Dear Swistle,
We have triplet boys and are expecting our fourth (and last), a girl. (Yay!) With the boys, we used family names for their middle names and tried to keep their first names in the same theme but with different first and last initials to give them their own individuality. I love that they are connected with their familial middle names but have distinct first names. The middle names are their two grandfathers’ names and my maiden name. (All the children and I have my husband’s last name as our last name.)
Obviously, we would like to continue this tradition with the girl, but we have two grandmothers to honor and only one child to name this time (which, honestly, thank goodness!). If the situation were reversed, and we had all girl triplets with single middle names and a boy on the way, I would have no qualms about giving him both grandfathers’ names as middle names. With a girl, however, I am less inclined to do this, as girls are more wont to accumulate even more names in life (for instance, my married name is my first name-middle name-maiden name (second middle name now)-last name (husband’s name). Of course, there’s no telling what my daughter will decide to do name-wise if and when she gets married, but I’d rather not run the risk of saddling her with a five name full name or of making her decide which name(s) to axe.
i would also not like to elevate either grandmother’s name into the first name spot. I don’t like the superiority it grants to one grandmother, and I would prefer to have the freedom to choose a name of our liking for the first name. The names in question are Elaine and Nina. I briefly thought of combining the name into one – Elainina – but that both feels like it doesn’t adequately honor either grandmother, and my husband informed me that in his native tongue the word translates roughly to “venison”! (ha!)
My mother has told me that we should choose any names we want, and that she will not be offended if her name doesn’t make it in (she is a very reasonable and unmanipulative woman, so I take her words at face value). My mother-in-law is less reasonable and more prone to histrionics. Sigh. I do not have a bad relationship with her, and would not like to engender one, but I also don’t want to determine part of my child’s name (and leave out my own beloved mother’s name) just on the basis of appeasing her.
So, is there some solution that I haven’t thought of here? What am I missing? Or is this just intractable?
Thank you so, so, so much, Swistle!
Robin
This is one of the troubles with honor names: not being able to honor everyone, and/or not being able to make it work out fairly. When we had our first son, we used the name of one of my grandfathers (the one I was much closer to) as his middle name. We didn’t know if we’d have any more boys so that we could use our other three grandfathers’ names: we just picked the one that was most important to us to use. At the time I don’t remember being much stressed out by it. We emphasized the honor name to the one grandfather who was honored, and didn’t say anything about it to the others, and also I was thinking no one would expect us to give the child all four of our grandfathers’ names at once.
But your case is a little different. If I understand it correctly, you have honored both of the children’s grandfathers, and now the plan is to honor one grandmother, which leaves out one of the children’s four grandparents while honoring all three of the others? Yes. I see what you mean. This is tricky.
I am generally disinclined to think ahead to what a child will do with their name upon marriage. I do give it a little thought, but it’s so impossible to predict how things will go. I gave all five of my kids (the girl as well as the boys) two middle names, with the understanding that any/all of the kids might choose to drop/add some names later on—and that that can be up to them. It’s a decision I feel they can handle, especially if I don’t make a big deal about it. Most people only use first/last in regular life, plus maybe a single middle initial for paperwork; it doesn’t seem to matter how many names are in between. And in your case, when I weigh “leaving out just one of four grandparents” on one hand, against “child might have to make a decision about how to manage names later on as an adult” on the other hand, it’s the one about excluding one grandparent that makes me feel stressy.
So I think that is what I would do here: I would give her both grandmothers’ names as middle names. I would do something like flip a coin to determine name order, and I would make that method known, if you want to avoid a feeling of ranking/superiority. I would leave it up to her what to do about those names later on.
But I also like the idea of combining the names. I like the sound of Ninalaine, if that doesn’t mean anything silly in your husband’s native language—or maybe even if it does: when there’s no solution that gives everything, this seems like a good place to sacrifice.
Or depending on the particular honor-name feelings/opinions of your particular families, you could start playing around with other things. Like both names have an N and an I and an A; would anyone feel honored by Ani? Or perhaps your daughter’s first/middle names could have the initials N.E. or E.N.
Actually, the more I think about this, the more I think THIS is what I’d do: use neither name. If anything needs to be said on the subject, say “With triplets we could use both grandfather names. But with only one girl—we didn’t want to favor one of you over the other. So instead we went with _______.” You don’t by any chance have a name that appears in both family trees, do you? Maybe you both have an aunt or grandmother or great-grandmother or great-aunt with the same name? Or do you have only one sister between you, so you could use her name? Or is there another family surname that could be used?
Another reason I like this Use Neither idea is that you have already honored two grandparents plus used your maiden name; honoring a third grandparent not only leaves out one grandparent, it makes one child’s name different. This doesn’t actually bother me, but it’s another excuse if you need one. We used names of our grandparents for two of the children’s honor names, but then split from that concept and went with other people (a parent, a friend, and a great-uncle) for the others.
But I want to say I also LOVE Nina Elaine. I know you don’t want to elevate one grandmother over the other, but it’s such a pretty name.