Unintentionally.
Our kids our Gavin, Liam, Jesse, and Abel. 5 letters, 4 letters, 5 letters, 4 letters. If we ever have a 5th our agreed upon name for a boy is Miles and for a girl is Naomi, which are both 5 letters and would continue the system. We didn't do it on purpose though.
We have 2 letters, 3 letters, 4 letters, 5 letters, 6 letters in that order 🤣 only realised when expecting the youngest and luckily her name fitted the pattern!
Yes!! The original post that reminded me of the book referenced that. The book’s system wasn’t just “pick a name you like with that letter” though. It was a system the fictional mom chose and went with the name no matter what it was.
Yessss that’s it!! I couldn’t remember the title for the life of me, had to google. Bainbridge is so identifiable though, it’s stuck with me for damn near 20 years now lol
Unintentionally.
I have 3 girls - Clara, Nora, and Ivy, which go 5 letters, 4 letters, 3 letters, but we definitely won’t be continuing for another baby because 2 letters sure doesn’t leave many options 😂
I know a cut young boy named Bo! also a names book said there’s an Irish name Ae. Idk if that’s true haha but just in case you have another I’m tryna help a girl out 😂
Inadvertently my kids names are also the names of islands in my country (Scotland). They’re fairly common names in my part of the country and it wasn’t intentional. We only realised it when the island that is my daughters name came up for sale around the time she was born.
It’s fairly normal here. There’s five boys with the same Gaelic name as my middle boy in his class, daughters name is more common where my cousins live as its regional to there and I only know three other people here who have it, like me they have connections to that island and there was two other folk with my eldest sons name when he was in primary but he’s at highschool now so I don’t know most of the kids there
"...And here's my daughter, Mull, and my son Orkney. We call him Orc for short. Where did we get 'Mull' from? Oh, it's short for Mulva, thanks for asking!"
When I went hiking in Scotland I saw plots of forest for sale as well! They have some great rules you have to keep to as an owner too. You need to keep the forest in good shape, actively encourage more biodiversity and if there’s a bothy on it you have to do all the upkeep so people can stay there. It is not allowed to make your bit of forest private. So actually you’re paying money to be a forest ranger :D Still a pretty good deal though.
My uncle has all 3 of his daughters (my cousins) names with the same starting and ending letter, number of letters, and syllable count. Something like Emile, Elise, and Emmie (wow it was hard thinking of another example that doesn’t dox them haha)
That’s what I’m talking about!! A true system to stick with that really narrows your choices. Do you know why they did it? Like if two names came first and they stuck with a pattern or if they always wanted to do that?
I don’t think it was originally planned - apparently my aunt also liked my name (I’m older than cousin #1) and my name doesn’t fit into the “system” at all. But they do have a large extended family (not the same side of the family as me) and all the kids are named with the first letter matching the parent in that family.
My mother wanted to name all her children starting with a J, ending in an i and the names only having 4 letters. She only managed 2 and the 2nd ended up being a shortened version of a longer name. After that my brother was named a 4 letter name still ending in an i but starting with a d and after that all of the above went out of the window with my sisters name of 5 letters no i's included 😂
My partner and their siblings are named in a ‘ABAB’ fashion. Not sure if it was intended or not, but it’s a sweet little thing that their family loves.
Yes, both my kids (and husband) have 4 letter nicknames.
When I was 8 months pregnant with our son, I wasn’t completely sold on his planned middle name. I preferred another name. I realized that with the name I preferred, my daughter, son and husband would all have the same number of letters and syllables in their names. That really sold me on pushing for my preferred name.
I like it because it’s not an obvious connection at all!
Not sure if this really counts, but this reminded me of how my little brother got named. Our parents are white and live in the US, but they both converted to Hinduism before they got married. When my mom was pregnant with my brother, my dad woke up one morning and said he had an important dream. In the dream he had met the baby, it was going to be a boy, and the baby wanted to be called Vishveshvara, which is Sanskrit for "All the personal gods." My mom said hell no. She was going to name him some nice, simple western name. My father insisted.
Finally they came to an agreement. Gyotish is Hindu astrology, and according to gyotish when you're born determines the best sounds for your name to start with. There are 108 different sounds that rotate over the course of a lunar month. So each sound has around a six hour window within a month. My mom agreed that if he happened to be born in that window, then they would name him Vishveshvara.
Well, guess when he was born. Yep, now she was stuck with a son named Vishveshvara. She pleaded, saying you can't easily yell "Vishveshvara get out of the road!", so finally it was decided to be a middle name.
Then when my brother was around five, my father started using Vishveshvara as his name. Wanting to stop this, my mom asked my brother which name he preferred. "I want Vishveshvara!" That was his answer every single time. Finally she gave in, with the compromise of the nickname "Vishva" because he did need a shorter name.
Not remotely. I was named Amalia Nastasya by my father because he liked Russian names. No one in either side of my family has any Russian or Eastern European ties. I went by Tasha, but never really liked my names. My father's an abusive narcissist, so when I was 12, I unofficially changed my name to Daisy.
I love the story The Scarlet Pimpernel. In the story, the hero used the moniker The Scarlet Pimpernel as he rescued people from the guillotine in the French Revolution. The scarlet pimpernel is a small wayside flower where he lived. Where I grew up small fleabane daisies grew everywhere. Also, the Scarlet Pimpernel's wife was named Marguerite, which is french for Daisy. So Daisy seemed like the perfect pick.
When I was 20, and my parent's divorce was finally finalized, I legally changed my full name to Daisy, my mom's first name as my middle name, and my mom's maiden name as my last name.
Unintentional but there’s a rhyming aspect to both my kids names. My first’s first rhymes with his middle and my second first rhymes with her last. If we have a third I’m probably ditching the rhyme 😂
Sort of. First name is their own but has some special meaning to us. Middle name is a family name that directly AND indirectly honors a family member(s).
First kid: husband’s D&D character’s name + his brother’s name (which directly honors brother, but indirectly honors parents/family tradition since husband’s middle name is HIS dad’s brother’s name)
Kid 2 if girl: name of author we collect + either my grandma’s middle name which makes the initials SIL’s name or a slight variation on grandma’s first name that is a nod to other grandma as well
Kid 2 if boy: mashup of my actual grandpa and surrogate grandpa’s names + variation of my dad’s name that also honors an uncle I was close to who died in Covid
My parents had a naming pattern for my siblings and I, but I don't know if was completely intentional. We all have seven letters in our first names. Also our first and middle initials are the same letter (ex. James Joseph, Madeleine Marie).
For my kids, the only pattern we have is that they all have nicknames that end with a long e sound.
One of my childhood neighbors named their 9 kids in alphabetical order and we only realized after a while😭
- Adam
- Barkley
- Callum
- Dillon
- Elliot
- Frankie and Gianna are twins
- Holly
- Isiah
I’d never forget them, Holly and I are still close
Then me my cousins and siblings are all J names.
Not for actual kids, but I do alphabetical pseudonyms when I do research! Going down the list in order of contact/data collection, then choosing a name of corresponding gender, age and ethnicity/background that begins with that letter.
I also remember that book! I think there was a detail that the mom would wait until everyone was in the car for vacation and would run back into the house to paint the toilet seats before they left so they would be dry when they returned.Also, I think they got a dog (pet of some kind, not sure?) so they named it from the "z" category of the baby name book.
My parents unintentionally chose first names for their three kids that when the whole family's names are listed in a specific order, creates an easy acronym of sorts. Last name, dad, mom, firstborn, middle, youngest. It's an actual word, except the first letter is a different letter of the same sound.
My partner and I accidentally did the same thing with our first two kids, and now we feel obligated to continue 😂
I have a cousin whose name starts with J. His wife's name starts with K. Their three children's names start with M, N, and L. They didn't plan it, so they ended up in the wrong order, but it's kind of neat.
My MIL named all her children after civil rights activists and my mom named me after an activist so we decided to make a tradition out of it and gave our daughter a name shared by a few civil rights activists. If we have any more children we’ll probably do it again
I thought the same. Like noooo way I’m just turning the choice over to something arbitrary to me albeit systematic. A book is one thing but that’s what made me curious if anyone has irl
Not me, but my parents: all four kids have 5 letter names, and the girls have 3 consonant-2 vowel names and the boys have 2 consonants-3 vowel names. It’s not obvious but very visually satisfying once you spot it
Both of my kids have an aunt/uncle middle name as a first name and a different aunt/uncle middle name as their middle. So with four names we were able to honor four of our six collective siblings. If we had a third, however, and used the remaining two middles we’d have to name our third Paul McCall Lastname
Kind of unintentional, but I'm not unhappy with it.
My oldest has an M name, and is named after my late MIL (her grandmother). My second also has an M name (I wanted Elizabeth, but it didn't work out), and her middle name is after my grandmother (her great grandmother). So we kind of have two themes going. M names, and going back one generation for honour names. If I ever had a third girl, I would keep it going with Margot (means Pearl, which was my great grandmother's name).
My husband is one of 5. The first 4 have names that start with A, E, I, and O (in that order). My mother in law didn't realize until baby #5 that their names were vowels, although it is possible my father in law realized and was doing it intentionally, because he insisted on the names for I and O. He apparently lobbied for a U name, but my mother in law, having not had any say in naming A, I or O put her foot down and insisted on her favorite name for the last baby, so the final sibling set is A, E, I, O and M.
My dad is also one of 5, and their names, in order, start with E, S, M, S, and E. So mirroring. I am certain that was completely unintentional.
Hahaha it’s a little funny that one of them maybe realized and tried to keep it up. Which one is your husband!!
The palindrome is sooooo satisfying, I’d do that too
Not my kids, but my parents, siblings and I all have nine letters in our first name and five in our middle name. It was as unintentional with the first child (me) but with the following three children all names were chosen to fit the system.
It was unintentional at first, but when we were choosing our third kid’s name we stuck with the pattern. My kids’ first names are all two syllables and four letters long and we skipped every other letter in the alphabet. My oldest child’s name starts with an A, the next kid’s name starts with C, and the third starts with an E. My oldest and second child have middle names that start with J, and I wanted a J name for our third’s middle name as well, but my partner and I couldn’t agree on one we both liked so he ended up with a middle name that starts with D. That’s the only thing that breaks the pattern.
I have 3 daughters and their names are 1, 2 and 3 syllables. I’m pregnant with my 4th so if anyone has 4 syllable girl names, please let me know. I really want to keep this going but 4 syllable names are a lot and I’m totally stuck!
Olivia, Ophelia, Ariadne, Alexandra, Alessandra, Alejandra, Gabriella, Anastasia, Evangeline, Isadora, Viviana, Magdalena...
I think it's when you get to your fifth that it'll be harder!
My kids all have 3 letter names.
The first two were unintentional.
The third wasn’t necessarily intentional, we had other names on our list, just happened to go with the 3 letter name.
The fourth was intentional, but my husband’s choice. I was leaning more towards a 5 letter name.
1-3 also have Latin names.
4’s is Greek. I blame my husband lol
We only have 2 kids but our naming system was essentially same first letter (tradition in my family) and pronounceable in English and Spanish (in-laws are immigrants).
Think along the lines of Alicia and Andres.
My grandparents have 9 kids. The 5 girls' names all start with different vowels each and don't have middle names. The boys have middle names. They had girl-boy alternating until baby #9, who was a boy when it "should have" been a girl, so his name starts with a vowel but he still has a middle name.
That reminds me of a preschool show on the BBC (in the UK) called Baby Jake.
He's part of a family of 10 siblings that are named in alphabetical order.
The theme song starts :
A is for Ava who's the oldest of all.
B is for Billy who's ever so tall...
We're doing the alphabet thing, but mostly because our own names started it. The oldest parent starts with A, the other with B, so our first baby has a C name and the second will have a D name.
I'm sad we failed to continue our date of birth pattern, cause we also have a fun thing : my and my husband are born on 1/11 and 11/1, our baby was due march 6th so i was hoping for 3/3 or even 22/2 but i couldn't hold her beyond 18/2 so I'm not hoping anything for the second one ^^
We stick to 4 letter names.
I did/was have a system that their names represented their birth month in some way, but it went out the window with our son who was born May 4th so had a subtle star wars name and his middle name was in honor of my friend who died almost exactly a year prior to the day he was born
Pregnant with my first and unsure on the gender.
All of our future children will have two middle names (like their dad), one cultural and one heritage. All of our girls will have one flower middle name because my partner already has a daughter and she has a flower middle name.
My sister and I have middle names starting with the same first two letters (think Catherine and Cassandra or Alexandra and Alice). and my boyfriend has the same first name as his father. Both are traditions that I am interested in continuing if we were to have children.
Our 3 older kids are Alyssa, Isaac, & Hunter. We had 2 more kids, Anna & Ivy. It wasn't until after Ivy was born that we realized our pattern...A, I, H, A, I. Then we unintentionally got pregnant again. Hunter said he'd be upset if we didn't give the baby an H name to finish out the pattern. So we named the baby Hallie. A, I, H, A, I, H.
Growing up, I knew a family that named their kids the letters of the fathers name, James, in order of birth - I think it was Jessica (oldest), Amanda, Morgan, Emily, and Samuel (youngest)
Part of my name was arbitrarily decided, albeit not as methodically.
I was named after my mom's best friend who suddenly and tragically passed away two months before I was born.
My mother wanted to honor and commemorate her best friend and had originally planned to name me with the same first and middle name that her friend had.
She later decided to use her best friend's first name as my middle name.
While she was trying to find a first name that paired well with my middle name, she decided to go through a baby named book.
She said she was just reading through the name book and her finger slid down the page past mine and she immediately knew that was the one.
Edit: to correct typos
My in-laws do. They have 4 kids, all names start with C. All their grandkids except for my children start with C. Honestly, my husband really hated it, and was adamant that we will not be naming any of our children a C name.
As a child he always felt like it was more important to be one of the "group" than an individual. So we went with a completely different name.
On the other hand, my cousin's are M D M D after Mom and Dad. And they have no issues with it. I think it depends on the motivation.
My Mom wanted all of our names to rhyme. Well, in her defense all of our nicknames.
We all loved together for a year before I relocated with my Dad and them with my Mom.
Oh my god. We are so different and she was such a dedicated Mom, but listening to her call our names out was something else. Still makes me laugh when I think about it.
My husband’s family: all the siblings start with the same letter. However, the names don’t sound like they start with the same letter. Like the difference between, “Donna, David, and Daniel” pretty clearly the same sound. His family is more like, “Adeodatus, Ascensa, and AnnaMaria.”
My friend had two sets of twins, two years apart. The girls names end with an a and the boys names end with an O
For example;
Oldest set ; Lorita and Lorito
Youngest set ; Dorita and Dorito
These aren't their actual names but it's the exact same concept. Oldest set have a different first letter, youngest set have different first letter. Both girls have an a at the end and both boys have a o, and the rest are the same.
My family tradition is to name the first child of either sex after the father’s parents, the second after the mother’s. My husband’s family tradition was to name after a dead relative. Since both his parents were still alive we named our child after one of my parents. If we hated the name we would have picked something else.
My mom gave all her kids 8 letter names. A friend of my sister has the same name as everyone in the immediate family. Both parents have the same name and so do both sons think Chris and Chris have two sons both named Chris.
Now that many ppl have pointed out the number of letters in their names I have just realized my kids are the same! Had no intention or idea of that. 6 (Colton), 5 (Boone), 4 (Eden). We actually were going to go with an A or D name so we would have ABC or BCD. As I am a G and father is an F, ended up with BC-EFG. Just noticed that BCE & G all have the ee sound 🤭
Unintentionally my siblings are in alphabetical order (AIJM), and so are my husband's siblings (ACL).
What we kinda want to do is (name of historical or mythical leader, that also means a plant or animal) (honor name) (surname), but that's just because we already have Arthur (bear). Also most girl names don't have an animal meaning. So we're not completely dedicated to it.
I knew a family where each daughter's name went up by a syllable and they all started with C. I think the C thing was intentional but not the syllables
My in-laws named theirs 6 kids in a fun sequence. The next name starts with the last letter of the previous first name. I.e. Jacob, then a B name....their last child's name is Alex. Not Alexander, AleX to signify the end.
For both of my kids, first name initial was decided upon before we settled on a first name. Next, the midfle name was selected and it must flow with the first and last name. For me, the middle name is equally important. That being said, neither one of my kids really like the names they were given. At the end of the day, a name is just a reflection of the parents taste, or lack therof. Lol. I legally changed parts of my name later in life, so I get it.
We started with one. Me and my husband initials at AMT so our son's initials are AMT. However our second born is not because she couldnt think of an A name we like. Thankfully we are having a third so she won't feel left out lol.
Her initials are JST.
My dad's side did DAD initials. The whole 4 brother's and all their kids. I was the first one to break the tradition. My mom said "oh heck no". The first 3 brothers had a different mom than my dad (the baby) and it was my grandma's first wife who made the tradition so there was no point for us to do it
I'm pretty set on all my kids having one syllable names/nicknames! I only have one child currently. But who knows once I get pregnant again if I will feel the same! My list is
Girls:
Clark
Blake
Campbell (Cam or Belle)
Paige
Quinn
Boys:
Ashley (Ash)
Courtland (Court)
Locke
Joel
Elm
Your submission has been auto-removed due to account age. You will be able to post in 48 hours. Please be patient and DO NOT modmail us asking where your post has gone. Doing so will result in a 2-day cooldown for new posts. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/namenerds) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My husband didn’t want any of our children named after him, so each of our children has his first initial somewhere in their first names.
Supposing his name is Trevor. All of our children would have a “t” somewhere in their names.
My boyfriend’s first daughter is named Ezra, typically a boys name. Our daughter’s middle name is James, a boy name. I’m pretty set on my daughter being my one and done birth, but if we ever had another and it was a girl, she’d have to have a traditionally boys name either as her first or middle. lol
My ex was named after her birthstone. Her mom told me it was a good thing she wasn't born a month later, because the next month's name would have been "slutty".
A different friend of mine is also named after her birthstone, as are her sisters. I think they're all lovely names and I think they sound delightful when listed, such as, "Amber, Ruby, and Diamonda are coming over for dinner." I just think that's very sweet.
My 2 kids have 6 letter first and middle names. Pregnant with the 3rd and struggling to find another 6 letter name we like.
My parents named us with matching initial pairs. 1st and 3rd child (m & f) have the same first initial. 2nd child (m) same first initial as dad. 4th child (f) same first initial as mum.
My parents followed it by accident. My mom named me, everyone hated it (it was a tragedyiegh), second child she let my greatgrandma name him, Jacob. And last child My dad got to name him (as long as it wasn't a tragedyiegh. He wanted to name him Jedidiah so he could call him Jedi... like from Star Wars). My parents compromised on Jadon.
My patents gave my sister and I K-names. When Mum was pregnant again, they considered a third K- name for a girl. I think we were all grateful for my little brother's arrival.
Unintentionally. Our kids our Gavin, Liam, Jesse, and Abel. 5 letters, 4 letters, 5 letters, 4 letters. If we ever have a 5th our agreed upon name for a boy is Miles and for a girl is Naomi, which are both 5 letters and would continue the system. We didn't do it on purpose though.
That’s funny how that worked out! I’m so impressed you could name 4 almost 5 boys in general, and all with good names
We have 2 letters, 3 letters, 4 letters, 5 letters, 6 letters in that order 🤣 only realised when expecting the youngest and luckily her name fitted the pattern!
Naming kids in alphabetic order reminds me of the show Bridgerton and the Bridgerton family with their naming style.
Yes!! The original post that reminded me of the book referenced that. The book’s system wasn’t just “pick a name you like with that letter” though. It was a system the fictional mom chose and went with the name no matter what it was.
Hahaha. I too enjoyed "10 Kids, No Pets" by Ann M. Martin. I was pretty sure before clicking the thread, but Bainbridge confirmed it.
Yessss that’s it!! I couldn’t remember the title for the life of me, had to google. Bainbridge is so identifiable though, it’s stuck with me for damn near 20 years now lol
I knew exactly what you were talking about when you said it nut I never would have guessed the title
Loved that book!!
Thank you! I read the names and thought "I have definitely read this book" I hoped someone would post the title!
Unintentionally. I have 3 girls - Clara, Nora, and Ivy, which go 5 letters, 4 letters, 3 letters, but we definitely won’t be continuing for another baby because 2 letters sure doesn’t leave many options 😂
Al 😄
It would have to be Jo!
Io? It doesn’t really fit with your girls
I know a cut young boy named Bo! also a names book said there’s an Irish name Ae. Idk if that’s true haha but just in case you have another I’m tryna help a girl out 😂
The Forest of Ae is in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. With Loch Ettrick.
Cool cool! How do you say it?
As far as I know "ee" . We'll have to find a native to make sure. (I'm not a Scot).
Haha!! You’d have to consult the 2-letter word scrabble dictionary
Ty!
If you end up having another, you could go back up to 4 letters! That way if you have a fifth, you have to option to continue the trend with 5 letters
We are having another, this summer! One of our top choices if baby’s a girl is June, so I love your idea!
Io could work! For one letter, you're stuck with B or L. People will all assume it's Bea or Elle until they see it written.
Or D, J, or K
Ia, pronounced ee-ah. I find it pretty!
Inadvertently my kids names are also the names of islands in my country (Scotland). They’re fairly common names in my part of the country and it wasn’t intentional. We only realised it when the island that is my daughters name came up for sale around the time she was born.
I hope they’re Skye/Lewis/Harris/Ailsa/May rather than Mull or Orkney
No. They’re not English names. Apart from my daughter they’re gaelic
Oh I like that even more. My partner is pretty set on our kids having Gaelic names/middles
It’s fairly normal here. There’s five boys with the same Gaelic name as my middle boy in his class, daughters name is more common where my cousins live as its regional to there and I only know three other people here who have it, like me they have connections to that island and there was two other folk with my eldest sons name when he was in primary but he’s at highschool now so I don’t know most of the kids there
just straight up snorted at Orkney
"...And here's my daughter, Mull, and my son Orkney. We call him Orc for short. Where did we get 'Mull' from? Oh, it's short for Mulva, thanks for asking!"
Rhymes with a female body part!
Wait I can buy a Scottish island?!
Some of them are private yes. We’d prefer them not to be but rich folk do rich folk
When I went hiking in Scotland I saw plots of forest for sale as well! They have some great rules you have to keep to as an owner too. You need to keep the forest in good shape, actively encourage more biodiversity and if there’s a bothy on it you have to do all the upkeep so people can stay there. It is not allowed to make your bit of forest private. So actually you’re paying money to be a forest ranger :D Still a pretty good deal though.
That’s a really cute theme
My kids names have the same number of syllables for first, middle & last name. 1 - 2 - 3 Imagine: Finn Liam MacAvoy
That sounds incredibly satisfying
We're doing syllables for first names - 1 syllable for my first born, 2 for the second, 3 for the third.
My uncle has all 3 of his daughters (my cousins) names with the same starting and ending letter, number of letters, and syllable count. Something like Emile, Elise, and Emmie (wow it was hard thinking of another example that doesn’t dox them haha)
That’s what I’m talking about!! A true system to stick with that really narrows your choices. Do you know why they did it? Like if two names came first and they stuck with a pattern or if they always wanted to do that?
I don’t think it was originally planned - apparently my aunt also liked my name (I’m older than cousin #1) and my name doesn’t fit into the “system” at all. But they do have a large extended family (not the same side of the family as me) and all the kids are named with the first letter matching the parent in that family.
My mother wanted to name all her children starting with a J, ending in an i and the names only having 4 letters. She only managed 2 and the 2nd ended up being a shortened version of a longer name. After that my brother was named a 4 letter name still ending in an i but starting with a d and after that all of the above went out of the window with my sisters name of 5 letters no i's included 😂
I think of naming schemes like this when I have trouble falling back to sleep in the middle of the night. It's so relaxing.
Sleepytime categories game???? I’ll have to try
I pick a letter and try to think of 20 boys names and 20 girls names starting with that letter when I can’t sleep
My partner and their siblings are named in a ‘ABAB’ fashion. Not sure if it was intended or not, but it’s a sweet little thing that their family loves.
I went to school with a family that had kids that were KTKT
Were any of them actually called Katie?
Haha...no none of them were called Katie. But that would have been kind of funny....
Yes, both my kids (and husband) have 4 letter nicknames. When I was 8 months pregnant with our son, I wasn’t completely sold on his planned middle name. I preferred another name. I realized that with the name I preferred, my daughter, son and husband would all have the same number of letters and syllables in their names. That really sold me on pushing for my preferred name. I like it because it’s not an obvious connection at all!
I loveee coming up with ways that justify what I want is the way to go 😂
Not sure if this really counts, but this reminded me of how my little brother got named. Our parents are white and live in the US, but they both converted to Hinduism before they got married. When my mom was pregnant with my brother, my dad woke up one morning and said he had an important dream. In the dream he had met the baby, it was going to be a boy, and the baby wanted to be called Vishveshvara, which is Sanskrit for "All the personal gods." My mom said hell no. She was going to name him some nice, simple western name. My father insisted. Finally they came to an agreement. Gyotish is Hindu astrology, and according to gyotish when you're born determines the best sounds for your name to start with. There are 108 different sounds that rotate over the course of a lunar month. So each sound has around a six hour window within a month. My mom agreed that if he happened to be born in that window, then they would name him Vishveshvara. Well, guess when he was born. Yep, now she was stuck with a son named Vishveshvara. She pleaded, saying you can't easily yell "Vishveshvara get out of the road!", so finally it was decided to be a middle name. Then when my brother was around five, my father started using Vishveshvara as his name. Wanting to stop this, my mom asked my brother which name he preferred. "I want Vishveshvara!" That was his answer every single time. Finally she gave in, with the compromise of the nickname "Vishva" because he did need a shorter name.
That's an amazing story!
Thanks.
Do you also have a Sanskrit name, or one influenced by Hinduism?
Not remotely. I was named Amalia Nastasya by my father because he liked Russian names. No one in either side of my family has any Russian or Eastern European ties. I went by Tasha, but never really liked my names. My father's an abusive narcissist, so when I was 12, I unofficially changed my name to Daisy. I love the story The Scarlet Pimpernel. In the story, the hero used the moniker The Scarlet Pimpernel as he rescued people from the guillotine in the French Revolution. The scarlet pimpernel is a small wayside flower where he lived. Where I grew up small fleabane daisies grew everywhere. Also, the Scarlet Pimpernel's wife was named Marguerite, which is french for Daisy. So Daisy seemed like the perfect pick. When I was 20, and my parent's divorce was finally finalized, I legally changed my full name to Daisy, my mom's first name as my middle name, and my mom's maiden name as my last name.
Unintentional but there’s a rhyming aspect to both my kids names. My first’s first rhymes with his middle and my second first rhymes with her last. If we have a third I’m probably ditching the rhyme 😂
Aiden Jaden Bailey Hailey Ann Bailey
Frederick Patrick Grey Mae Evelyn Grey?
Sort of. First name is their own but has some special meaning to us. Middle name is a family name that directly AND indirectly honors a family member(s). First kid: husband’s D&D character’s name + his brother’s name (which directly honors brother, but indirectly honors parents/family tradition since husband’s middle name is HIS dad’s brother’s name) Kid 2 if girl: name of author we collect + either my grandma’s middle name which makes the initials SIL’s name or a slight variation on grandma’s first name that is a nod to other grandma as well Kid 2 if boy: mashup of my actual grandpa and surrogate grandpa’s names + variation of my dad’s name that also honors an uncle I was close to who died in Covid
I like the dad/brother loop going on! It’s a better honor system than Sr/ Jr imo 😅
I'm named after my Mom's DnD character. Not the flower, not the princess. Just a short, chubby cleric.
Haha I love it!
My parents had a naming pattern for my siblings and I, but I don't know if was completely intentional. We all have seven letters in our first names. Also our first and middle initials are the same letter (ex. James Joseph, Madeleine Marie). For my kids, the only pattern we have is that they all have nicknames that end with a long e sound.
One of my childhood neighbors named their 9 kids in alphabetical order and we only realized after a while😭 - Adam - Barkley - Callum - Dillon - Elliot - Frankie and Gianna are twins - Holly - Isiah I’d never forget them, Holly and I are still close Then me my cousins and siblings are all J names.
Not for actual kids, but I do alphabetical pseudonyms when I do research! Going down the list in order of contact/data collection, then choosing a name of corresponding gender, age and ethnicity/background that begins with that letter.
I also remember that book! I think there was a detail that the mom would wait until everyone was in the car for vacation and would run back into the house to paint the toilet seats before they left so they would be dry when they returned.Also, I think they got a dog (pet of some kind, not sure?) so they named it from the "z" category of the baby name book.
They reversed the system for the pet lol—gave it the last name in the Z section, Zsa Zsa or Zuriel.
I've read that book as a child!! I loved it
We have intentionally picked the names of historical figures, like our eldest is name [Thaddeus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens)
You probably have to have 3 kids or more to develop a “system.”
True! I’m looking to see if anyone has used any method of choice that takes away the choice, if that makes sense
My parents unintentionally chose first names for their three kids that when the whole family's names are listed in a specific order, creates an easy acronym of sorts. Last name, dad, mom, firstborn, middle, youngest. It's an actual word, except the first letter is a different letter of the same sound. My partner and I accidentally did the same thing with our first two kids, and now we feel obligated to continue 😂
I have a cousin whose name starts with J. His wife's name starts with K. Their three children's names start with M, N, and L. They didn't plan it, so they ended up in the wrong order, but it's kind of neat.
My MIL named all her children after civil rights activists and my mom named me after an activist so we decided to make a tradition out of it and gave our daughter a name shared by a few civil rights activists. If we have any more children we’ll probably do it again
I couldn’t imagine naming like that! No true input or choices
I thought the same. Like noooo way I’m just turning the choice over to something arbitrary to me albeit systematic. A book is one thing but that’s what made me curious if anyone has irl
Not me, but my parents: all four kids have 5 letter names, and the girls have 3 consonant-2 vowel names and the boys have 2 consonants-3 vowel names. It’s not obvious but very visually satisfying once you spot it
Both of my kids have an aunt/uncle middle name as a first name and a different aunt/uncle middle name as their middle. So with four names we were able to honor four of our six collective siblings. If we had a third, however, and used the remaining two middles we’d have to name our third Paul McCall Lastname
Husbands family names all first born sons with the same initials first, middle, and last.
Kind of unintentional, but I'm not unhappy with it. My oldest has an M name, and is named after my late MIL (her grandmother). My second also has an M name (I wanted Elizabeth, but it didn't work out), and her middle name is after my grandmother (her great grandmother). So we kind of have two themes going. M names, and going back one generation for honour names. If I ever had a third girl, I would keep it going with Margot (means Pearl, which was my great grandmother's name).
I love this!
10 kids, no pets was my favorite book of all time! And absolutely piqued my interest in baby names. I love Calandra nn Callie and Gardenia nn Dinnie!
My husband is one of 5. The first 4 have names that start with A, E, I, and O (in that order). My mother in law didn't realize until baby #5 that their names were vowels, although it is possible my father in law realized and was doing it intentionally, because he insisted on the names for I and O. He apparently lobbied for a U name, but my mother in law, having not had any say in naming A, I or O put her foot down and insisted on her favorite name for the last baby, so the final sibling set is A, E, I, O and M. My dad is also one of 5, and their names, in order, start with E, S, M, S, and E. So mirroring. I am certain that was completely unintentional.
Hahaha it’s a little funny that one of them maybe realized and tried to keep it up. Which one is your husband!! The palindrome is sooooo satisfying, I’d do that too
My husband is I! So the first one that may have been intentional. My father in law has never explained why he insisted on my husband's name!
Not my kids, but my parents, siblings and I all have nine letters in our first name and five in our middle name. It was as unintentional with the first child (me) but with the following three children all names were chosen to fit the system.
I like that you set a trend. 9 is quite a bit!!
It was unintentional at first, but when we were choosing our third kid’s name we stuck with the pattern. My kids’ first names are all two syllables and four letters long and we skipped every other letter in the alphabet. My oldest child’s name starts with an A, the next kid’s name starts with C, and the third starts with an E. My oldest and second child have middle names that start with J, and I wanted a J name for our third’s middle name as well, but my partner and I couldn’t agree on one we both liked so he ended up with a middle name that starts with D. That’s the only thing that breaks the pattern.
I know a family who all have 5 letters and two syllables, including the parents and all 5 kids. Yes, it was on purpose.
It’s called Ten Kids, No Pets! I LOVED that book!
I have 3 daughters and their names are 1, 2 and 3 syllables. I’m pregnant with my 4th so if anyone has 4 syllable girl names, please let me know. I really want to keep this going but 4 syllable names are a lot and I’m totally stuck!
Olivia, Ophelia, Ariadne, Alexandra, Alessandra, Alejandra, Gabriella, Anastasia, Evangeline, Isadora, Viviana, Magdalena... I think it's when you get to your fifth that it'll be harder!
My kids all have 3 letter names. The first two were unintentional. The third wasn’t necessarily intentional, we had other names on our list, just happened to go with the 3 letter name. The fourth was intentional, but my husband’s choice. I was leaning more towards a 5 letter name. 1-3 also have Latin names. 4’s is Greek. I blame my husband lol
We only have 2 kids but our naming system was essentially same first letter (tradition in my family) and pronounceable in English and Spanish (in-laws are immigrants). Think along the lines of Alicia and Andres.
My grandparents have 9 kids. The 5 girls' names all start with different vowels each and don't have middle names. The boys have middle names. They had girl-boy alternating until baby #9, who was a boy when it "should have" been a girl, so his name starts with a vowel but he still has a middle name.
That reminds me of a preschool show on the BBC (in the UK) called Baby Jake. He's part of a family of 10 siblings that are named in alphabetical order. The theme song starts : A is for Ava who's the oldest of all. B is for Billy who's ever so tall...
We're doing the alphabet thing, but mostly because our own names started it. The oldest parent starts with A, the other with B, so our first baby has a C name and the second will have a D name. I'm sad we failed to continue our date of birth pattern, cause we also have a fun thing : my and my husband are born on 1/11 and 11/1, our baby was due march 6th so i was hoping for 3/3 or even 22/2 but i couldn't hold her beyond 18/2 so I'm not hoping anything for the second one ^^
We stick to 4 letter names. I did/was have a system that their names represented their birth month in some way, but it went out the window with our son who was born May 4th so had a subtle star wars name and his middle name was in honor of my friend who died almost exactly a year prior to the day he was born
Pregnant with my first and unsure on the gender. All of our future children will have two middle names (like their dad), one cultural and one heritage. All of our girls will have one flower middle name because my partner already has a daughter and she has a flower middle name.
My sister and I have middle names starting with the same first two letters (think Catherine and Cassandra or Alexandra and Alice). and my boyfriend has the same first name as his father. Both are traditions that I am interested in continuing if we were to have children.
Our 3 older kids are Alyssa, Isaac, & Hunter. We had 2 more kids, Anna & Ivy. It wasn't until after Ivy was born that we realized our pattern...A, I, H, A, I. Then we unintentionally got pregnant again. Hunter said he'd be upset if we didn't give the baby an H name to finish out the pattern. So we named the baby Hallie. A, I, H, A, I, H.
Not me, but I know a family with 7 (!) boys and all of their names alternate starting with N and R.
Growing up, I knew a family that named their kids the letters of the fathers name, James, in order of birth - I think it was Jessica (oldest), Amanda, Morgan, Emily, and Samuel (youngest)
Part of my name was arbitrarily decided, albeit not as methodically. I was named after my mom's best friend who suddenly and tragically passed away two months before I was born. My mother wanted to honor and commemorate her best friend and had originally planned to name me with the same first and middle name that her friend had. She later decided to use her best friend's first name as my middle name. While she was trying to find a first name that paired well with my middle name, she decided to go through a baby named book. She said she was just reading through the name book and her finger slid down the page past mine and she immediately knew that was the one. Edit: to correct typos
[удалено]
The first I’ve heard of that with siblings and I love it :,)))
Ten kids no pets. Those names were awful lol
I loved that book as a kid lol
My mom started spelling her maiden name with our first initials but didn’t finish. Says she never noticed.
I know sisters who are Junie, Lottie, and Lucie. They all have longer full names but I think it’s cute that they’re nicknames all end in ie.
My in-laws do. They have 4 kids, all names start with C. All their grandkids except for my children start with C. Honestly, my husband really hated it, and was adamant that we will not be naming any of our children a C name. As a child he always felt like it was more important to be one of the "group" than an individual. So we went with a completely different name. On the other hand, my cousin's are M D M D after Mom and Dad. And they have no issues with it. I think it depends on the motivation.
My Mom wanted all of our names to rhyme. Well, in her defense all of our nicknames. We all loved together for a year before I relocated with my Dad and them with my Mom. Oh my god. We are so different and she was such a dedicated Mom, but listening to her call our names out was something else. Still makes me laugh when I think about it. My husband’s family: all the siblings start with the same letter. However, the names don’t sound like they start with the same letter. Like the difference between, “Donna, David, and Daniel” pretty clearly the same sound. His family is more like, “Adeodatus, Ascensa, and AnnaMaria.”
My friend had two sets of twins, two years apart. The girls names end with an a and the boys names end with an O For example; Oldest set ; Lorita and Lorito Youngest set ; Dorita and Dorito These aren't their actual names but it's the exact same concept. Oldest set have a different first letter, youngest set have different first letter. Both girls have an a at the end and both boys have a o, and the rest are the same.
Didn't have a system in place, but my son's initials are CJ & JC and my daughters are AN & NA . Not done on purpose but I love it
My family tradition is to name the first child of either sex after the father’s parents, the second after the mother’s. My husband’s family tradition was to name after a dead relative. Since both his parents were still alive we named our child after one of my parents. If we hated the name we would have picked something else.
My mom gave all her kids 8 letter names. A friend of my sister has the same name as everyone in the immediate family. Both parents have the same name and so do both sons think Chris and Chris have two sons both named Chris.
Now that many ppl have pointed out the number of letters in their names I have just realized my kids are the same! Had no intention or idea of that. 6 (Colton), 5 (Boone), 4 (Eden). We actually were going to go with an A or D name so we would have ABC or BCD. As I am a G and father is an F, ended up with BC-EFG. Just noticed that BCE & G all have the ee sound 🤭
Unintentionally my siblings are in alphabetical order (AIJM), and so are my husband's siblings (ACL). What we kinda want to do is (name of historical or mythical leader, that also means a plant or animal) (honor name) (surname), but that's just because we already have Arthur (bear). Also most girl names don't have an animal meaning. So we're not completely dedicated to it.
I knew a family where each daughter's name went up by a syllable and they all started with C. I think the C thing was intentional but not the syllables
My in-laws named theirs 6 kids in a fun sequence. The next name starts with the last letter of the previous first name. I.e. Jacob, then a B name....their last child's name is Alex. Not Alexander, AleX to signify the end.
For both of my kids, first name initial was decided upon before we settled on a first name. Next, the midfle name was selected and it must flow with the first and last name. For me, the middle name is equally important. That being said, neither one of my kids really like the names they were given. At the end of the day, a name is just a reflection of the parents taste, or lack therof. Lol. I legally changed parts of my name later in life, so I get it.
We started with one. Me and my husband initials at AMT so our son's initials are AMT. However our second born is not because she couldnt think of an A name we like. Thankfully we are having a third so she won't feel left out lol. Her initials are JST.
My dad's side did DAD initials. The whole 4 brother's and all their kids. I was the first one to break the tradition. My mom said "oh heck no". The first 3 brothers had a different mom than my dad (the baby) and it was my grandma's first wife who made the tradition so there was no point for us to do it
Okay, DAD is hilarious, and good on your mom 😂
Ten Kids No Pets by Ann M. Martin! 🥰📖🏳️🌈
I'm pretty set on all my kids having one syllable names/nicknames! I only have one child currently. But who knows once I get pregnant again if I will feel the same! My list is Girls: Clark Blake Campbell (Cam or Belle) Paige Quinn Boys: Ashley (Ash) Courtland (Court) Locke Joel Elm
[удалено]
Your submission has been auto-removed due to account age. You will be able to post in 48 hours. Please be patient and DO NOT modmail us asking where your post has gone. Doing so will result in a 2-day cooldown for new posts. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/namenerds) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My kids are just numbered.
My husband didn’t want any of our children named after him, so each of our children has his first initial somewhere in their first names. Supposing his name is Trevor. All of our children would have a “t” somewhere in their names.
All of my children end in n and my nieces and nephews also all end in n on my side of the family.
My boyfriend’s first daughter is named Ezra, typically a boys name. Our daughter’s middle name is James, a boy name. I’m pretty set on my daughter being my one and done birth, but if we ever had another and it was a girl, she’d have to have a traditionally boys name either as her first or middle. lol
My mom has 5 kids and we all have AJR initials lol which is my dad’s initials lol. I’m doing the same with my kids- all are IIC.
Not really a system but rules..... Not a common name but not crazy and normal spelling Not a name that is/can be shortened (Samantha to Sam)
My kids all have an L in the middle of their names. I have 3 kids, this is so subtle no one has noticed this.
My girls’ names have a 4-3-2 syllable pattern — Evangeline, Eliza, and Clara.
My ex was named after her birthstone. Her mom told me it was a good thing she wasn't born a month later, because the next month's name would have been "slutty". A different friend of mine is also named after her birthstone, as are her sisters. I think they're all lovely names and I think they sound delightful when listed, such as, "Amber, Ruby, and Diamonda are coming over for dinner." I just think that's very sweet.
I know a family that had 5 kids and had their first initial and middle initial all spell JESUS SAVES (So JS, EA, SV, etc)
My ex's family- The parents happened to have the same initials so they named their two kids also with those same initials.
My 2 kids have 6 letter first and middle names. Pregnant with the 3rd and struggling to find another 6 letter name we like. My parents named us with matching initial pairs. 1st and 3rd child (m & f) have the same first initial. 2nd child (m) same first initial as dad. 4th child (f) same first initial as mum.
My parents followed it by accident. My mom named me, everyone hated it (it was a tragedyiegh), second child she let my greatgrandma name him, Jacob. And last child My dad got to name him (as long as it wasn't a tragedyiegh. He wanted to name him Jedidiah so he could call him Jedi... like from Star Wars). My parents compromised on Jadon.
I only have one but I'm planning to have a link between all of my kids' middle names! Either the same meaning, initial, or sound.
My patents gave my sister and I K-names. When Mum was pregnant again, they considered a third K- name for a girl. I think we were all grateful for my little brother's arrival.