{"id":10330,"date":"2014-08-05T06:09:08","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10330"},"modified":"2014-08-05T06:31:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T10:31:14","slug":"baby-twin-boys-carmen-with-a-t-brothers-to-stella-claire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/08\/05\/baby-twin-boys-carmen-with-a-t-brothers-to-stella-claire\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Twin Boys Carmen-with-a-T, Brothers to Stella Claire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle-<\/p>\n

I am currently 30 weeks pregnant with identical twin boys. My husband and I are having a very hard time agreeing on names for a few reasons.<\/p>\n

1. My husband really wants to use family names either first or middle. ( we did not use family names for our daughter…Stella Claire) His reasoning is ” because that is what you do with boys”. Ok, so I am not opposed to family but I feel like it should be equal share from each side of the family since we are having TWO boys. The problem is some of the family names are usable and some are so not. For example, my FIL is Phillip Dean. I can work with that. My dad is Rick Donald. Not so easy because hubby doesn’t think it is ok to change the family name to say Frederick or Donavan. How do you honor one father and not the other? Going back a generation, my grandfather is Dominic (which is actually one name we agree on!) his is Marvin (can’t do it, just can’t). How do you honor one grandfather and not the other? We would use hubby’s first and middle but his middle name is his dad’s name. Am I being too picky? Is this something that you would worry about? Why do I feel guilty if it isn’t fair share?<\/p>\n

2. It seems as though we have different naming styles. My husbands top picks are:
\nOliver ( can’t decide if I like or really dislike)<\/p>\n

Lewis ( ok for me, this is a family name as well)<\/p>\n

Dean ( to reality TV with my daughter being Stella? And a family name)<\/p>\n

Silas and Jasper ( I am really not a fan)<\/p>\n

My picks<\/p>\n

Graham ( husband likes but not his favorite)<\/p>\n

Elias ( no go)<\/p>\n

Bennett ( he doesn’t like nn Ben<\/p>\n

Everett ( no go)<\/p>\n

Nolan ( he says maybe)<\/p>\n

3. My husband is WAY more opinionated about these boy names then our daughter ( Stella Claire).<\/p>\n

Can you help so these babies aren’t A and B forever! Our lasts name sounds like Carmen with a T. Thank You!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let’s start with the concept that family names are “what you do with boys.” It sounds as if this might be an idea your husband developed naturally (perhaps because that’s the way it’s done in his own family or because he’s familiar with how in our culture boys might be junior\/III\/IV but girls rarely are), without really thinking it through. This would be a good moment to really think it through.<\/p>\n

I love family names, so I’m all for the idea of them. I also think it’s fully fine to give family names to some of the kids but not others: many parents run out of honor names, or only have girl honor names they like, or have a first name they want to use that doesn’t go with any family names, or have multiple traditions\/preferences they’d like to follow, or whatever. Some of my own kids have family names while others don’t (and in fact we’ve honored one grandfather and not the other, two great-grandfathers and not the other two, etc.), and there’s been no fuss yet about that being better for one group or the other.<\/p>\n

But I react negatively to the idea that boys get them and girls don’t. The cultural practice of giving boys family names (and making them juniors\/IIIs\/IVs) comes from some rather ugly ideas about worth. Those ideas may be long since squashed for this particular situation, but it seems like the symbolic expression of those ideas is something to think through before signing up for it. If you wanted to give your boys family names because you had two male honor names you wanted to use and didn’t have any female honor names you wanted to use for your daughter, I would go along with that without a peep. Or let’s say you had been too nervous about picking one side over the other side to choose an honor name for a singleton birth, but with twins you felt like this was a great chance to use honor names without offending anyone; again, no peeps from me. But in this situation, your daughter didn’t get a family name because she was a girl, and the boys are getting family names because they’re boys, and in fact trying to find two honor names is causing problems but you have to persist because your husband says “that’s what you do with boys.” Peep.<\/p>\n

All right. Let’s say the two of you go over this subject as thoroughly as you like, and you would still like to take the fun opportunity of twins to honor both sides of the family at once. In that case, the next issue to address is whether it’s okay to honor one grandfather but not the other. Answer: Yes. And it’s true it can still feel awkward. The reason it’s okay, I think, is that there is no way to honor everyone. If you used your grandfather’s name and your husband’s grandfather’s name, would you then need to have two more sons to honor the other two grandfathers? And if you use both of your fathers’ names, would you have to have to make sure you used both of your mothers’ names too? Anyone giving the situation a moment’s thought is going to realize that there are fewer babies than family members. But as I say, this can still get awkward, and I do think it’s a good thing to think of people’s feelings. Many parents choose not to use family names for this very reason: they’d love to honor one family member, but not at the risk of hurting another family member. I could perhaps have given this a little more thought myself, when naming babies. On the other hand, I’m glad I didn’t, because I think I would have gotten paralyzed by it; as it is, I love the kids’ family names and I’m really glad we used them. (What we did was we up-played the honor names only to the honored person; to everyone else, we down-played them. “It’s Robert James AFTER YOU, GRANDPA!” to my grandpa, and “We’ve named him Robert James” to everyone else.)<\/p>\n

In short, I would definitely go with your idea of making sure both sides of the family are honored, but I don’t think the names necessarily have to be parallel: both from the boys’ grandfathers, for example, or both from their great-grandfathers. It would be fun if it worked out that way, but it looks like it isn’t going to. Nor do I think that using a name from one generation of the family means that everyone from that generation needs to be honored. Spin can be your friend here: you can say cheerfully that with twins you wanted to honor both sides of the family at once, so you looked at both sides for names you liked that worked with other names you liked. It makes it seem less like the specific person is being specifically singled out (leaving others specifically unhonored), and more like each honor name is chosen to honor the whole side of the family. Which is in fact your goal, so it isn’t even spin.<\/p>\n

I might look at family surnames, if first names aren’t working out: perhaps one boy could have your husband’s father’s name and the other boy could have your maiden name, or your mother’s maiden name.<\/p>\n

On a more general topic, I want to pass along a naming tip from a friend of mine who has twin boys. She too has a husband who thinks boys get family names, and furthermore he wanted a junior. She felt this was especially awkward with twin boys: she had originally agreed to it assuming their first boy would be a singleton birth. So what they did was, they made the secondborn twin the junior, so that both boys had something special: one was firstborn, the other was the namesake. You’re not planning a junior, but I still like this general concept: that if one honor name is perceived to be more special than the other name, that that name could be given to the secondborn twin to balance things out (and to improve the perceived specialness of the less-special-seeming name). If, for example, you were going to use your husband’s first and middle names, I’d suggest giving his middle name to the firstborn twin and his first name to the secondborn twin.<\/p>\n

Another way to balance the perceived specialness of names is placement. For example, if you were to use your husband’s father’s name and your grandfather’s name, you could use your husband’s father’s name as a middle name, and your grandfather’s name as a first name. The non-parallel placement can also help it seem like less of a slight to your father and more of a “These are the names we liked” issue.<\/p>\n

(All of this assumes that it’s “better” to have the honor name and “better” to be born first, both of which are arbitrary as well as up for debate, though perhaps not here and now. But our culture does in general believe both of those things to be the case, which is why I take that into account.)<\/p>\n

One idea is to use initials, giving one twin your father’s initials and the other your husband’s father’s initials. But this idea isn’t compatible with your husband’s preference of not altering the honor names (which is also my own preference).<\/p>\n

However, all of this assumes the two grandfathers’ names won’t work out. I think Rick is very useable, particularly as a middle name. It could perhaps be a little choppy, but my guess is that in the long run you’d be happy with the choice and how it honors your dad; and middle names tend to nearly disappear after the birth announcements go out. I think my first choice would be to use Rick and Phillip as the middle names: it’s fun to get to honor both grandfathers like that, and it’s a very simple and non-feelings-hurting way to use honor names. Another idea I like is your father-in-law’s middle name as one boy’s first name, and your dad’s first name as the other boy’s middle name. Dean _____ and _______ Rick.<\/p>\n

On to first names. I searched online for what the Stella and Dean connection could be, but found mostly hits for the model Stella Dean. The only other thing I can think of is that I think Tori Spelling has a husband Dean and a daughter Stella, but that wouldn’t occur to me or bother me if I encountered siblings named Stella and Dean.<\/p>\n

Taking out the names each of you has vetoed, we’re left with this list:<\/p>\n

Oliver
\nLewis
\nDean
\nGraham
\nNolan<\/p>\n

If the two of you don’t find two names you both love, I think it would be nice if one twin had a name from your list and one from your husband’s list—perhaps each parent could choose a favorite from the other parent’s list. All of those names pair up nicely, I think. I like middle-name Rick best with first names of more than one syllable; I think it’s okay that the -r of Oliver blends into it, but I’d still prefer to avoid it.<\/p>\n

If it is mostly your husband’s preference that the boys be given family names, and so you are doing a fair amount of compromising of your choices to achieve this goal, then for balance I would more heavily weigh your preferences on which names should be chosen.<\/p>\n

If you like Bennett but your husband dislikes the nickname Ben, I wonder if either\/both of you would like Beckett. The -t runs into your surname a bit, though; I wonder if that might make the first name sound like Becca.<\/p>\n

Since he has Silas on his list and you have Elias on yours, it feels as if we must be very close to finding something there. But since you’ve both vetoed the other’s choice, perhaps not. Lucas, Tobias, Mattias, Marcus, Phineas, Simon, Levi, Cyrus, Elijah, Charles, Angus, Davis, Harris, Lyle?<\/p>\n

Since he has Oliver on his list and you have Everett on yours, would you like the name Elliot?<\/p>\n

If he doesn’t quite like your suggestion of Graham, would he like Grant?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle- I am currently 30 weeks pregnant with identical twin boys. My husband and I are having a very hard time agreeing on names for a few reasons. 1. My husband really wants to use family names either first or middle. ( we did not use family names for our daughter…Stella Claire) His reasoning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reference"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2GC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10330"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10341,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions\/10341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}