{"id":6167,"date":"2012-06-12T08:24:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T12:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2012\/06\/12\/baby-girl-wreath-with-a-c-sister-to-trlln-are-the-sibling-names-too-close\/"},"modified":"2012-06-12T08:24:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T12:24:00","slug":"baby-girl-wreath-with-a-c-sister-to-trlln-are-the-sibling-names-too-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2012\/06\/12\/baby-girl-wreath-with-a-c-sister-to-trlln-are-the-sibling-names-too-close\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Wreath-with-a-C, Sister to Tr!ll!@n; Are the Sibling Names Too Close?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A. writes:<\/p>\n

Hi Swistle! I’ve been reading your name blog ever since I found out I was pregnant with #2. Our baby girl is due in October and we’ve narrowed it down to 2 first names we like. So far so good, right? We’re ahead of the game. <\/p>\n

However, the name we love is very similar to our first daughter’s name and I’m wondering if it’s *too* similar, or too close to rhyming. <\/p>\n

Our last name rhymes with Wreath and starts with a C sound. Our daughter’s name is Tr!ll!@n M!r@ (replace ! with i and @ with a, of course). <\/p>\n

The name we love for the new baby is Mer!d!@n. We don’t have a middle name yet, but it’ll be something Indian, to honor my side of the family. I’m not worried about finding a suitable name that “matches” with the first name – that part is easier for us. <\/p>\n

The name we like, but not as much is Winter. Hubby and I don’t agree on many names, so the fact that we both like this one is already a big deal. But it doesn’t have the WOW factor that the other one did for us. <\/p>\n

My question is whether Mer!d!@n is just too similar to Tr!ll!@n? They’re both 8 letters and have the same ending. But I like that they “go together” without being exactly rhyming, or the same first letter, etc. I’d love to know what the readers think? <\/p>\n

We’re still open to other choices but want a name where we’re both thinking “WOW, that’s IT!” which is what we did with our first daughter’s name, and also feel about Mer!d!@n. <\/p>\n

Our preferences are:
1. No question about pronunciation when you see it written
2. Nothing ending in a C, K, or X sound
3. Not on the SSN Top 1000 list, or very, very low :) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My first reaction was that they were too close, and that the rhythm of the two names together made the problem even more noticeable: it called to mind the “Finnegan (begin again)” part of the song Michael Finnegan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there are tons of sibling-name sets out there that I would put in a similar category on first hearing them (too close! too far! rhyming! a sibling noticeably different from the others! oh no, a STYLE CLASH!)—and yet, with the exception of, at most, a fresh explanation each time the sibling names come up to a new audience (“Yes, Faith, Hope, and Kayla—I guess my parents didn’t want to use Charity”), it doesn’t seem like the kind of issue that will be a terrible ordeal for anyone.<\/p>\n

Not only does it not have to be a deal-breaker, many parents do it ON PURPOSE—and many other people love it when they encounter it. While many parents with a daughter named Lily are saying, “Well, pooh: now that rules out Rose and Ivy and Violet,” many others are saying “I want to continue the floral\/botanical theme—how about Rose or Ivy or Violet?” While some people will be startled at hearing siblings named Chloe and Zoe, others will be saying, “That is SO CUTE, I LOVE it!”<\/p>\n

After looking at these examples for awhile (as well as at the twin-name section of the Social Security site: so many Jada\/Jaden pairings!), and then looking back at Tr!ll!@n and Mer!d!@n, I feel like they aren’t too close at all. Yes, they share ending sounds, and saying them together may draw people’s attention to that. But that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. It seems like a tiny thing compared with finding a name that is exactly what you want.<\/p>\n

Name update!<\/b> A. writes:<\/p>\n

Our October baby was born on Monday and is healthy, happy, and awesome.\u00a0 (Newborns are so much less nervewracking the second time!)<\/p>\n

Her name is Meridi@n Rayn@.\u00a0 Thanks so much to you and your commenters for all the great input!<\/p>\n

Cheers! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A. writes: Hi Swistle! I’ve been reading your name blog ever since I found out I was pregnant with #2. Our baby girl is due in October and we’ve narrowed it down to 2 first names we like. So far so good, right? We’re ahead of the game. However, the name we love is very […]<\/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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Bt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167","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=6167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}