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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Theme names

I just started reading the Ribbons of Steel Series by Judith Pella and Tracie Peterson. In the first two chapters of the first book, Distant Dreams, they are introducing the family in the story. So far here are the children's names: Virginia, York, Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania (aka Penny), and Maryland.



At the beginning they introduce Carolina (who I believe the stories will be mostly about), and I think that's a beautiful name. Then in the 2nd chapter I read about her older sister Virginia and soon after, York. I started to see the theme and wondered about it a bit. Then it got all crazy when at the end of the second chapter when they introduced the other sisters: Georgia, Penny, and Maryland. Cute? Or a little overboard? HA, HA, after I wrote the draft of this I found another child in the family during the 3rd chapter. Their oldest son's name is Maine. The family seems to get plenty of good-natured ribbing from friends about their name choices. The book is set in 1835, so they tease about needing to add more states to the union so this family will have more names for more kids. AND I just read in chapter 5 that there were two babies from this family that died from "fever" at a young age: Hampshire and Tennessee.



What do you think about families that have theme names? Do you know any? I know two families that have all "J" names. One is a family of 4 and the other has 5 children. Jay, Jennifer (Jenny), Joel, Justin. Jay, Josh (probably Joshua), Jody, Joy, Jill. Then there is the Duggar family with 17 "J" name children. I'm trying to think if I know any other families with themed names, but I can't think of any right now.



I did know of twin girls (from when I subbed) whose names were Summer and Autumn. I also think it's a different situation with twins. You definitely want their names to sound good together. We have 3 sets of twins where I tutor: Shontel and Montel (girl/boy), Shamaria and Shamerika (girls), and Brooke and Briana (girls). All their names kind of go together.



In my family we all have biblical names that don't have nicknames. Matt and his brother have biblical names, but his sister's name is not.



Share with us. Do you know any theme named families? What do you think of it? Good/bad? Depends on the theme?



I guess for me it just depends on the theme. I only have one child, and I don't know what the names for my future children will be. I don't have plans for any themes. The only possibility is biblical names, but the girls name we really like is not from the bible.

12 comments:

Nowheymama said...

I don't think that we have a theme, but we do try to pick family names.

Katherine's middle name is Jane, and she is the eighth generation on my mother's side of the family where the eldest girl has Jane in her name.

Sorry the zucchini bread dried out on you! I hope it tasted all right!

d e v a n said...

My Dad is one of 8 and their initials were all DMS. They are: Donna, Dennis, Douglas, DeAnne, Daniel, Dean, David, Debra.
I am one of 3 and all our given initials were also DMS. We are Danelle, Devan and Damon.
Since I just happened to marry a D myself, we considered carrying it on, but after our first child (who is a d by coincidence more than tradition) we just decided to go with names that we liked.

Anonymous said...

Those state names are hilarious!

We thought about theme names with our two. We named our daughter Sydney and we seriously considered 'Sebastian' for our son, but went with something else instead. A friend suggested we name him Perth or Melbourne to go with Sydney.....I don't think so.

Biblical names are tough, especially for girl names, but I like the idea of having an entire family with names from the Bible.

Anonymous said...

Oh! I just remembered that my in-laws have a theme name thing going. My husband's great-grandparents named their kids Loretta, Loyce, Lillian, Lorraine, Lynette, Leroy and Elaine. And their last name started with an "L", too.

mamashine said...

I have a friend with two girls named Karina and Laurel and so when she got pregnant again she wanted an M name to keep the alphabetical theme. Maybe nobody else would notice, but she wanted to keep it going.

I also have friends where the wife's name starts with A and the husband is R, so their daughter's initials are AR_.

I think the state names are hilarious. My daughter has a geographical middle name and Holland was one of our top choices if Luke had been a girl. I think it might be a bit cheesy to keep on with all the place names though. :)

Cara said...

First of all I think the state names are a little much, cute, but a little much.
My mother went with the same initials theme, after she married my father they ended up with the same initial CAJ. She had four kids, so their were six of us with the same initials in the house. Mail was a pain and we never had anything monogrammed.
I think when you have twins it is nice to have names that sound good together, but no so close that they are confusing.
I only have one child and it was hard picking a name for him, the next will be even harder.

KatieBug said...

I have a friend who has a Dakota and a Georgia. Kind Cheesey but cute too.

I once heard of a set of twins named Marlin and Merlin. Not my favorite. :)

My kids all have a biblical name but it is not always a first name.

Sara said...

Ha, the Duggar Family. I'm obsessed with them!

We don't have any themes, but I'm not opposed to them. I knew sisters once, about a year apart named Leigh Anna and Anna Leigh.

Sara said...

Oh and actually, in my husband's family, it is common to name your girl some form of Catherine. It's a coincidence that our girl is Caitlyn

d e v a n said...

I forgot to mention, my husband happens to be an identical twin. he is Darren and his twin is Aaron. :)

LoriD said...

I find naming babies hard enough without the added pressure of a theme! Now that I think of it, my dad and his siblings all have "K" names. I always thought that if I had twins I would purposely not name them anything alike, just to give them their own identities outside of being one-half of a pair.

moosh in indy. said...

We have a family in church that are Hope, Merit, Honor, Cherish, Faith and Freedom. Hmmm.
There was also a family back home that had 7 kids, named in order of the alphabet, A B C D E F G.
I don't do most themes, especially the same sound or letter, my nephews are Braden, Jaden and Jordan, like heck if I can keep them straight when I'm trying to yell at them.