. If you go with the honoring both sides route.
I’d definitely go with this if you like repeating initials for twins…it seems like a nice balance to use one great-grandfather’s first name on one side and one grandfather’s middle name on the other side, and if anyone wants to know why you picked those particular names out of your family tree they can assume you like the letter D, rather than liking those relatives more than the others.
Or if you want to dilute the “boys are more important” feeling….find names that honor grandmas.
I love the idea of using male versions of the grandma names! That would be a good way to dilute the male preference sense here.
Oh, yes, wonderful idea!
I really like Nolan Rick and Dominic Philip. : )
Swistle, great analysis as always. I nearly ended up with coffee everywhere with the Peep.
If you are out of names on your side that you like, I like Swistle’s suggestion of looking at surnames and I would also suggest looking at any of the grandmas or great-grandmas to see if there is an honor name there you might like. For example, when we found out our second child was a boy, we ended up looking at middle names starting with An because my middle name is Ann and the first born has my husband’s first name as his middle. I liked it that solution because I didn’t particularly care for my male relative names and it feels nice and balanced for one boy to have a name from his father and the other to have one from his mother. I was very stuck on it being “fair” as well.
Well, I think you are being too picky in that I don’t think the honor names have to come from the SAME person from each side (ie both fathers or both grandfathers). It doesn’t make them more or less special, or more weighted towards one side of the family or the other if a name from a grandfather and a great-great grandfather is used.
To me, it seems obvious/easy that you like Dean from his side and Dominic from your side. Done and done.
I would probably use both of these for middle names as (1) twins Dean and Dominic are too matchy for me (2) it further balances the families if both are used in the middle name position (3) I tend to like when first names are more towards the style of the family, then the style of past generations.
For first names, I thought Grant was a great suggestion. Would you also consider Emory or Emmit?
Stella Claire, Grant Dominic, and Emmit Dean
In my family, we only name children after people who are already dead. This allows 2 things. 1. There are fewer hurt feelings because the potential honorees can’t say, why didn’t *I* get honored. This is not saying that no one ever gets their undies in a bundle about names, but it does lessen the angst.
2. It narrows the potential field, especially if you are primarily choosing from family you yourself knew, loved, and want to remember with your child’s name.
I am not saying that you need to follow this rule, but coming up with some way to narrow the field might be useful- that is to say, only choosing people who you know or only in the grandparent age group, or some other metric. And I do definitely agree that an honor name is best when you use the actual name of the honoree. I know that Marvin and Donald are hard to take for you but if you used them they would be your sons’ names, and they would (hopefully) remind you of people you love and characteristics you want to see mirrored back at you in your children. And of course the honor name can slip right into the middle name position and never be said again (as it is in my second child’s name) or it can be prominent and important and said everyday, even if it its out of style and a little old mannish (as it is in my first child’s name.)
Good luck!
Swistle gave quite a comprehensive answer, so all I have to add is this. If you do decide to honor both grandfathers, how about Phillip or Dean as middle for one twin, and the initials R.D. with names you like better for the other twin? I think that gives equal weight to both.
Swistle’s reply is thorough and great.
What I would probably do in your shoes, is try to negotiate something where no family names are used in the first name position. Your husband picks one name, you pick the other. And then you pick two complementary male honor names for the middle. So, for example, you use both of your fathers’ names, one for each boy, in the middle spot, etc. For example, Graham Phillip and Oliver Rick (or Oliver Donald).
Good luck!! Please do keep us posted!
This post of Swistle’s is so thorough, funny, and intelligent she could publish it as an E-book.
I also really like Sarah’s suggestion of using honor names only if someone is deceased–this could spare many sensitive feelings as well as extending the pool of potential names and providing a compromise, especially if the name pool also includes names from the mother’s side.
I know I’m biased, as we have an Oliver, but I would recommend reconsidering this name!! We initially came across the name early in my pregnancy, and threw it out (for some reason, I cannot remember). The only name we could decide on was Simon. Then at 41 weeks, I realized that Simon wasn’t right and the only name that I was OK with was Oliver (I really struggled with boy names). Now… we absolutely love his name. Couldn’t imagine him being anything different. We get so many positive comments on his name. And despite it being high on the charts (I think it’s in the 70’s) we haven’t run into another Oliver.
If you like Lewis, what about Louis (pronounced Lou-ee)?
Oliver Donald and Louis Dean. I absolutely love this combination. Ollie and Louie. Ollie and Lou. So cute.
If Oliver isn’t right, what about Oscar or Arlo?
If each of you like Silas and Elias, what about Ellis or Tobias?
What about Rhett? Dean and Rhett?
Other names:
Simon
Beckett
Beckham
Grant
Maguire
Hugo
Milo
Miles
As for middle names. We actually gave both our kiddos two middle names. One middle name for one side of the family and one for the other side. So each kid has a name for each side. We decided when choosing middle names that we didn’t really care about the flow of the name or what the middle names actually were (for example: my mom’s middle name is Gail, and we don’t really care for that name to be honest, but we used it anyways). We came to this decision as we were never planning on calling our kids by their full name rather than just their First and Last. Also, we didn’t want to exclude one person just because their name wasn’t our taste. Perhaps, if you go into it thinking of it this way, then it won’t matter if Rick or Donald are really your taste?? I somewhat agree with what Swistle said, about it doesn’t have to be the same person on each side that you honour, but I know (at least in our family) that their would be hurt feelings if one of your dad’s were honoured and not the other, simply because you didn’t like the name. Hope that makes sense, and helps!
Good luck and keep us posted!
Also meant to include Elliot or Otis.
I have to agree with Swistle. The idea that boys get family names but girls don’t is, well, ugh. I’d be very uncomfortable if my husband had proposed that. Uncomfortable enough that I would have had the discussion Swistle suggests.
Another issue I have is that your husband seems to have decided how it is best to honor YOUR family. If you think Donovan is a fine namesake for a Donald (and you believe your family will see it that way) then you should use Donovan. He can pick how he wants to honor HIS family & you get to pick how to honor YOUR family. This is assuming that you decide to continue with family names after you’ve really explored why boys should get them in the first place.
I also agree with Swistle that the names don’t have to be perfectly balanced by person & generation. Was your dad close to his father? Do you really think he’d feel slighted if you used your grandpa’s name instead of his? Unless there was some family drama there, I imagine most people would be touched to see the name of their parent passed down to a grandchild. Using honor names isn’t always just about the person being honored. It can also be a very sentimental thing for people who loved the honoree.
These are excellent points!
I’m really liking Oliver, Dominic, Nolan and Lewis, from your choices, as first names.
You both agree on Dominic, which is a great name by the way, so maybe that is one covered. Your husband likes both Oliver and Lewis and you are not so sure about these. You like Nolan but your husband is not so sure about that one.
Maybe if you make up some combinations of these names, saying them together, as well as with their sister’s name, as they can sometimes all compliment each other so well that you just fall in love with them.
Dominic and Oliver
Dominic and Lewis
Dominic and Nolan
Oliver and Lewis
Oliver and Nolan
Lewis and Nolan
Sometimes switching them around can do the trick too! eg. Oliver and Dominic
My favorite is Dominic and Oliver, followed by Dominic and Lewis.
Dominic Phillip and Oliver Dean, Dominic Phillip and Lewis Donald? You get the picture!!
Good luck!!
Emmett?
I have nephews named Graham & Clark and I love the combination! So handsome!