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

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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?

Names don't necessarily need to match, but some names just don't go well together. Examples:

Elaborate names and short names, e.g. Alexandrina and May

Dated and modern names, e.g. Maureen and Evie

Names that are too similar, e.g. Ella and Elodie

Names where one is a diminutive of the other, e.g. Amelia and Millie

Bit of a mean post. You may not care if your childrens names "go" but why judge others, very dramatic to jump to the conclusion they may be narcissistic.

My childrens names don't particularly match at all but to me they go (not that that is the reason. DD1 I loved the name, Ds2 sentimental value and a nice name and fitted well enough with dd1.)

Its the hand wringing over middle names I don't understand. No one needs a middle name so if picking one is so stressful why bother?

it's still not as idiotic as when people have already chosen the nickname and decide on the name backwards from that point. i die 🙄

We have b/g DT’s. Their names have no connection to each other apart from them being our favourites. DS’s is quite traditional and DD has only ever been known by a nickname which evolved when she was a baby. Both names had to work in our three languages.

I think most people have a type of name that they like and so their kids names just naturally go together.

I've been told my DCs names don't match before. quite baffled by it to be honest, I don't see why they need to have matchy names. I think it's because DC1 has a top 20 name, DC2 has a more 'older generation' name but it's not exactly unheard of. Was always surprised that anyone cared seeing as they are not an actual pair but two individual children.

I remember one of my nieces getting really cross when she was younger that she had what she perceived as a ‘horrible old lady name’ for a middle name whereas her sister had quite a pretty, not particularly modern but not dated, middle name. (The middle name in question was the name of her paternal grandmother that she never met).

I’ve also heard my sister in law even as an adult expressing disappointment that she got a ‘fusty old fashioned and not nice sounding’ name compared to her own sister. SIL apparently was teased about her name as a child (one of the few actual examples of that happening I know of, even though MN is always full of people predicting future name related bullying).

So when people ask about names going together I always assume they mean ‘so our children have a reasonably equal chance of liking their names and feeling that they got a fair deal. I always wished I had a more unusual, cooler sounding name when I was at school, if one of my siblings had been called something like that I’d have felt a bit hard done to. Similarly my imaginary sibling with the ‘cool, out there’ name might have been pissed off that the rest of us got ‘normal’ and blend in-able type names.

Sonichu

I actually go by my middle name and know a couple of people who do to. My first name is so horrible that I am so thankful I have a middle so I can assure you that middles are very useful sometimes.

It's to do with taste in names.
If you liked names starting with a certain letter for DC1, you probably still like names starting with the same letter when looking for a name for DC2.

I find the current trend for long names for boys strange. In my age group, only Christopher, Nicholas, Timothy and Jonathan were really popular, and they were Chris, Nick, Tim and Jon.

My mum and dad fostered twins one was called Gary and one was called Hugo still makes me chuckle.
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I do find some combos odd to be honest. I once taught a sibset where the girl had a very pretty, well-known name (e.g. Rose) and her brother had a very pompous sounding, unusual name (e.g. Horatio) and it really struck me as peculiar. I even wondered if they had different dads despite being close in age. Also taught twins with really similar names (similar to Ella and Bella - think one letter difference), which I found a bit much.

"
I actually go by my middle name and know a couple of people who do to. My first name is so horrible that I am so thankful I have a middle so I can assure you that middles are very useful sometimes."

You could call yourself anything you want. You don't need a middle name for that.

I think 'goes with' is about someone's preferred style of name rather than about matching in a twee way e.g. Chloe and Joey, Daisy and Lavender or Tim and Jim. To me, a pairing such as Ebenezer and Jayden don't 'go' in that I wouldn't think to put them together as they feel like very different styles. Mind you, I've taught a few sets of twins whose parents chose very similar names e.g. Joanne and Joanna, Hayden and Jayden so clearly matching matters to some people.

I don't think it's an important consideration but I remember writing the two names together to see if they seem weird!

No you are not the only one. Siblings won't always be together so I don't think it matters. Not sure what it means by names going with other names.
Other than having names that all begin with the same letter deliberately or rhyme or something like that I odnt think it matters.

I know of a family with three children, Tom, Lucy & Fox (names of first two children named but very much along those lines). Fox is now 4. I still pause slightly before I say his name as I quickly do a mental check of whether that was a newborn nickname whilst they decided his name or something rather than his actual name. I'm not the only one to do it. At the christening, we were all there with ears alert in case his christened name was something else

I think it matters a little bit - for example if you call one child something simple like ‘Tom’ and then the next one something more out there like ‘Spartacus’...
But in general no.

My Mum went to school with non identical twin sisters, one of whom had an Alexandrina type name, the other had an Ann type name. 'Ann' used to say she felt short changed as she thought 'Alexandrina' had lots of nickname options, whereas she didn't.

I know someone who was the only child in the family whose name wasn't from her families culture and she felt sad about that as she wondered why her parents cared to reflect their heritage with their other children, and not her. People did notice and it was commented on. Think 'Caoimhe', 'Domnhall' and 'Amy'.

I don't think names have to be matchy matchy, or incredibly similar but it's worth thinking about what the children may think of them compared to siblings as they grow up.

The Nightingale family were doing the Grand Tour of Europe when Florence arrived.
They were in Greece when Parthenope put on an appearance . I’ve always felt sorry for Parthenope .
Also Lourdes , Brooklyn el al .

It matters because you end up saying the two names one after another for the rest of your life. Dozens of times a day when they're little. And people say the two names together to you all of the time. Me and my sister are 40 and 50 and my dad still often hears 'how are InDubious and Sister?'. If they sounded awful together it would get really annoying.

It’s not so the names match but to make sure they don’t sound a bit silly together with very differing styles.

A popular vlogger has two girls called Molly and Bella and has just had a little boy called Cloud. Completely different style and sounds a bit off to me with his sisters popular names.

I get why people like their kids names to go well with each other, though I like that my kids names don't match at all.

@merrydeath - yes that's my other pet peeve!

Sorry I don't mean to be unkind - its MN so obviously I'm being expressive for effect to some extent. But it is a genuine question at the same time. I personally think a lot of parents focus too much on the toddler/young child years when giving names out. Whether names 'go' together seems to be part of this to me, though I concede that a baby called Derek is quite hard to imagine too!

Because you’re going to be shouting them in succession for many years and having a Annabel and a Bertha for example just sounds a bit Wanting names that are a similar style is not narcissistic or wanting the portray ‘picture perfect’ families. Some people get het up over the strangest things on here.