Name themes and "stealing" names

We did not name our children with a "theme", like all starting with the same letter, names from a book, rhyming names, etc. It's just not our thing. However, totally by accident, and I only realized it a couple months ago, both girls' names, and DH's name, have seven letters in the first name and six in the middle. So now I've been thinking, for baby #3, should we keep up the theme? Or maybe pick a name that matches my numbers (5 and 3)? Or just diregard the theme, since it wasn't intentional anyway?

On to "stealing" names. How remote do you go before you consider it not stealing anymore? Most people wouldn't give the same name that their sibling or best friend used. I don't know why, but I feel like once I already know of someone using a name, it's been used, I can't use it. And being on a couple parenting boards, there are a lot of names that I already see in use! I didn't join TS until after I had them, so I didn't know about the pre-existing Ainsleys on here. My brother's best friend named his son Liam, a name I love, so now I feel like it's been used, but that's kind of remote, I see his friend maybe a couple times a year.

 

We wanted to have them start with the same letter, being somewhat similar. Decided on Cole and Cody. But the really stupid thing we did was... Since both boys and didn't want to have to answer the question of why only one of them had daddy Jr as their name, so we gave them each daddy's middle name as their middle name... think it's cute they each have daddy's middle name as their middle name, but that leaves their initials exactly the same!! Which will be confusing later on. So we may have to use C1 and C2 in order to tell whose stuff is whose!!!

 

I would never consider a name that a sibling, cousin or close friend had named their child. I actually feel quite honored when I hear someone in the same area named their kid after my kid already had their name...whether they knew us or not. As for intentional patterns or not, I mixed it up with my boys this time. 3/4 of the boys have only 4 letters in their first name (on purpose), but what really stayed the same and I realized what I liked most about their names is that they are only one syllable. The girls both have 5 letters in their name and their middle names start with N. So I'm all for patterns personally, but I have the personality to change it up real drastically the next time around just cause I can.

 

I didn't plan to go with long first names, but it ended up that way. Also all 4 girls have the name number of syllables total in their first and middle names---very unexpected.

 

QUOTE(Jen620 @ Jun 24 2008, 09:59 PM) [snapback]844097[/snapback]
I didn't plan to go with long first names, but it ended up that way. Also all 4 girls have the name number of syllables total in their first and middle names---very unexpected.


Doesn't Josephine Dorothy have 6 and the rest have 5? Or do I say one of the names with an extra syllable?

I didn't realize until just now, but both my girls have the same amount of syllables in their names, and so do both of my boys. Wow! I never thought of that.

 

QUOTE(Amy R. @ Jun 24 2008, 10:05 PM) [snapback]844106[/snapback]
Doesn't Josephine Dorothy have 6 and the rest have 5? Or do I say one of the names with an extra syllable?

I didn't realize until just now, but both my girls have the same amount of syllables in their names, and so do both of my boys. Wow! I never thought of that.

I pronounce Dorothy Dor-thy, making it 5.

 

QUOTE(BounceTigger @ Jun 24 2008, 10:22 PM) [snapback]844149[/snapback]
I pronounce Dorothy Dor-thy, making it 5.


That must be the case, since I pronounce the "o", adding one.

 

Personally I think themes are kind of silly. If someone wants to do it, go right ahead, but for me, no.

I wouldn't worry about how many letters are in a name if you like it. Why confine yourself.

And since names aren't copyrighted I don't think they can be stolen. I probably wouldn't name two live siblings, two of my own children I mean, with the exact same name, but other than that, who gives a rip who else has that name. If you like a name, you have as much right to it as anyone else.

We had decided to name our son after my grandfather and I was really waiting to see what my cousin was going to name his son two months before us. We're very close, sibling close, but had he named his son the same, I might've been a little disappointed but it wouldn't have changed my mind about what his name was going to be.

 

I think that themes are cute. I named my girls so they had the long E sounding nicknames (Maddy and Ellie). With the boys we are chosing 2 formal names (unknown to us as of yet). I think as far as naming goes you have the right to chose any name you desire. I wouldn't personally give my child the same name as any of my siblings kids (their cousins) or my best friends children. Beyond that I don't care. I would be flattered that someone else chose the same name as me and wouldn't consider it "stealing" unless I told them " I am naming my child XYZ " and they had a baby first and named them XYZ. That is stealing.

 

My brother kept calling me before his daughter was born to make sure I would never use the family name, Vivian, because he wanted to name his daughter that. I kept telling him I was fine with it, then finally pointed out that even if I did have a girl some day and happened to named her Vivian it really wouldn't matter. It would be like that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the guy is introducing the whole family and everyone had at least one Nick or Nikki in the family. I had someone tell me they should have saved the name for me, but that's just lame. We should all get to name our kids what we want. I don't have anymore right to a name than someone else. I was considering the name Joseph because it was my brother's middle name. I didn't let it phase me that my good friend has a son named Joseph. After all friends come and go, but my sons going to be a part of my family forever.

Long story short, I think the whole concept of being upset over "stealing" a name is just silly.

 

I think it is silly for anyone to get upset about name stealing. My best friend called me when she was pregnant to ask me a favor. She wanted to name her son Drew, which is what we call our Andrew. I laughed and told her there couldn't be enough "Drews" in the world and if she wanted to name her daughter Zoe I was cool with that too. She didn't, named her Kate instead. She laughed and thanked me. I don't own the name Andrew or Zoe and if anyone I know wants to use them then so be it.
We didn't realize we had done the A to Z thing until after the names were picked. We laughed about it afterwards and decided we are done!

 

I think some some themes are cute. If we are having girls we're naming them Sonnet and Lyric. No idea for boys names! Well my fiance wants Chuck because our last name will be Norris but I'm saying no way!!!

As far as name stealing, I personally want to name my children names that you don't hear everyday and I don't want to use a name that's even in my extended family other than middle names.
To me you could steal a name if its unusuall, such as my friend named her daughter Younique and then found out someone else she knew named her baby that right after.

 

I don't really like themes, and we didn't intend to have a theme for our children. But...their two girl cousins are Mady Joy and Faith. I loved the name Grace, so Kaitlyn was Kaitlyn Grace. By the time we got pregnant again and I finally realized what was happening I thought it was better to just go with it than leave someone out...hence Allison Hope and Sarah Love. At least it's their middle names, so it's not readily apparent!

 

IMO I would just disregard the theme, no one pays attention to the number of letters in names. We sort of have a theme going for our kids, that the first name is a name we like and the middle name is a family name. Actually a family name that starts with the letter "M" but that was unintentional really. So if we ever have a #3 the middle name will be a family name but not neccessarily starting with the letter "M".

As far as stealing names goes, I totally agree with you that once I know someone IRL with a name that I consider it used. This doesn't apply to message boards for me though, since my kids are never going to be with the kids of people I chat with on the internet. But IRL if I know anyone who has recently had a child then that name is out, even if it is only a good friend of a friend. So you can imagine my annoyance when my co-worker at my last job before having the twins (who I still see at functions, we were at the same BBQ last weekend) - anyway he and his wife had their baby girl 4 months after my twins and they named her Amelia Margaret - same first and middle name as my baby! And then of course everyone at the office felt the need to call/text/email me and let me know that this baby had been born with the same name. I guess it just gets on my nerves b/c if the situation had been reversed I would have considered that named used already and would have picked something else. I don't think this extends to message boards though.

 

Sorry to offend, I don't like themes...too cheesy for me.
As far as stealing names, if I know the person, I don't want the same name as they named their child. However, what someone else chooses to do that's their business.

 

We did name our girls with the same first letter but had we liked another name with another first letter better we would have gone with it!! I have a friend that is pregnant right now that wants to name her daughter Ava Grace - I have NO problem with it = as a matter of a fact I am flattered by it! I guess we will just refer to them as my Ava and your Ava ?? but oh well!! I think it will be kind of neat for both girls in the long run! as far as themes, we had such a time naming our kids ESP the girls that if one of us had said Mickey and Mouse and the other liked it they would have been Mickey and Mouse!! I would not pay any attention to the syllables but only because we have such a hard time finding ANY names we agree on - whatever the first one we both love is always what we go with!! All the men in dh's family have TG as first and middle initials - sometimes I wish we would have kept that up but oh my goodness I cannot imagine having to stick to a letter - me and dh would be divorced for sure!! LOL!!

 

We didn't do a theme, but we considered it. Our oldest two have middle names that start with O, but we couldn't find two more names starting with an O that we liked or that fit. We ended up with all of them having family names as their middle names by default, but I still think it's neat and we realized after the twins were born that each of their middle names has a twin connection. Reese's middle name is David who is DH's uncle and a father of twin girls. Riley's middle name is Robert, who is my grandfather and he was married to my grandma who was a twin. Corny, but it's kind of special to us.

For us, a name is considered "used" if another immediate family member has it. I did always try to be considerate of my friends when naming our boys and I'd never personally be angry is they used one of our boys' names for their own child.

 

We don't do themes eiter. Just not us.

as far as stealing, I think thw whole concept is stupid. No one owns a name. No one. People who get their panties in a bunch because someone named their baby the same name as their child should enjoy that the other person loves that name as much as they do, not be mad. I would be really upset if someone tried to tell me I can't or shouldn't name my child what I wanted to name them. It's noone's business.

For me, the bottom line is that your child will carry that name for the rest of their lives and you will be saying that name for the rest of yours. The priority should be that you love that name and it touches you in somes way. Who cares about everything else. It's not important. I have a friend that regrets naming her son devon. Hates it now. I would hate to be in her position of regretting what I named my child because I was too concerned about other people instead of just naming my child what I loved.

what name do you love? (That's all that matters)

 

QUOTE(2boys07 @ Jun 24 2008, 08:41 PM) [snapback]844040[/snapback]
We wanted to have them start with the same letter, being somewhat similar. Decided on Cole and Cody. But the really stupid thing we did was... Since both boys and didn't want to have to answer the question of why only one of them had daddy Jr as their name, so we gave them each daddy's middle name as their middle name... think it's cute they each have daddy's middle name as their middle name, but that leaves their initials exactly the same!! Which will be confusing later on. So we may have to use C1 and C2 in order to tell whose stuff is whose!!!



I love these names. I went to grade school with two brothers named Cole and Cody! I loved them. They were GOOD looking boys too!!

Super good names!!

 

We have a "theme" I guess... they are all biblical names. I dont like names that all start with the same letter, but that JMO.

I also agree that the idea of name stealing is ridiculous! Even if you think you are "creating" a name or choosing something unusual, it doesnt matter... chances are its been used before! No reason to get your panties in a twist.

There was actually a girl I knew who has a daughter named Adele, but they called her Addy. A friend of hers names her daughter Addy... SHE FLIPPED! It was so stupid! That wasnt even her daughter real name and its SUPER common!! Err, that bugs me!

 

I like themes that are not overly apparent--like number of letters or syllabuls. It's kind of like having a secret password to join a club. I also like themes in middle names like the case of Joy, Faith, Grace, Hope and Love. That's sweet! I'm nuetral towards same letters, DH's name starts with an M, so my mom thought we'd give the girls M names--not my thing, fine for others though. I think themes can create a sense of family unity--not that non-themed families don't have unity--it's just another thing that connects you.

I also agree that you can't really steal a name, but that is is kind of wierd to have two people who are close to each other who have the same name. But that often happens with marriges, I have two Aunt Judy's, one on each side.

 

Ironically I am not huge on theme names and yet my girls totally have themed names. They were the top 2 names on my list and I just couldn't pick between the two. I wanted to use Jaedyn for personal reasons and then simply fell in love with the name Camdyn. Rae is a family name and Sol was a name I chose because I felt it was strong and my little Jae was such a fighter. So we ended up theme-y but it was hard to not give my girls my first choice names. Now I think it is kind of nice that their names share a connection since, being girls, they will probably change their last names at some point. I am big on nicknames and we generally call them Jae & Cami.

I have a hard time using a name that I already know a child with. Being a dance teacher through my high school years, that omitted A LOT of girl's names - some which I really like. That said, I do not own the names and am flattered that other people like them enough to consider them. One of my best friends asked if I would mind her giving her daughter the middle name Rae. I was really excited!

I know two ladies who are great friends and both had children 2 weeks apart. Both named their child Colby - one a boy and one a girl, because that is what each of them had chosen separately. They are both fine with it and call them "Colby Boy" and "Colby Girl"

ETA: I agree with a pp that I WOULD use a name I'd seen on a forum although not IRL. Not sure if we are having any more kids, but I've seen a girls name on these boards that I've tucked away at the back of my head

 

I also forgot about our accidental theme of Ainsley and Beatrix starting with A and B. Some people in the family call Ainsley "A" since we call Beatrix "Bea". My brother was like, "So is the new baby going to be C?" DH has tossed out Charlotte as a girl option. We really haven't gotten serious thinking of names yet. We should at least get a short list of each gender together, as once the homestudy is done, we really have no idea when we might match, and we could even match with a baby that's been born.

 

I agree with pp, if you like a name, throw caution to the wind. Whether it follows a pattern or if your brother's friend has a kid of the same name. Now, I would tread lightly on another expecting mom you might know that's due after you and she's going to name her kid such n' such....especially if you two were really close. But as far as 'stealing' goes........all the Johns, Mikes, Sarahs or Ashley's would be obsolete if everyone went by that rule!
If you find something that your heart feels strongly about and you absolutely love.....then that's the name your child should have.
Good luck and congratulations on your newest unnamed addition... Can't wait to hear what you finally chose.

 

I was also actually going to point out that your 2 childrens' names begin with "A" and "B" and that a "C" for the next child would be cute. We didn't use a theme when choosing our childrens' names, but their middle names do have some significance. For us it was so difficult trying to agree on first names so a theme would have made it impossible! Good luck!

 

I'm not into themes either, the only "theme" we have going is that all of our children are named really "old fashioned" names, Michael, Stephan, Thomas, Matthew and Kathryn. Middle names for the boys had sort of a theme, as they are all names "after" a family member. Michael Joseph (my brother Joseph) Stephan David (my husband David) Thomas Michael (his brother Michael) and Matthew Stephan (his brother Stephan). Kathryn got left out of that.. She's Kathryn Elizabeth because I wanted a little girl that I could call "Katiebeth". When she arrived she's nothing like a Katie or a Beth, and definitely not a Katiebeth nor is she a Kathy. Its just not her personality, she's not dainty or timid she's not very feminine, she's got a very very strong personality. so she's a Kathryn or a Kate; I occasionally call her Kat.

I did for a brief, very brief few seconds consider naming the triplets as a play on the word "millenium" because they were born so close to the big.(and wrong) hoopla over the 1999 change to 2000. I jokingly suggested we could call them Milly, Lenny and Ian.

As for owning a name.... Not. No one owns a name, sorry, not even family members. On November 10, 1999 my sister gave birth to a baby boy and named him Matthew Jacob, and announced that she was going to call him Jake. 37 days later I gave birth to 2 little boys and a girl, and I named one of them Matthew Stephan, and I call him Matt. She didn't decide until the last minute on her names and really neither did we, but Matthew was on our very short list of boys names that Dave and I both liked. She didn't object, she thought it was kinda cool, we laughed about it. I told her that she could always tell Jake that we named Matt after him because he was so darned cute. So my mother has two grandchildren named Matthew. Big deal. Beyond my immediate family, I doubt that most of the rest of the family even knows that Jake's first name isn't Jake. Our cousin, whom I'm very close too, also named her only son Matthew, however he's about 15 years older than our Matthews.

You need to name your children whatever you WANT them to be called for the rest of their lives. Its not like you can avoid them being with another child by the same name, family, friends, or classmates. What if you meet a family that has children with exactly the same names as your children? Will you decide not to be friends with them because it might be confusing? And school... my trio has been in a school setting since they hit their 3rd birthday thanks to Early Intervention. In their very first class, there was set of identical twin boys, Michael and Matthew, so since then, in EI school, pre-k, K, 1st, and 2nd grade that same set of twins has been in the same grade and school with mine. And for the first 4 years my Matthew and the other Matthew were in the same classroom. One was called Matthew K, the other was called Matthew B. 2nd Grade was the first time the other Matthew wasn't in the same class with mine.

I did feel sorry for the Thomas's teacher this year. There are 5 girls in the second grade named Kayla. Thomas's class netted 3 of the 5 of them....

 

I didn't necessisarily have a theme,did SM initials with my first two,couldn't come up with S boys names I liked for the next two so scrapped it,then have a C&C twins! Some themes are cute and wouldn't mind doing it again but wouldn't confine myself to that in case there was something else I REALLY loved,etc..

As far as name stealing,I personally wouldn't use names of immediate family members(unless naming after them) but other than that who cares what your brothers best friend's kids name is....LOL!

 

We didn't really plan on doing a theme either. It turned out that Nolan and Meghan rhyme on the last syllable, but that wasn't intentional. We basically like the irish names so that's why we picked them (Meghan was always my girl name). When we had Liam, it was another case of choosing an Irish name. I chose it as it is the Irish form of William which was my maternal grandfather's name. The kids middle names are all after someone. Nolan's is Rea, which is Doug's paternal grandfather's last name...there were no boys to carry it on, so we did it with his middle name. Meghan's is Elizabeth, which is my mom's name and my middle name. Liam's is Douglas after his dad.

As for stealing names, I don't think it's stealing. I have 6 siblings, four of which were married w/kids before I was. There were 12 kids pre mine so my sister and I were slowly watching our names trickle away . There are now 17 grandchildren and while some middle names are repeated, they all have different first names. I wouldn't want cousins having the same name. As for friends, I think that's different. I have a friend who was due on the 24th (still waiting) and she has chosen Meghan Elizabeth if it is a girl. We were pregnant at the same time before (my twins, her son) and we both had Meghan on our list at that time, too. It just shows that she has great taste!

I say go with whatever you want....and Liam is a great name for a boy!!!

 

Well one look at my siggie and you can see my theme .. That didnt start off intentional .. we had Jaymee and then I got pregnant and we had planned on naming that baby Glenn .. but as it turned out the baby ended up being a girl so my dh named her Jill (Jillianne) so when we got pg a third time I just went with the "J" thing and continued on.
As far as stealing names .. I'm the oldest of 3 Michelles and am not offended in any way that I have cousins named the same .. I adore the other Michellle's.

ps .. I stole the name Jayden from Will Smith. Once I heard that name, I fell in love with it.

 

I never did patterns or themes when naming my children but some how we chose names that matched.

Natasha Ivanova (Russian)
Jayke Alexander (just goes together)
Richard Euan & Jarreth Dylan (Welsh names for the middle names)
Loukas Maximilian (my ex chose it)
Darren Keith Barry Andy (again his dad chose it and registered it while I was still in hospital)

I don't believe you can steal a name unless its a name someone has made up from family names then it might be classed as stealing.

 

No themes here but K&P have two syllables in their first name and two in the middle name. John only has one syllable so I decided if we ever have another child, it would be one syllable to even it out.

I absolutely will not use a name that a family member or friend used. So right now all the Mary names I wanted are gone (sil and bil) and Kate is going to be out because sil and bil are using that too.

 

As far as stealing names goes, I think if you run your idea past the close friend or relative who already has a child with the name you love and they don't mind, then go for it. But otherwise it's a bit odd. In the case of the cousins named Matthew, one goes by Jake and one by Matt, right? So that would be okay.

(Speaking of two Matthews ... my brother has a son named Matthew and married a woman with a son named Matthew! They distinguish the two by "Matthew" and "Matt" but it does get interesting when both boys are home for holidays!)

My SIL blatantly stole my favorite name. We were both pregnant at the same time, me with my first and she with her third. About a month before her due date, she asked me if I had picked out names. I told that our boy name was Aaron Thomas and our girl name was Amy Elizabeth (I didn't know what I was having, neither did she). Well lo and behold, she had a girl and named her Amy Elizabeth! It wouldn't have bothered me as much if she had a different last name but we married brothers so our last names are the same. Additionally, we lived in the same school district and the kids would be in the same grade! So having two Amy Elizabeth Lastname's wouldn't have worked, IMO. My SIL laughed about it and said "Too bad you didn't have your baby first!" I was furious! Amy Elizabeth was a name I had chosen for my little girl when I was very young, it has special meaning to my mom and my side of the family.

When I had my baby a couple of months later, it was a boy, hence Aaron Thomas. I had a daughter two years later and we named her Emily Katherine, a beautiful name, but I truly mourned the loss of my "special" name Amy Elizabeth!

I learned a valuable lesson ... one I never had to use because I stopped at two kids ... but the lesson is DON'T SHARE YOUR BABY NAMES WITH CLOSE FRIENDS OR FAMILY MEMBERS UNTIL AFTER THE BABY IS BORN!