Baby Name Advice - Irish/English and naming after family?

[monkeymadds]

Ok so we have picked out a few names for our baby due in September, has anyone got any ideas for middle names? Surname starts with C and is fairly Irish.

The names are:

Boy -
Albie
Caelan

Girls -
Fionnuala
Saoirse
Aoife

I am in love with the name Albie for a little boy BUT in discussions with OH family it was his grandfathers name (all fine) and my grandfather was known as Ray. So we went with the name Albie Ray and I was pretty set on it.

We have the tradition in my family that the eldest boy has the fathers name as a middle name which would make it Albie Ray Aidan C (Still love this!)

However, unfortunately we lost my maternal grandfather last week. It now feels wrong to name our child after two grandfathers and not him so close to his passing. His name was Brian.

I don’t want our child to have 4 names because that’s just silly and of course should we manage/decide to get Brian in then we are excluding OHs other grandad.

Apologies for a super long post I just don’t know what to do?!

Coukd you use Brian instead of Ray?

Could

I like Ray and Brian but not Albie. Sorry about your loss.
I'd use Brian instead of Ray (or instead of Albie)

You could use Ray as a MN for DC2

It seems like you're trying to cram so many honours and traditions into the the name of one child. Could you not use just one or two of them? I think it's unfair on the child if every single one of his names is recycled from another member of the family - he should have at least one name that is his own.

Agree completely with @Lotusclover, honouring family members is fine, but it shouldn’t be every name. Is there one you could leave out and consider for possible future DC’s?

I think you have to just choose one and settle on it. Tbh Albie Ray sounds great as a stand-alone combination, and that is important. Both my girls have middle names from the family but I was adamant I’d only consider ones that I genuinely liked as names not simply because they were named after someone.

For girls I love Aoife from your list! There are some beautiful Irish girls names IMO - Ciara, Niamh, Siobhan to name a few more :)

I agree, you won't be able to honour everyone with just one child to name, and it's fairly pointless to even try.

I also don't think that someone's passing suddenly makes it mandatory to use their names. What if he died after you'd just registered your son's birth certificate ? Would you have even thought about changing the name ?

I'd stick to your original choice and forget about Brian.

For what it's worth I much prefer Caelan to Albie (Albie feels like a nickname, not a full name). But that's only my opinion and if you love it you should use it.

Thanks everyone, Albie was never meant to be to honour a family member. As far as I knew OHs grandfather was called Michael but turns out that was a nickname!

@Malysh I had never thought about it that way and I think it’s helped me settle in my mind that it’s ok not to honour my grandad. I guess I was just worried about what family would say as understandably everyone is very sensitive at the moment.

Love love love Albie @monkeymadds ❤️

Afraid I don't warm to Albie or Caelan. The girls names are good. I am Irish husband is English - we have 1 son and called him Senan. It is a County Clare name meaning 'wise man'. We have 1 girl and called her Róisín, meaning little Rose. I will always call her Róisín, but husband and his family interchange between Róisín and Rose. Good luck with the name choosing and the rest of pregnancy.

Girl:
Aoibh
Clodagh
Maeve/Meabh
Niamh

Boy:
Odhrán
Caoimhín
Lorcan
Niall

@DML13 I love Roisin! But it’s OHs only sisters name and my middle name is Rose so we’ve decided not to double up (at the moment anyway)

Although maybe as a middle name?