A woman has shared her deep regret after giving her twin daughter’s matching names so “one doesn’t feel left out”. She explained how she and her husband each decided to name one girl – with him wanting to honour his late mum with the moniker.
Taking to Reddit, she said: “Before I even got pregnant, my partner always said if we had a girl he wanted to name her after his mother who passed away in his teens. And when I say named after his mum, I mean her full name.
“So, once I found out I was pregnant and we were having two girls, we basically got to name each one ourselves. He was set on honouring his mother, and the other baby’s name was up to me.” She says she found it “really difficult” to come up with a name as she didn’t want it to have a ‘lesser’ meaning – as it would be a ‘random name’ rather than one in honour of a family member.
She added: “I felt I couldn’t just make the other baby’s name some random first and middle name, meanwhile her sister will have a full name with great meaning, so that was more pressure put onto me, by myself, worrying that the one girl wouldn’t feel as special growing up.”
Sharing an example, she added: “This is the gist of their name – Jana May Smith and Jade May Smith. When choosing the first ‘name’ I wanted it to be a bit similar to her sisters name, and that it’d sound good when said first or after her sisters name. I chose the same middle name for the baby I named, but not for matchiness, but because that’s my mother’s middle name. So, I wanted baby B to have a similar great meaning to her name like her sister.
But now her children are here, she can’t help but regret her decision, believing she has accidentally set them up for a life of hardship. “I feel like I just set them up for failure. Either, that they’ll end up disliking each other because they’d like more originality from one another or they’ll dislike me for having their names be so similar,” she said. “Although it wasn’t my intention, I just wanted the one baby to feel just as special.”
Commenting on the names, one user said: “Oh geez, it’s bad they are both sisters but twins? It’s like a cartoon. Everyone will get them mixed up. Their identities will be even more tied to each other, and they have the same middle name too? If you wanted each to feel special, give each a unique name! Maybe you should’ve gone for a Jade plus Lucy, or Jana plus Mary, etc, or use the honor name in their middle names.
Another user added: “‘Ruin’ is a bit dramatic, but I can’t see anyone being happy that they have near identical names. Using the same middle name is weird. I’d change the middle name of A and the first name of B. His mother is still honoured with both her names, but it’s less obvious , and that way the ‘May’ is honouring both mothers. They’re your children too, if you’re not happy with the names, better change them now before they respond to them.”