to call my child the same name as their cousin?

[AliChampion]

SIL and I were pregnant with our five year olds at the same time. We discussed names and both had a particular girls name we loved. I was due first and she asked me to let her have the name because she said she had fertility issues so it was likely to be the only child she'd ever have. I let her have it.

Now I'm pregnant again and I still adore the name. SIL has gone on to have two further children and we only see them around five times a year at most. I'm tempted to ask if she minds if I use the same name for this baby if they are a girl. They'd have different surnames and wouldn't ever attend the same school or anything. It isn't a really common name but it also isn't unheard of (think Lucy.) It was my grandma's name and this will be my last DC so I either use it now or never.

My mum had a boy's name she wanted to use, and in fact did use on the boy that she lost - my Dad's brother had a boy not long after and used the same name. Same surname too. AND there was another more distant cousin with the same name and surname too, so 3 of them in the same generation (well, would have been if ours had survived :( )
The first name is really popular, but the surname is pretty uncommon, so it was a bit odd - but no one seemed to really mind, it was just an amusing thing.

It's a name not a trademark.

Like Worra I come from an Irish Catholic family and every branch of our extended family (and there are many branches because my MIL was one of 17, FIL one of 13 and my mum was the oldest of 9) has a Mary, a Patrick, a Joseph, an Eileen etc as they are all named after much loved relations. The first ones to give birth did not have dibs on the good names. We manage not to get them confused - we are unimaginative not stupid!

I agree with Lola. You may not see them massively often but family is for life. For your DD it's a whole lifetime of being "Lucy Smith" or "Lucy P Smith" rather than just "Lucy" in the family. I think it's kinder to both children to give them different names.

We have a family name which is used as a first or middle name. It's never been an issue in our family, on the contrary, it's almost expected!

My sister has a step daughter with the same name as her daughter. Step daughter is older by 3 years. It doesn't cause any problems, they're just big 'chloe' and little 'chloe'
(Her bio daughter is not her dh's, that would have been weird)

Why not? There are 3 cousins in our family with the same Christian name. Middle names differ. Nobody minds.

Yanbu. Do it. I have a young (much younger) cousin with a version of my name. It's all about love. Think Lucy and Lucile. It doesn't diminish me at all to know my cousin has the same/similar name. It's all about love and respect for our ancestor.

To add to my last post, one of the popular names in our family is Nick. We have Nicholas, Nicola and Nicodemus across many generations. My late Uncle Nick got quite annoyed after his son was born and he became known as Old Nick.

This happened to me. When I was a teenager my uncle had a child and called it the same name as me. He actually did it out of malice as he had issues but it would have been equally annoying if he hadn't. I love my cousin but it's just a real PITA. It was even more annoying when he started to refer to me as Big Uptown (I'm tiny) and my cousin as Little Uptown. I soon put him straight about that and said: 'my name is Uptown, you can call your Uptown whatever you like to differentiate between us but do not add anything to my name'.

I forgot to say, my name was not a family name that was passed down through the family from previous generations.

My eldest cousin gave her children the same names as myself and another cousin, he and are are the youngest cousins and there's about 20 years between us and her. We always thought it was cool, but we never thought that they were named after us, just that our cousin liked our names. They aren't 'family names' and are pretty standard (think like Mary and John).

If you like the name, do it.

When my sister was pregnant my mum kept suggesting my DC's names to her. .

I definitely didn't like it. Im actually sitting here trying to work out why I hated the idea so much but I can't articulate it.

You liked the name first so I guess it's different, and your sil 'got' the name from you. But I'd be upfront about using it.

@OvO haha! That's better than my mum. I was thinking of names for my son and she suggested these;

Stanley
Jack
Alfie
George

...these are the names of her dogs.

I wouldn't do it. There are lots of other names to choose from. Don't make her share a name with her cousin.

We have big David, wee David, Davy and David from x town.

All cousins / 2nd cousins and all with the same surname.

I am the same name as my older cousin. It's never affected the family. She's fab. I'm fab. I would go as far as saying we like having the same name.

(Except she's actually smaller than me.)

Also my DS is the same name as my uncle (we asked first, he was flattered) and DC2 might be the same name as BIL. (Except we'd use a different shortened version as BIL was born in 1970s and uses the 70s version. Think Bob rather than Rob for Robert).

Just do it, I have 3 sets of cousins called Joe and Chris.

My brother is one of four cousins with his name (although there are 25 cousins in total!).

I also have two cousins with a very similar name to mine.

Nobody has ever batted an eyelid.

Just go ahead and use it. No need to ask her.

My mum has the same name as one of her cousins, one whom she saw regularly, growing up. When necessary, they were Big Mary and Little Mary. She didn't mind - even liked it, because in her immediate family mum was the little one, so it was nice for her to be the Big one. My dd has the same name as one of her cousins. It didn't even occur to me until the family came to visit when dd was a year old! Cousin was delighted! Her parents though it sweet.

Two of my male cousins on my dads side married girls with the exact same name as me.

I'm getting divorced snd am considering going back to maiden name, meaning at family get togethers there will not only be three, say, Lucys - but we're all called Lucy Smith.

And nobody ever gets confused.

I think its okay- its a family name with meaning behind it so not like its completely random!

Then again, it wasn't till people commented how 'sweet' it was that I realised the name I'd given my newborn DS was my exact name with the first letter taken off. So maybe don't ask me anything, I'm not very observant

My DB and SiL had a girl and called her Louisa Anne (not real name btw) then one of our half sisters had a boy and called him Louis. Our other half sister has had a girl and called her Louise Anne. Half sister with the boy is now pregnant again with a girl and plans on calling her Eloise. Its all getting a bit confusing now

Happens lots and a bit of a non issue in my experience, especially when you don't see them that much anyway.

I have several cousins and some have the same first name. Never been even a slight issue - infact one name is used for 3 cousins plus a couple of second cousins too.

No one bats an eye lid and it's never been a concern for my grandma either!