J. writes:
My husband and I are welcoming fraternal twins of undiscovered sex in August. Many of our friends question our sanity at waiting until delivery to discover their sex, mostly because this requires us to come up with four mutually-agreeable names. We’ve only tentatively begun discussions, but two things are clear: we both favor more timeless or traditional names, and they are not likely to be the same ones. My top female contender – Daphne – inspires from him a serious side-eye and Scooby-Doo reference, while his suggestion of Samuel is a no-go for me. For no rational or obvious reason, the name inevitably makes me think of sandaled, dirty feet (apologies to any Samuels out there reading this).
We are both German, English, and Irish; I am also Scottish. Our surname, Martin. The twins will be our first, and most likely only, children.
His father is Charles Gregory, mine Gary Charles. We would like a “GC or CG” boy’s name that recognizes our dads, perhaps a Grant or Graham Charles Martin. For a second boy’s middle name, I would like to incorporate Lawrence, my grandfather’s name. Other male first names on my short list are Elliott, James (Jamie), Benjamin and Harrison. He likes Brooks and Heath.
For our two female names, I tend to like names that are feminine, but gravitate most to ones that also evoke a degree of gravitas (the aforementioned Daphne is perfect in that vein). Other contenders are Madeline (Maddie), Marion, Blythe, Ava, Charlotte (Charlie – again, perhaps, a nod to her grandfathers), Emmeline (Emme), and Annalise. I only have one middle name in mind: Gildea (pronounced GILDE), an Irish surname in my maternal grandmother’s family and her own middle name. My husband hasn’t yet offered suggestions.
Your advice and alternate name recommendations would be most helpful in bringing us to common ground. Please help!
It’s true you’ll need two boy names and two girl names, but I would suggest a different way of organizing the hunt. Instead of looking for four names, I suggest looking for three sets: a set of two girl names, a set of two boy names, and a set of one of each. I’d set it up like this: one page where you jot down all the names you like, one section for boy names and one section for girl names; then another page where you’d start pairing them up, divided into three sections labeled Girl/Girl, Boy/Boy, and Girl/Boy. (Or if that’s not enough room, you could have a page for each.)
Then this is how I’d go through your joint list of names when you have one: Take the first name on your list, and see if it pairs up well with any of the other names on the list—boy names or girl names. So for example, let’s say Grant is the first name on your list. Look at all the names on your boy-name list and see if you like any of them with Grant; if you do, put the pairing on your Boy/Boy list. Then look at all the names on your girl-name list and see if you like any of them with Grant; if you do, put the pairing on your Boy/Girl list. And so on for every name on the list. You might think I’d advise stopping when you started to make reverse sets of pairings you’ve already tried (_____ and Grant instead of Grant and _____, for example), but actually I recommend trying ALL of them: order can make a difference in the way the names strike you.
This exercise is going to accomplish a few side things as well. For one thing, it will show you which names you feel strongly motivated to find pairings for, which can tell you something about your preferences. It may also expose some names that are outliers on your list: if a name doesn’t go with anything else you like, it may not be your usual style. And it might give you information about what you like in a PAIR of names: do you feel drawn to twinniness, or do you prefer to avoid it? Sharon/Karen and Timmy/Tommy pairings are out of style, but many parents enjoy slight twinny things such as matched or reversed initials (G.C. and C.G., for example), matching numbers of letters/syllables, A/B names (for Baby A and Baby B), a strong matched vowel/consonant sound, etc.
One nice thing about choosing twin names is that there is even more room than usual for bargaining and compromising. Perhaps you will end up with a boy/girl pairing where the boy name is your first choice but his second, and the girl name is his first choice but your second—things like that.
I find both Grant Martin and Graham Martin a little difficult to say—not to the point of ruling them out, but enough to give me pause. Would you consider Charles as the first name? (I’m guessing you already HAVE already considered it, but let’s discuss it anyway.) It’s a name both of your fathers have, and it is very appealing to take advantage of that coincidence. It has the S-ending of James from your list and Brooks from your husband’s. It’s classic/traditional, meaningful to both sides of the family, and has good nickname possibilities. If you have two boys it would be nice to split up the honor names, but if you have boy/girl twins I think I might choose the honor value of Charles Lawrence over the honor value of C.G./G.C. initials: I like the balance of Charles being your husband’s dad’s first name and your dad’s middle name, and then the middle name being your grandfather’s first name. Plus, I love to say Charles Lawrence: it gives me just a pleasing hint of Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time, without overdoing it.
I’d put your girl-name list into three groups. Madeline/Maddie, Charlotte, and Ava go into the first group: all very popular names (because of multiple spellings, Madeline is more common than it appears on the charts). Emmeline and Annalise go in the second group: less common, but I’d consider them both aligned with current styles. Blythe and Marion are in a third category: much less common, not yet back in style. I might intermix the first two groups, but not the third: I think Charlotte and Emmeline work nicely together, but less so Madeline and Blythe, or Annalise and Marion. Another nice thing about Charles/Charlie (not to oversell it) (too late) is that it works with all three groups: Charlie and Ava; Charlie and Annalise; Charles and Marian.
If you had boy/girl twins and named the boy Charles Lawrence, I’d be very inclined to look for a family name for the girl twin as well: ______ Gildea. Or perhaps she could be the one with the C.G. initials: Charles and Cora, Charles and Claudia, Charles and Cecily, Charles and Claire, Charles and Clara, Charles and Cordelia, Charles and Clarissa, Charles and Celeste.
There are so many decisions to be made, so many lists to write. If it all starts to seem too overwhelming, there’s another method for choosing twin names: pretending they’re not twins. So first you’d think, “Okay, we are having a baby; we don’t know if we are having a boy or a girl,” and you make a list of boy names and girl names and you choose one of each. Then you say, “Oh, and now we are expecting again!” And you look at your chosen boy name, and imagine a little toddler with that name, and now you are expecting a little brother or sister for him, so you make a boy name list and a girl name list and choose one of each again. (Repeat with the chosen girl name, imagining a girl toddler about to have a new brother or sister.) This will still result in all three pairings (a boy and then a girl; a boy and then a boy; a girl and then a girl), but in a way that removes the complication of twinniness.
