{"id":11121,"date":"2015-03-26T08:59:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T12:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11121"},"modified":"2015-03-26T09:03:07","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T13:03:07","slug":"baby-naming-issue-finding-a-sibling-name-as-special-as-the-first-childs-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/03\/26\/baby-naming-issue-finding-a-sibling-name-as-special-as-the-first-childs-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Finding a Sibling Name as Special as the First Child’s Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m expecting my second little girl in July and we just can’t find a name that is as special as our older daughters name.<\/p>\n

My 2 year old daughter is Miley which is a combination of my husband and my own name, Michael and Ashley. Her middle name is after her paternal grandmother who passed away just before we found out we were expecting. Her name felt so perfect and came to me so easy.<\/p>\n

I feel like we need to give this girl a family name or at least a name with some meaning since Miley is so special to us. The problem is I have no idea how to combine our names to come up with another name. Does naming 2 kids after yourself make me a narcissist? I am not a fan of our parents names, they’re all VERY dated. IE: Connie, Scott, Penny, Vance.<\/p>\n

Our last name is Tschauner (with a silent T). While I would like something that isn’t hugely popular, I don’t want her to have to spell her first AND last name each time she says it.<\/p>\n

Ashley<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

A familiar naming practice in our society is to name the firstborn son after the father. When that practice is followed, it doesn’t seem as if most of those families feel they have to match that level\/type of specialness for the second child’s name. The feeling seems to be that the firstborn child gets the big special honor name (sometimes because the parents want this, other times because of family pressures), and then after that the names are chosen differently and\/or more freely. Maybe they DO also use an honor name for the second child, but it isn’t as if they always choose the mother’s name because that’s the only name that would be an equal honor.<\/p>\n

It would be the same if your maiden name had been, say, Meredith, and you’d named your first daughter Meredith. You wouldn’t need to rearrange the letters of your maiden name to come up with another maiden-name name for your second daughter, nor would you need to find another family maiden name: the idea would be that you’d had a special honor name to use, and so you’d used it for your firstborn child, and now naming could proceed for subsequent children the same as if there HADN’T been a special honor name.<\/p>\n

And I say the same for this situation you’re in. You gave your firstborn child a name that was a combination of her parents’ names, and that was a fun and clever and special idea. But now I don’t think you need to somehow do the same for all your children, any more than you would if you had a Michael Tschauner Jr. or a Meredith. You’ve used the special honor name, and now you can proceed just as you would if you HADN’T used a special honor name for your firstborn.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, I don’t think the Michael + Ashley connection is going to occur to people who meet your daughter. If you’d named her Ashley-Michaela, people might notice; but the name Miley is a subtle tribute. Others will not be wondering why you didn’t do the same for a second daughter.<\/p>\n

I do understand the impulse to match the specialness. If you would like to pursue that option, I think it’s a good idea to ask how far you’re willing to go to succeed. Considering your firstborn is named after both her parents, it would be difficult to match that level of honor. Perhaps you could use all four grandparent names, sacrificing the preference for names you like in favor of the preference for namesake specialness: Miley and her little sister Connie Vance Penny Scott.<\/p>\n

I suggest instead redefining what you consider “special.” A name can be special for many, many, many reasons—and as much as I like sibling names to coordinate, I don’t see any reason the type of specialness needs to coordinate. The next child’s name can be special because it reminds you of a place that’s special to you, or because it’s the name of an author or poet or actor or scientist who is special to you, or because you both loved it so much.<\/p>\n

If you are certain this is your final child, and if you find the only level of specialness that feels right to you is the exact kind you used for your first child’s name, then I suggest looking at El- names (the last two letters of Michael instead of the first two) and Ash- names (the first three letters of Ashley instead of the last three). Or Michaela is still available, perhaps as a middle name. Something like Ellery Ashlyn could work: the El- of Michael, the -y of Ashley and then the Ash- of Ashley. Or Sasha Michaela: the -ash- of Ashley, the Michael- of Michael. Or you could make her initials M.A. or A.M.<\/p>\n

But this sort of thing makes me feel a little tired. It feels forced. It’s as if you had a Michael John Tschauner Jr., and now we were trying to name a second son John Michael or Jonathan Micah: it’s never going to measure up to the original honor, and it feels so unnecessary to attempt it. And on top of that, I think it reduces the specialness of the second name rather than increasing it, by making it seem like a paler version of the firstborn’s name.<\/p>\n

No, I vote to scrap the whole idea. Give your second daughter an honor name only if there’s one you like and want to use. Or if there are none you like, give her as a middle name the disliked name of someone you love and want to honor. Make her name special by choosing something you love, especially for her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m expecting my second little girl in July and we just can’t find a name that is as special as our older daughters name. My 2 year old daughter is Miley which is a combination of my husband and my own name, Michael and Ashley. Her middle name is after her paternal grandmother who passed […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Tn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121","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=11121"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11125,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121\/revisions\/11125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}