Why does it matter what the other child is called?!

[applecrumbs]

Seeing lots of posts of ppl asking what name "goes with" the name of their other child/ren.

Surely you name an individual, it's not a pair of guinea pigs! This child is going to go off and go to school, uni, work, whatever and no one is going to care what their sibling is called or how well it goes together. Seems very narcissistic parenting to me, am I the only one?

You're the only one.

It’s got to pass the Christmas card test! Does it look ok on a Christmas card? If yes, fine. If not, don’t do it

Agreed, this is one of my pet hates. ‘What name goes with...’. They’re two separate people. It’s not like you’re trying to match a first name with a middle name

It’s part of the recipe for having the perfect little family. Everything has to look and sound just right.

People get judged on their names so it's about treating your children fairly isn't it? I mean you don't call one Dave and the other Xander-Joffrey unless you want them to start off on unequal footing

I think it's because some names together will just look odd eg:

Jane and Petunia-Anastasia
John and Tiger-Lilly-Petal

etc

Hmmm I kind of agree but mismatched names seem weird though.

I know a girl with twins with awfully mismatched names. Think Shanice and Lucy or Tyler and Hugo

My cousin was going to call her DD Ella. Which was fine until someone pointed out it wasn't brilliant, given her eldest was called Sam. (true story)

It didn’t hold back my cousins, Ptolemy and Dazza.

I completely agree that both children are individuals but you do have to think about your other child’s name a bit as well.

You would look a bit mad if child one was called Oliver and child two was called Agamemnon. Or if they rhyme like Tom and Dom.

If people are asking for name suggestions, saying their first child’s name might help posters gauge what names they like.

Actually my dsis names her first child a very popular/normal name and her second child something really unusual. Think along the lines of Jack and Aethelred....

Well you might have Berry and Goose, Hannah and Belle, Jack and Sonny (gets tangled up as a new name, Hannibal / Jackson, and nobody knows who is being told off), rhyming names like Sage and Page that sound like a poem or recipe for teasing at school, letters addressed to three people with the same initials Mr B O Lock etc

I don't think names absolutely have to go together, they are of course individuals but at the same time there are some combinations that might not go together.

Applecrumbs I completely agree with you, nor the trend to come up with a name for a child who no one else on earth shares.
Obviously if you call one child a traditional name and call the other one Tinkerbelle, that might appear a tad strange. Names in families do not have to go together, believe it or not.

Sometimes I think it can be to show people what type of name they are looking for. Traditional or modern etc.

But yeah I don't think it particularly needs to go together. Narcissistic is a bit much imo though.

I don't understand what's wrong with having wildly "mismatched" names, as given in all the examples above. Could someone explain that?

You’re going to be yelling those names one after the other in the park, on the beach, down the road etc for years. And introducing your DC together in all sorts of circumstances.

So it might turn out quite important to avoid names that do not go together at all well.

(Or to put the same thing the other way round, look for ones that do go together adequately well)

I always thought it was more about wanting suggestions for names and giving an idea of their taste in names. So if you like Olivia you are less likely to like Persephone. So it’s more about getting helpful suggestions along a “theme” rather than a load of suggestions that won’t be to your taste 🤷🏼‍♀️

I've only ever used it so others know my taste in order to give more suggestions. Not matching but I suppose we all have name styles we like.

I've never understood this either and don't think I have every responded to any of those threads.

The names of siblings to not have to "go together" and I find it ridiculous to suggest that they should. They are individual people. Just give them decent (not stupid) names.

I suppose if you like fairly traditional and timeless names (I do), then you are unlikely to go for many of the new-fangled, yoonique and made up ones, and vice versa. Other than that, names do not have to to together.

My sister and I have traditional but very different names, as to all of our children (we have three each).

Some interesting feedback - I agree sometimes it's clear from the OP that they are trying to give you an indication of their taste. But more often it seems to me to be the wish to have this sweet little pair of tots (who will probably grow up to hate their infantilising matchy matchy names).

I can't think of a single boys name I like enough to call my child though so perhaps I'll focus on that!

"Pair of guinea pigs" .

The opposite of avoiding Boris and Doris, or Sam and Ella, or Jenny and Thalia is not ‘matchy matchy’

‘Goes with’ dose not carry a silent ‘tweely’

I had to laugh when Madonna adopted her boy David, so that’s Lourdes, Rocco and Dave

I was wondering about this as DD has an unusual and adult name and am considering something quite normal and nicknamey for DC2 if a girl. Not because I care if other people think they don't go, but in case DC2 thinks they're less special or DD1 thinks they can't blend in as well. It is about equal footing more than anything.

But “go together” doesn’t equal “infantilise matchy matchy” makes

My 3 boys all have top 20 names. They fit together nicely because they are to my taste, but to argue they will grow up to hate them for that reason is ridiculous. They don’t “match”; they don’t rhyme or come as a set (they’re not called Tom, Dick and Harry) but they still “go”