Birth order and alphabetical order

So the other day, my sister asked if we would give baby B the name that starts with an earlier letter in the alphabet. I had seriously never thought of that! She said some of her friends with twins have done this to equalize the babies because even though baby A came out first, B would likely be referred to first when people talk to/about them because we tend to list things in alphabetical order. I realize this is possibly more relevant for same sex twins than B/G but would like to know if others have or will do this. How much does birth and/or name order matter?

Thanks,

Amy

 

My baby A got a N name, Nathaniel and my baby B got a W name, William, BUT it was not intentional. Baby B was actually named BEFORE his brother. I just felt that he was a William and I was absolutely adament about him getting the name William. I had William's name picked out the day after I found out I was having 2 boys. Took me another 2 months to find a name for Nathaniel.

 

Sticking my nose it - saw this in the View New Post list

Check out this recent thread in the 5-12 year old forum about name order.

It really never mattered to us.

 

Our children start with A, C, B, D and E. So yes, we deliberately named the twins D and E and in birth order. The older ones are out of sequence as that was never our intention to start with but couldn't resist with the twins.

 

I used A & B for middle names and that's how they got their names. Jesse Adam is A and Jayden Bradley is B. Jayden Adam didn't flow as well as Jesse Adam ... so no, their first names aren't alphabetical.

 

Oh and my boys middle names are not in alpha order. Nathaniel is Nathaniel Scott and William is William Alexander. I also just realized that my first born has a D name, so the 3 are in alpha order for birth order, also totally unintentional

 

You know, I think people over think it a little bit. My A (Alexis) got her name because it was the name I'd chosen for my first-born daughter when I was 12 or so. Samantha was the second name and, lucky us, there was a second baby just waiting to claim it.

It's always nice to hear adult twins' perspectives. Kind of reinforces that we're not off our rockers in these crazy ideas we have about raising our twins. You should give us a little Q&A one day.

 

Our boys are Michael and Gabriel (or Mike and Gabe). That is their birth order, and basically everyone say "Mike and Gabe" not "Gabe and Mike". We never really thought about it....I think it just flows better that way, which is more influential than being alphabetical for us (I think it is subconsciously that way for most people).

I think more important than the order of their names is how they are treated and that they are respected equally growing up. That is what we focus on - treating them as individuals with unique traits and personalities, but also equal respect, time, love, etc.

 

Yeah, Baby B got the letter that comes first, but it never ever occurred to me to do that for the reason your friends have mentioned. That just seems ridiculous! Why would ABC order affect a child's self-esteem or feelings of equality in the family? My Baby A is Sullivan and my Baby B is Finley. We gave them their names because Finley "rhymes" with "B". :lol:

 

My sister is Twin A and I am Twin B. They had two girl names on a piece of paper so the first one born was the first one on the list (Jennifer) and the second one born was the 2nd name (Jacqueline). That said, mom found out she was having twins at month 7.

With our twins, it was easy since they were boy/girl.

 

Our mom found out it was twins at 41.4 weeks. (4 hours before we were born) The girl name was Constance Kendra so they split it up with baby A as Connie (just Connie) Mae and B Kendra Ann. (Ann was the only name they had to come up with since Connie Mae is a family name - our grandmother's baby doll)

 

I could NOT imagine finding out you are having twins late in pregnancy or during birth! It happened with my faternal Grandmother too. She had twin girls and had no idea she was having twins until she went into labour, had baby A thought she was done and then baby B decided to make her presence known

 

We had both girls' names picked (Riley Haiden & Danika Violet) but hadn't assigned them. Then DH suggested giving baby B the name that came first alphabetically so that if baby A ever started in on the "because I'm older" schtick, baby B would have some ammo with "because I come first in the alphabet". :laughing: It was mostly just an arbitrary way of deciding which name went with which baby & we didn't really fuss about it too much. That being said, I did reserve the right to wait to assign names until I had seen them just in case it wasn't right - or even to scrap the names completely if they didn't fit. But Riley was Riley & Danika was Danika right from moment one. :good:

 

Nope, it wasn't intentional and we did baby B first alphabetically. Basically we had 1 name for a boy and 1 name for a girl picked out. Once we found out it was 2 boys, we came up with another name which started before our baby A name. Now that they are here (& tend to fight about everything :lol: ) I'm happy they each have a unique hold- 1 came out first, 1's name comes first.

 

The girls are in alphabetical and birth order but not intentional

 

Haha, I NEVER thought about that. I guess unintentionally we did it that way though, Vanessa Maria is Baby A and Max Adrian is Baby B... so yeah, I guess both his names come first in the alphabet, but we never thought about alphabetical order. I really don't think it matters that much in the grand scheme. Have fun naming your twins, for us, naming Max was hard, we couldn't decide on his name for a long time, I think boys are harder to name.

 

I never thought about it until people started assuming that Alex is the oldest because he has the A name. But to me, I just always wanted my first son to be Nicholas, so Nick was Nick long before he was born. Alex's name wasn't decided until the day they were born.

I have a friend who has 4 girls (all singletons) whose names start with A, E, I, & O, in that order. And they have plans to name #5 something starting with a U.

 

My girls both have A names but not on purpose...we named them based on personality, it just so happened that the 2 names we agreed on started with A .

Baby A was a mover and shaker during my pregnancy and never seemed to sleep so she got Amélie which seemed to suit her personality. Baby B was completely laid back...she seemed to sleep a lot and never got all crazy like her sibling had been in utero so she got Audrée which was my Grandmother's name. Their names still match their personalities now so I feel as though we chose well!

 

I named my boys in utero too. Austin was my laid back baby A, and Miles was my frenetic little baby B. I think their names suit their personalities well. It didn't even occur to me to just pick two names and base them on birth order.

 

My mom didn't know she was having my sister and I until she was 7 months pregnant (via an xray of her belly!) They already had the name Christian picked out (whether it was a boy or girl.) My name wasn't chosen until after I was born. She is the "older" twin so our names are alphabetical according to birth order but it was unintentional.

My boys names don't follow the order of birth. My dd, had she been a boy, was going to be named Van and even though we decided not to name them until they were born, to me baby A was Van and B was Finn. And I was right!

 

I don't think the initials have anything to do with which one somebody says first. I think it just has to do with how the names sound together. Like most people say Mom & Dad because it just sounds better than Dad & Mom.
We chose names for our boys but we want to wait to see them before we decide who is who.
We have friends that had their boys by c-section and they refuse to tell anyone who came out first. lol
I don't know why people would treat twins differently based on who was A or B. The only difference I see right now is that my Baby B is definitely bigger than A! But when it comes to age, one is not older than the other.

My grandmother found out she was having twins about 3 wks before they arrived! But I do know other older people who had no clue until the big day.

 

So funny I came across this...When we chose the names 'Devin and Dylan', I automatically said that baby A was going to be 'Devin' bc when saying "Devin and Dylan" in that order, it flowed better than 'Dylan and Devin". My husband thought I was nuts. And now whenever people speak of them, its always in that order lol

 

Nope. We waited until they came to name them. Jesse just looked like a Jesse, and Joshua the same. I guess if you actually looked to the second letters they are in aphabetical order. But it had never crossed my mind.

 

Absolutely cuz I'm anal. Baby A had the name that came first in the alphabet, so Gabriele and baby B had the one that came 2nd so Nicolas. To me, that just made the most sense!

 

We had Baby B's name first, then Baby A's. They do happen to be in alphabetical order, but not on purpose. They were named according to personalities in the womb.

 

Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts and experiences. I think we'll stick with giving the name to who seems to suit it best.

Cheers,
Amy