Calling your child the same name as your cousin's child

[Earl]

I’d appreciate any advice – I am a born worrier so need some!

We are expecting our first child in the next few months and are having a boy :) We discussed names and decided on a fist name that we both liked, and had some reference to my partner’s granddad. All good, until it dawned on me that my cousin’s child has the same name ~(I hadn't actually realised at the time)! I have seen my cousin once in the last five years, we are not close. My mother however is with my cousin’s mum (my aunt).

Is it weird to name my child the same as my cousin’s, even though we don’t speak, and the children will rarely come into contact at all? Am I worrying too much about my mum and her sister having a grandson called the same name?

Depends on your family and how they would view it, doesn't it?

My family is teeny weeny - no more than 10 people max. Would be weird for us.

DH's family is in the 200+ region. Tonnes of them share the same name!

My mother's cousin called her dd the same name as me eight months after I was born.

The cousin said 'oh, that's what we were going to call our baby if it's a girl' or something similar. She did and it's never ever been an issue. We, the name sharers don't find it weird and I can only remember one time there being a mix up where I left an aunt a message and she thought it was the other one.

I was a bit worried when pg with dc2 as my cousin was due a week before me. We had chosen an obvious easy-in-english Italian name, and like me she has a husband with Italian background so I thought it quite likely she would pick it too. Not sure what I would have done if she had.

Glad they don't have the same name though as her ds has special needs, and although she has come to terms with that now it would have been very hard for her to see a child the same age with the same name developing typically (she lives far away but still in touch).

Funnily enough during all this angst I completely overlooked the fact that ds2's name is the Italian version of another cousin's ds's name.