Twin name help!

[TillyLucille]

Hi! Our twin girls could make an appearance anyday now and we are still struggling on finalising their names! I've posted on a couple of other sites but we need all the help we can get lol.

We will be naming one of our girls Violet but we're still undecided on her sister's name. It will either be Darcey/Darcy or Penelope. Nicknames will be LettY (Violet), Cece (Darcey) and Penny or Poppy (Penelope)

We then have these full name options to chose from...

Violet Cecilia Terese & Penelope Margot Kate, Penelope Beatrix Kate or Penelope Winter Kate

Violet Cecilia Kate & Penelope Hazel Terese

Violet Penelope Kate & Darcey Ophelia Terese

Violet Penelope Terese & Darcey Aurora Kate or Darcey Aurora Caitlin

Which do you prefer; Darcey or Penelope? Also, which full names would you go with? We're not wanting matchy names for our girls but we would prefer for them to sound nice together and be similar in style.

A bit of background: We're using two middle names; one of our choice and our honor names, Kate and Terese. Using two middle names is set. Our surname is short, one syllable and begins with Y. Our surname has been very difficult to work with! We had settled on Violet and Aurora for first names since finding out we were having two girls, we then realised Aurora sounded awful with our surname. We then went through a very long list of potential names and decided on Cecilia to again have to give it up because of our surname. That left us with Penelope which we love and couldn't imagine not using somewhere now. Losing Cecilia, with the nickname Cece, was really tough however so we decided to play around with our other options and decided to either use it as Violet's middle name or debated using Felicity (Cici) or Darcey instead of Penelope. We recently gave up Felicity as it didn't work for us and with our other options. Ophelia is the middle name we always thought we'd use with Violet but bumped it for Cecilia when we couldn't use it as a first.

Sorry for that long winded post! Thank you so much for all your help.

Violet and Penelope.

Just choose whatever middle names you like best, and wait and see what sticks on the nickname front when they're born.

I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea but I've literally said that it's set 4 times now lol. If you don't like it, move along because it's not changing lol. As I've said people I know have had no issues with having two. If we go on to have anymore children they will also have two as we'd honor someone close to us on both sides. It's just we've given one honor name to each child this time.

I'd like opinions on Darcy and whether or not it would be a better fit than Penelope. I'd also be very grateful if you could give you favorite full name combo from our choices. Not the amount of names we're giving our children or how many options we have to chose from.

Thank you for those who have already. You've been very helpful. Sorry if I sound cranky but well I'm almost 37 weeks pregnant with twins and struggling to do just about anything, I ache, am hardly sleeping and have had to completely rename my girls in the past few weeks after having names set for ages so yeah, I am a bit cranky lol.

It won't be you living with them either so no need to worry :) As I've said THREE times now, I know people who have 2 and they've never had an issue. It's really not as much of a burden.

DD has 2 middles names. We decided to use baby's GM's name as her middle name (very luckily both GM's have the same name!). DH & I have said for about 10 years we'd one day have a daughter called DD's name. Her first name and GM's name are quite short & didn't look right with our short surname so we gave her another middle name we both loved. Lots of people have told us how lovely her name is so lots of people obviously don't mind the 2 middle names!

In saying that, in my opinion, if someone has 2 middle names, the names need to be quite short. If 3 names are all long I think it looks a bit much.

Violet & Penelope are my favourite together. If it was me, I'd choose shorter middle names to go with your set second middle names. Then all the focus is on the lovely first names rather than people focusing on the slightly unusual middle name. Congratulations on your girls!

Darcey is awful. Sounds like Arsey.
Cecilia - great makes me think of cess pits.
Margot - makes me think of Maggot
Winter - grey and dreary. It's a season not a name.
Ophelia - nice but sounds like Feel ya.
Aurora - lovely, but not if you can't say R
Penny is ok but quite funny if you are in France.
Violet looks like Violent and sounds like Vile-et.

Length was something I was super focused on before so I do agree but it's very difficult to find names you love that are short, work with your first name choices, grandmas' names and an awkward surname lol. It slipped down on our priority list a bit lol.

I do think we'll end up keeping Penelope and Terese separate even if Cecilia Kate does flow a little better.

Oh dear. Someone can't handle not getting their way... 😂😂

I've only cone across Penelope in cartoons, Lady Penelope, Penelope Pitstop.

The overall effect to me is fussy, showy and aspirational.
Sorry, but you did ask.

After this post we've been inspired to add a third middle name to our combos. We're thinking Anastasia and Evangeline. We're also changing Kate to Catherine, My mother in law always goes by Kate but she should go by her full name really.

They will be...
Violet Cecilia Evangeline Teresa
Penelope Anastasia Darcey Katherine

Our surname is only 3 letters long so length shouldn't be an issue.

We're also insisting that all 5 of their names are used to address them at all times.

Thanks for your help guys 😘

I wouldn't put Violet with Darcey. Violet is classic vintage but modern at the same time. However Darcey as pretty as it is important feel its faddy and do I dare say a if i had to swear under oath a tad chavvy. I don't feel it's a name that ages particularly well.
I know not everyone is looking for matchy names.
However they're still got to be of the same style. Well I think.
Violet (Letty) and Penelope (Penny) are a perfect combination.
Also do you not like Beatrix as a first name
Violet (Letty) and Beatrix (Beatie) would be gorgeous together
Other ideas that you may not have thought of.
Violet and Florence
Violet and Mabel
Violet and Laura
Violet and Abigail
Violet and Evelyn
Violet and Hannah

Thanks for your helpful reply, @ALAMBS

We did consider some of those options for first names and narrowed them down to Penelope.

I do understand what you mean about Darcy/Darcey. I personally don't think of it as chavvy (obviously lol) but maybe the unisex thing makes it feel a bit trendy against Violet. I would describe Violet in the exact way you have so it's trying to find that balance with our other girl name. I'm glad you think Penelope works well, we've just been second guessing ourselves lol.

You could say it 20 times Tilly, but you've put up your plans on a public forum and people will comment on what appears to be a very OTT decision to have multiple names with several syllables in. Does seem a bit ridic to plan the nicknames in advance too, just my opinion!

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but it's not going to change anything. You can either accept it and move on or you can chose to post and not change anything. You could even pick apart my list of names one by one if you're really 'witty'... Only one of those options wastes your time is all I'm saying.

I love Cecilia and with Violet. They are both lovely and match perfectly. Are you sure it doesn't 'go' with your surname? Does it matter how well they go?

I know you were joking But I also like violet and Anastasia.

Well this has been fun lol. It's given me a laugh when I've been pretty bored and miserable.

I've posted on 2 other sites over the past few weeks and had a few people tell me they don't like 2 middle names, fine. Nobody has acted like I'm setting my children up for failure and felt so personally offended by it though lol. I don't think we're the only people in the world to have discussed what nicknames we prefer when choosing names either. We don't like some of the options out there so we're only attempting to stop people from shortening their names to them. When the girls are old enough they can chose what names they'd like to go by, as their opinion outranks ours, but they're unable to give it at the moment. Oh well, I know which sites to stick to if I need any advice going forward as a first time parent lol.

Thanks to those you actually helped. I'm pretty sure we'll be sticking with Penelope. I quite like the idea of having an animated child so fingers crossed she lives up to her name. I really hope Violet's favorite color is purple too... It would be quite rude of her if it isn't! And we've settled on 3 middles names now too so no longer need the help.

Yeah unfortunately the ending of Cecilia runs into our surname. I've always pronounced it Seh-See-Lee-Uh so didn't see the issue at first but I seem to be of the few who doesn't say Seh-Seel-Yah lol.

Tilly, Penelope and Violet are lovely. Really fun, classy and vintage at the same time. I also like Poppy for a nickname for Penelope, I met a Greek girl on holiday who told me that it was a popular nickname there so it's perfectly 'legit'. Very good luck with the birth and wish you much happiness with your little girls! x

All my kids have two middle names...
Anyway: Penelope.

@Jjpeston Thanks lovely! I honestly had never heard of Poppy being used as a NN for Penelope but I figured it must be if multiple people were suggesting it lol. Good to know it's legit and widely used in it's country of origin!

Yeah, funnily enough the reason I know this is because I asked the Greek friend why there were lots of boats in the harbour named Poppy and she explained that it's a popular nickname (and that she really liked it). I remembered it as my lovely aunt is called Penelope so I told her that, and she'd never known it as a nickname either.

I would definitely say Seh-see-lee-uh (4 syllables) with emphasis on the lee. Never heard anyone say it as seh-seel-ya with 3 syllables but then I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody called Cecilia - I only know the name from the song. It is a very pretty name.

I also like Penelope, I know a baby Penelope (nn Penny) and although I originally thought it was a bit of a mouthful of a name it’s grown on me and it suits her very well.

@Jjpeston That really is helpful and great to hear. One of the many things I love about Penelope is all the nickname options you get with it. You have so much choice, I'm sure it's easy to find something to go by that suits you. I feel like Violet can stick with the slightly more cutesy Letty or Ettie or go with Vee, Vy or Etta instead when she's older too.

@Jammycustard How could you? 😱😂 I'm sure your little ones have gorgeous names. Thank you for help!

@MNBT Neither had I! I was outnumbered on the other sites I've posted on though lol. If you listen to the song carefully they do say Seh-Seel-Yah though lol.