Kendra & Joe Part 12: Another day, Another Duggar on the Way

[Jana814]

3 minutes ago, Triplet3 said:

Funny you say that because we're also 2 identical, 1 fraternal (I'm the fraternal one, though I still look enough like my sisters to be mistaken for them by people who don't know us very well)! Gosh, I don't envy the 'B' triplets having to share an initial. Thanks, yes I think our parents did the right thing too. 

I think the initial thing might have been the timing when they were born. Although I have a client who has identical twin sisters and their names are completely different & they were born in 1956. 

[BachelorToTheRapture]

16 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

My name is already a diminutive. But it is so well known as a name here that I never bothered to change it when I became an adult.

A lot of people use a nickname for me though, it is the nickname my father started and since most of my family used it then it started to move to my close friends. Now even some people at work use it after they learned about it. The only thing though is that the nickname is clearly a men's name. ?

My nickname with my family is a men's name too! The male version of my name (like Andrew if I was Andrea). My siblings and I also still use goofy nicknames from when we were kids such as my sister's attempts at our names when she was very young with severe speech issues, random words that rhyme, or words that just start with the same letter that we assigned to each other (often as an attempt to annoy one another, but they're more affectionate now). Occasionally my husband (who's lived near my family for over 3 years now) still isn't sure who we're referring to with our strange familial nicknames (we also have quite a few for members of my extended family on my dad's side, and my mom has uncles who go by names that are totally unlike their real names. I still am not 100% sure which given name goes to who)

[Iamtheway]

13 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

My nickname is Hannes. If you are Dutch you might be able to guess my real name ? 

Hannes was one of the names we were considering for Miniway! I really like the way it sounds in Swedish, soft and friendly. It’s one of the ones we didn’t use that I think would have actually suited him really well.

I also think I can guess your real name.

In these name threads I always wish we could just tell eachother what names we are talking about but at the same time I understand that everyone (including me) wants to keep their identity hidden.

I have never had a nickname even though there are a few common ones for my name. But that might be partly because it’s rare enough that I never had another one in my class or in any other group I belonged to. It’s also a pretty short name.

Mr Way is Australian and everyone in his family go by nicknames that are shorter versions of their names exept for him. His name is a common one with a very common nickname (think Michael and Mike) but only a few friends from school uses it. I don’t think the nickname suits him at all and find it really weird when people use it. His friends also called him a nickname that is part of his last name but that one has quite a different meaning in Swedish so it doesn’t work here at all ...

Miniway’s name is quite long but doesn’t have any clear nicknames associated with it. The most common nickname we use for him is actually an even longer version of his name.

[backyard sylph]

On 4/29/2019 at 3:04 PM, fundiefollower said:

my husband has brothers named Faron and Aaron.  Not twins.  They are the oldest of 7, none of the other names rhyme.  Still wonder what their mom was thinking.

My two youngest sons of six are named Aaron and Theron. What I was thinking is that they're cool names with good historical meanings, they fit well with our last name, were simple but not too common at the time, and probably more, idk, it's been over twenty years now. People seem to want to make Theron complicated when they hear it, but people do just like to complicate stuff, so. 

[Sullie06]

My brother's name is David and when he was born my mother insisted he would never be Dave, Davey or any other nickname. Nobody in the family was allowed to call him Dave and if you did the wrath came down. The he started high school and all his friends called him Dave and he started going by Dave as an adult. Now it's confusing for me because even my Mom calls him Dave but I deep down need to still call him David so I sound like a super formal goon all the time. 

My sister is huge into nicknames though. Both her kids were given formal names with nicknames in mind. My nieces nickname is a shortened version of her name and my nephew's nickname is a play off his initials. My brother in law hates my nephews nickname but after being called that since birth I can't stop myself from using the nickname even though I'm pretty sure it pisses my BIL off. She also nicknamed my children 

[viii]

Nicknames are definitely tough. Since I was 12 years old, I have wanted to name my daughter Elizabeth. I don't want Liz, Lizzie, Beth, Eliza, Elsie, etc. I want Elizabeth. However, now that I'm an adult, I know that when you use longer names, nicknames are out of your control, and there's not much you can do to change that. I think if I ever were to have a child and had a girl, I'd still use Elizabeth, but resign myself to the fact that she might want a nickname when she's able to choose. 

[BachelorToTheRapture]

2 hours ago, Sullie06 said:

My brother's name is David and when he was born my mother insisted he would never be Dave, Davey or any other nickname. Nobody in the family was allowed to call him Dave and if you did the wrath came down. The he started high school and all his friends called him Dave and he started going by Dave as an adult. Now it's confusing for me because even my Mom calls him Dave but I deep down need to still call him David so I sound like a super formal goon all the time. 

My sister is huge into nicknames though. Both her kids were given formal names with nicknames in mind. My nieces nickname is a shortened version of her name and my nephew's nickname is a play off his initials. My brother in law hates my nephews nickname but after being called that since birth I can't stop myself from using the nickname even though I'm pretty sure it pisses my BIL off. She also nicknamed my children 

Formal goon ? ? ?

[SassyPants]

2 hours ago, viii said:

Nicknames are definitely tough. Since I was 12 years old, I have wanted to name my daughter Elizabeth. I don't want Liz, Lizzie, Beth, Eliza, Elsie, etc. I want Elizabeth. However, now that I'm an adult, I know that when you use longer names, nicknames are out of your control, and there's not much you can do to change that. I think if I ever were to have a child and had a girl, I'd still use Elizabeth, but resign myself to the fact that she might want a nickname when she's able to choose. 

My son has 1 of those names that has a couple of shortened versions. I always call him the long version. No one else does. He’s 28, I’ve finally accepted it. His go-to is 3 letters, so I get the inclination.

[Smee]

I feel like it’s more common in my kids’ generation to go by the full name than it was when I was younger. It will be interesting to see what happens when they reach high school. My eldest has friends with names like Christopher (not Chris), Matthew (not Matt), Geoffrey (not Geoff).

My youngest daughter has a nickname that is used much much more often than her full name, but my mum hates it because the nickname is also a boys name in its own right and not the most intuitive nickname for her actual name (think Leo for Eleanor instead of Ellie). So mum tries to use a different nickname and my daughter doesn’t answer and I go “who’s Ellie?” ? she had her chance at naming kids 30 years ago, it’s my turn now.

[Jana814]

One of my clients daughter’s name is Ally. I asked her if her legal name is Alison but it’s not. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

my great Aunt had twin sons named Joshua Adam and Adam Joshua. her sister my grandma had twins named Carter James and Calvin James*

names changed but you can see how they named their kids. my grandma gave four of her five kids the same middle name. always found that odd. 

[Jana814]

8 minutes ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

my great Aunt had twin sons named Joshua Adam and Adam Joshua. her sister my grandma had twins named Carter James and Calvin James*

The advice columnists Dear Abby & Ann Landers were identical twins named Esther Pauline & Pauline Esther. 

[JustEnough]

Ah names... I love them so much. 

My name has a common nickname (think Andie for Andrea) and I went by that nickname for most of my childhood. One day when I was around the sixth grade I just decided nope, I'm fullname now and I've gone by that ever since. The only people who call me the nickname are people who've known me a long time, mostly family. Then there are two people in my life who shorten my name even more (like An for Andrea). There's no way I'd let anyone call me that meeting me now, but it's somehow endearing from them (one is my Mom and one is a friend I've known since I was 4).

My partner went by a shortened form of their name since birth (it's already a one syllable name but has a common one syllable nickname). I have an aversion to the nickname so I've always called them either their full first name or else their first initial (which I end up doing with several people I'm close to somehow). Hearing DPs family call them the shortened nickname makes me cringe inside but really, they knew them first (and in the case of my MIL, actually named them), so I can't really be bothered by it. 

It was super important to me that all of our kids had different initials from each other and from DP and I (probably partially due to my habit of shortening names to the first syllable?). Our first has a name with a common nickname that I was insistent we would never use. I got my way on that, he's got two main nicknames,  I would never have guessed either before he was born. Both suit him though and that's good enough for us. 

[just_ordinary]

8 hours ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

[...]

my grandma gave four of her five kids the same middle name. always found that odd. 

I think it depends. If the middle name is some kind of family tradition I always think it’s a bit unfair if only one (often the first born of the sex) gets it.

If we have two of one sex I am inclined to give them same middle name. The male one runs on my husbands side and the female one starts with the same letter, which is coincidentally the same letter all middle names of me and my brothers start. I wouldn’t want to have a second child feel left out of this tradition. But we are also never ever going to have more than three of one sex (if the universe doesn’t fuck with us and signs us up for triplets or more) so it’s not as if we are going to produce 19 children with the same middle name. That would be odd indeed  

Sharing a family middle name can always be a honour and a burden. 

 

After reading your post again I might have misunderstood you. If you meant it’s odd that one of the children was left out of the middle name sharing than I agree. (And think it’s even kind of cruel. In my grandparents generation this might have easily led to gossip about the fatherhood.)

[JustEnough]

Almost forgot... On the topic of similar names I have siblings in my extended family who were named Gerald Murray and Geraldine Marie. My grandmother always held them up as a naming "what not to do". 

[SweetJuly]

Another thing I find interesting about names is that the first child tends to get names into which the parents have put a lot of thought. Often the name has family connections or some other personal meaning.

The second child then gets some random name for deep reasons such as "we thought it sounded nice", especially if the second child is of the same sex as the first.

This was the case with me (first) and my sister (second), as well as with my husband (second) and his brother (first). I was named after a great-grandmother, my sister's name was selected because my parents thought it was pretty. My brother-in-law was given the French version of a Dutch name that had been in the family for centuries whereas my parents-in-law didn't even remember why they chose my husband's name when we asked

Should we have any further children after LittleJuly, the same thing will most likely happen. LittleJuly was named after my great-grandmother and a friend of mine who passed away when we were young. We have both girl and boy names that we like for any future children, but none of them have any of these meaningful connections - they are just names we like and that work well in many languages.

[Smee]

My second child has the first and middle names that my eldest child would have had if he was a girl, but in general I agree, birth order does seem to make a difference to what kind of meaning a name has. My son’s middle name is the first name of both my father and father-in-law, something my husband and I decided almost as soon as we met and figured out our dads had the same name. But if we’d had any more boys, they wouldn’t have had that name - or any family name, for that matter. My youngest daughter almost got my sister’s name as her middle, and I still wish we had done that, but my husband and I had disagreed quite a bit on names for her and in the end he settled for the first name that I chose and I agreed to let him pick the middle. All 3 kids have names that mean something to me beyond “I liked it” though. Actually, come to think of it, my middle child has the least “meaningful” name, even though it was the name our firstborn would have had if he’d been a girl. She did more or less get an “I like the sound” name, but it was one I had consistently loved since I was a teenager, so by the time she was born I really had my heart set on it.

I wonder what will happen if Jessa has a dozen kids and starts to run out of “heroes of the Christian faith” that they admire enough to name a kid after. In some ways, a letter theme would have been easier to maintain.

[TheMustardCardigan]

I went to high school with two brothers who had interesting names: the older one was Christopher Lyle Smith and the younger one was Lyle Lyle Smith (actual names changed but you get the idea). No idea why their parents decided to name one kid the same thing twice and give the other one that middle name!

My fiancé has two older brothers that are a year apart and then I think he was kind of an "oops" baby 7/8 years later. Middle brother's middle name is the same as my fiancé's first name. I think his mom really liked that name and when the unexpected opportunity arose to use it as a first name for a baby, she went for it. 

[SweetJuly]

1 hour ago, TheMustardCardigan said:

I think his mom really liked that name and when the unexpected opportunity arose to use it as a first name for a baby, she went for it. 

That makes me think of the Cambridge babies.

Kate and William named their first boy George Alexander Louis, and their second boy Louis Arthur Charles. I suspect they really would have liked to use the name Louis for their first boy, but had to switch to George as a respectable name for a British monarch. King Louis of England - would sound as if the French had taken over

[JustEnough]

All three of ours have family names for their middle names (2 each). For first names they have family ties as well for the first two. Youngest was named by DP, and it's the only name of the nine (1 first + 2 middle x 3 kids) that was chosen just because, rather than family tied somehow. That came about because I felt like I had too much of the say for the first two and really wanted DP to get a name that they picked. All three first names have a theme that was on purpose (biblical names) as well though.

[backyard sylph]

4 hours ago, SweetJuly said:

Another thing I find interesting about names is that the first child tends to get names into which the parents have put a lot of thought. Often the name has family connections or some other personal meaning.

The second child then gets some random name for deep reasons such as "we thought it sounded nice", especially if the second child is of the same sex as the first.

This was the case with me (first) and my sister (second), as well as with my husband (second) and his brother (first). I was named after a great-grandmother, my sister's name was selected because my parents thought it was pretty. My brother-in-law was given the French version of a Dutch name that had been in the family for centuries whereas my parents-in-law didn't even remember why they chose my husband's name when we asked

Should we have any further children after LittleJuly, the same thing will most likely happen. LittleJuly was named after my great-grandmother and a friend of mine who passed away when we were young. We have both girl and boy names that we like for any future children, but none of them have any of these meaningful connections - they are just names we like and that work well in many languages.

I spent ages pouring over names for each of my six kids. With five and six we had a home computer—Netscape was all the rage at our house, and I went to the new Baby Name Center website, trying out different combinations of sounds, thinking about their meanings, and what they'd sound like as adults. For the sixth kid, I composed a list to let the family vote on, sort of. Like, any name anyone hated was stricken, and boy did they hate a couple of them. But I had final say as long as the hubs also approved. And now he's almost 21, and I still think his name is awesome. ? 

[SassyPants]

Naming multiples would be awful. All born at the same time, and deciding who would get what name, especially if you had decided to name them after  or in honor of someone. I remember my friend with 2 sets of twin commenting that neither of her boys would be named after their father because which would one it be...she gave each one the name of a grandfather as their middle name.

[JordynDarby5]

I think it would be easy to name multiples but then I've had six girl names and six boy names all picked out for my kids for years and easily could come up with more. The first names are my favorite six boy and girl names and the middle names are family members names on both sides of my family. Having two or four at once would make it easy to cross those off. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

7 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

I think it depends. If the middle name is some kind of family tradition I always think it’s a bit unfair if only one (often the first born of the sex) gets it.

If we have two of one sex I am inclined to give them same middle name. The male one runs on my husbands side and the female one starts with the same letter, which is coincidentally the same letter all middle names of me and my brothers start. I wouldn’t want to have a second child feel left out of this tradition. But we are also never ever going to have more than three of one sex (if the universe doesn’t fuck with us and signs us up for triplets or more) so it’s not as if we are going to produce 19 children with the same middle name. That would be odd indeed  

Sharing a family middle name can always be a honour and a burden. 

 

After reading your post again I might have misunderstood you. If you meant it’s odd that one of the children was left out of the middle name sharing than I agree. (And think it’s even kind of cruel. In my grandparents generation this might have easily led to gossip about the fatherhood.)

LOL my grandma just didn't care about names  so she just picked an easy one and went with it for all the kids. her first four kids were from Marriage one. then she let my grandpa (Marriage two)  name my dad so he got a different middle name. 

[twoandthrough]

8 hours ago, SweetJuly said:

Another thing I find interesting about names is that the first child tends to get names into which the parents have put a lot of thought. Often the name has family connections or some other personal meaning.

The second child then gets some random name for deep reasons such as "we thought it sounded nice", especially if the second child is of the same sex as the first.

This was the case with me (first) and my sister (second), as well as with my husband (second) and his brother (first). I was named after a great-grandmother, my sister's name was selected because my parents thought it was pretty. My brother-in-law was given the French version of a Dutch name that had been in the family for centuries whereas my parents-in-law didn't even remember why they chose my husband's name when we asked

Should we have any further children after LittleJuly, the same thing will most likely happen. LittleJuly was named after my great-grandmother and a friend of mine who passed away when we were young. We have both girl and boy names that we like for any future children, but none of them have any of these meaningful connections - they are just names we like and that work well in many languages.

Neither of our daughters have a family first name, but they both have family middle names. I love that! Not as much pressure, haha. First daughter has the same middle name as me and my mom, and that name just happens to be my husband's mom's first name (spelled differently) too. Second daughter has the feminine version of my dad's first name for her middle name (he passed away when I was 18). I love calling her by her full name because it always reminds me of him!