Sibsets

In the baby name message boards that I frequent, there are many conversations about sibsets. "What should I name my next child so it fits with my current child(ren)?" This is important to a lot of people. Well, maybe it's just important to a lot of name freaks. :)

I know a lot of you like a certain style when naming your children. Whether it be classic, Biblical, or tryndee, parents usually want to stick with a style and therefore the names of their children are usually consistent. Others just choose names that they like, no matter what style it is. This is fine, but it may lead to a Nevaeh among sisters Elizabeth, Katherine and Anne.

How about matchy names? Taylor and Tyler. Fred and Jed. Mackenzie and Mackayla. Another thing that parents may do that isn't entirely bad, but in some ways shows a lack of creativity (or maybe too much creativity in order to get the match). :) I think it also leads to a lot of tongue-twisters and/or confusion when calling for the kids.

There's also the same initial issue. If you use names that begin with the letter A for the first two children, do you continue that for the subsequent children? I wouldn't use the same letter twice personally, unless I find another R name that I absolutely love (which isn't likely), but I don't mind it when people do use the same letter. My mom's family is Debra, Douglas, Dale, Diane and David. And then there's me and my brother... Kelli and Keith (Jr). So, I don't have a problem with it. I also don't see the problem in straying from a letter that has already been used more than once. Although, I have to admit that a Jason would stand out against siblings named Lisa, Luke, and Lesley.

The main reason this is a topic of conversation, I suppose, is that parents don't want a child to feel "left out." Though I imagine that this is more of an issue to the parents than to the children. And also a lot of these are probably only things that I would notice and therefore aren't important in the grand scheme of things. But because I am a freak, I... well, notice... and therefore talk about it on my name blog. :)

I, of course, think differently for other people than for myself. I am of two minds personally. I would like for my children's names to "fit," but since we are probably going to have only two children, the theme of my children's names could just be that there isn't a theme. :) Rachel is Biblical and classic, so I could go with a completely different type of name for our second child and it will be ok with me. However, if we have a third, then I would be stuck with what kind of name to choose. I'm sure I would find something (I'm not completely obsessed about this for myself, surprisingly enough), but I'm glad that we are only going to have two kids. :)

Some resources on sibsets: My favorite baby name book is The Baby Name Wizard. I refer to it so much that my copy is falling apart. It categorizes names and tells how popular each name has been. But one of my favorite features is the suggestion of possible sibling names for each name it lists. On a funny side note, it lists Leah as a possible sister name for Rachel. Why would anyone want to name their daughter Leah after having a Rachel? Wasn't Leah the ugly and unwanted sister? :) Anyway, it is really interesting to see what the author, Laura Wattenberg, suggests. Wattenberg has a cool blog... there's a link to it in my sidebar. She also has another website that would help with sibling names called Nymbler (link to the right), where you plug in a name and it gives you other names you may like. Thanks to Kristen for reminding me of this neat site!

I'm sure I will talk about this topic more in the future, but we'll leave it at that for now. I couldn't leave without a question though, so how do you feel about sibsets in general?