K. writes:<\/p>\n
Our spontaneous, completely unexpected, anticipated with trepidation triplets (girls) are due in September. We have names for baby 1 and baby 2 (Claire and Norah) but not baby 3. Please help us!<\/p>\n
We like Georgina (Ginny) as a nickname – but can we have two non-nickname Names and one different? I think she’d only really be known as Ginny.<\/p>\n
The same goes for Evangeline (this is my first chose), also with Ginny (maybe Linney or Evie) as an all-the-time nickname. And can one have plain names like Claire and Norah, and then Evangeline? Do they go?<\/p>\n
Other liked names don’t seem to go well (Freya with Norah, Elspeth, Clementine, Helen – but the nickname is Nell, and Norah and Nell?).<\/p>\n
Our question is two-fold – can we have two children go by first names and one by a nickname, and does a more fancy name like Evangeline go with Claire and Norah? Our two year old son is Peter and our last name is McKinley.<\/p>\n
Help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
While tidiness and personal preference incline me to make sets of either three nickname names or three non-nickname names, and to make three names of similar length\/fanciness, I think this is the kind of issue where it matters a lot during the naming stage and not much after that. I was thinking about this the other day at a get-together: when I turned my mind to the names of the other women’s children, I could see various issues we might have discussed in the kinds of discussions we have here (sharing an initial; two siblings sharing an initial when the other siblings don’t; two siblings with -y endings and one without; one modern surname name and one name that peaked ten years before the child was born), but none of those issues seem to matter at all now that all the kids are school-aged. I didn’t even notice most of the potential name issues until I deliberately turned my mind to it, and I am likely at the uppermost end of the name-noticing spectrum.<\/p>\n
Multiples do tend to get more name-noticing—but although the public will enjoy as much matchiness as you’re willing to give them, there’s no reason to make it a priority. It may help to imagine the girls born one at a time: if you’d named your first daughter Claire, and a few years later had a second girl named Norah, and a few years later were expecting a third girl, I think the name\/nickname issue might still be raised, but with less of a feeling of significance.<\/p>\n
With my twins, I wanted something that tied the names together—and after many, many lists and much frustration, I ended up with one plain name and one fancy, because those were our two favorite names. I do think this led to a few slightly disappointed reactions when I was telling the names, but that lasted perhaps a few seconds (and some people won’t be pleased unless you name them Faith, Hope, and Charity, or Lily, Rose, and Violet). And now that the twins are in elementary school, their names are not the big deal they were at birth: they tend to meet people individually, and it only comes out later that they have a twin and other siblings.<\/p>\n
It can sometimes help to rearrange the order of the names: for example, Evangeline, Norah, and Claire. This is less impressive in writing, but when said aloud it gives a nice progression from four syllables to two syllables to one. But if the one with the longest name is likely to go by a nickname, this is likely to be an issue for only the few weeks when you’re first announcing the given names.<\/p>\n
In short, if your top favorite three names are Claire, Norah, and Georgina (Ginny), or Claire, Norah, and Evangeline (Evie), I see no reason you can’t use either of those sets. It’s hard to imagine Ginny\/Evie coming to you later saying, “Mom. Dad. We need to talk. I’ve always felt like the name\/nickname you gave me means you love me less.” It might not ever even be noticed. And if it is, it seems as if “We just chose our favorite three names” should take care of anyone who isn’t determined to be upset.<\/p>\n
(However, I notice that Linney McKinley is a little bit of a tongue-tangler; if you think she’d go almost exclusively by the nickname, I’d lean toward Ginny McKinley ((a little sing-song\/rhymey, but not tangley)) or Evie McKinley.)<\/p>\n
Furthermore, it can be hard to predict what names and nicknames will end up actually being used. Perhaps Ginny will be Ginny until third grade when she decides to be Georgie, and Claire will go by Claire at school but always Claire-Bear or Eclair or Clarabelle at home, and Norah will be known as Pepper because of some childhood incident.<\/p>\n
Another option is to give names that work with Claire and Norah as nicknames: Clara, Eleanor, and Georgina; Claire, Norah, and Ginny. Clarissa, Honora, and Evangeline; Claire, Norah, and Evie.<\/p>\n
Or start with Georgina and Evangeline and find a third fancy name to go with them. Perhaps Clarissa or Eleanor or Honora.<\/p>\n
Or scrap Georgina\/Evangeline and find a third name to go with Claire and Norah:<\/p>\n
Alice
\nAudrey
\nElla
\nEve
\nGrace
\nHope
\nJane
\nJune
\nIvy
\nLucy
\nMolly
\nRose
\nRuby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"K. writes: Our spontaneous, completely unexpected, anticipated with trepidation triplets (girls) are due in September. We have names for baby 1 and baby 2 (Claire and Norah) but not baby 3. Please help us! We like Georgina (Ginny) as a nickname – but can we have two non-nickname Names and one different? I think she’d […]<\/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-8840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2iA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8840","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=8840"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8842,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8840\/revisions\/8842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}