Honouring family with middle name - should we?

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We used DH's father's name as a middle name for DS, to honour him as he died when DH was young. Our other parents are still alive, thankfully.

Now we're having a girl, I had thought using ,y Grandmother's name as middle name this time round. She was great, truly one of a kind :) However her name really doesn't go with the first name we've chosen, nor do other family names I can think of.

We could just chose any old name we like I suppose, but it seems a bit odd to use a family name for DS and not for DD, what do you think?

I dont understand why people stress over whether a FN and a MN 'go' with each other. Ive used DDs FN and MN together all of once, maybe twice.

We picked a FN we loved and used our second favourite as a MN. Unless you intend to douboe barrel, I cant see it mattering if it goes.

I'm not sure I can explain but I'll give it a go!

DS's name has a nice rhythm to it, and I like that. It just feels right.

The rhythm of the names which would be DD's if we used my grandmother's name don't flow when you say them together. Also, the end letter of the first name and beginning letter of the second name aren't the easiest to say one after the other.

How "right" the name sounds when said all together does matter to me. They may not often be said together, but it's her name and part of her identity, I want it to be as good as I can manage. If it flows, it feels like we've found the right name. When it jars, it feels like we haven't.

Might sound bonkers but makes sense to me!

I can see your point about wanting names to flow properly,I'm exactly the same!

If you can't get a family name to flow then perhaps look into names that are similar and see if they flow better? For example if DD is called Amelia but grandmas name is Coral, Amelia Coral doesn't flow too well but Amelia Coralie works much better....iyswim?

Hope that's of some help :) xx

It depends if you are going to use both names, as in - this is my daughter Firstname-Middlename. We chose FNs that we liked and used MIL's name for 1MN and my late father's in the femimin version for the other (twins).

Personally, if I had a rellie as good as yours sounds I wouldn't care what the name was, I'd use it.

We used my MILs family name (Baird) as DSs middle name as it would have died out with her. It went down very well :)

Thanks for the replies :)

My grandmother's name was Mary. Pretty much all of the diminutives also start with M so have the same problem of not working with her first name.

It was actually Marianne I wanted to use. (Anne / Anna are also family names so was cunning I thought!)

There's a nice female version of my grandad's name which we're considering now. This is my only chance to use my gran's name though, won't be having any more DCs, so I'm still mulling it over.

"What about your Grandmother's middle name or surname?"

Good idea, but .... I thought of this too, and her maiden name does lend itself to being adapted as a first name. However she didn't get on with her dad, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want his name honoured, IYSWIM.

And she didn't have a middle name.

Do it. Both of my children have 2 names that honour family members (one has 3!). I have never regretted it for a minute- and never have I given so much pleasure to so many for so little effort!

Use the middle name of your Grandmother.. mostly it is never seen or heard of again and if it special to you I don't think it matters.x

I have a family middle name and my first name and middle name do not flow. It has always irritated me that my father has lumped me with this clumsy combinations with no real valid explanation (there were alternative family names available as I was the first girl born on that side)
If DP and I ever get round to getting married then my full name is going to sound even worse with his surname!

So I'd say flow is an important factor.

Could you add another middle name thus improving the flow?

We're already adding my surname as a middle name so we're up to four names already.

Five is just greedy, surely?

lollypopsicle that's interesting to hear, thanks :)