choosing a baby name that's similar to another child's

[caedmyn]

Would it be too confusing to name this baby Asher when another child's name ends in -ash?  FWIW 3 of my boys have names that start with the same 2 letters and people have a hard time keeping them straight...though maybe some would anyway with stair-step kids of the same gender.

[freesia]

I say the wrong names even when they aren't similar sounding.  I'm hopeless like that.  I would go with a name you like and not worry about it.

[stephanier.1765]

1 minute ago, freesia said:

I say the wrong names even when they aren't similar sounding.  I'm hopeless like that.  I would go with a name you like and not worry about it.

 

Same here. The only thing my 3 boys' names have in common is the fact they are all two syllables otherwise they start and end completely differently. But yet I can be looking directly at one and call him both of his brothers' names before I get to his.

[freesia]

Just now, stephanier.1765 said:

 

Same here. The only thing my 3 boys' names have in common is the fact they are all two syllables otherwise they start and end completely differently. But yet I can be looking directly at one and call him both of his brothers' names before I get to his.

And I even say the boy's names for the girls.

My dad grew up with 2 brothers and joked that his name was "BillyBobJohnny".  My kids all have a 4 part multi-gender name. LOL

I know a man with 9 children and he never mixes up names.  I am SO impressed.

[Lawyer&Mom]

I really hope you have a Dash, so when you (accidentally, inevitably) mash it up you can call them both Dasher.

Because I would find that funny.  YMMV.

 

 

[Farrar]

Dh and ds have names that start and end with the same letter... I might not do that again if I were to think it through, honestly.

[Selkie]

If I already had three kids whose names get mixed up, I probably wouldn't choose to add another potentially confusing name to the mix. That's just me, though. If you love the name Asher, you should go for it. :)

[nixpix5]

If you adore Asher and I wouldn't blame you! (It is my son's mn so I am partial ;) then use it and don't worry about it. If it is a lukewarm name for you and you have other contenders then I might consider them as it can be confusing. 

I know a family with a Declan, Dashiell (goes by Dash), an Asher and an Archer. The kids get frustrated by the confusion with their names. 

[Zuzu822]

2 hours ago, Lawyer&Mom said:

I really hope you have a Dash, so when you (accidentally, inevitably) mash it up you can call them both Dasher.

Because I would find that funny.  YMMV.

 

 

My youngest's name is Asher, and we call him Ash-Dash. Lol!

Asher's middle name is James, and we also have a Jacob which is basically the same name. We were really stuck, though, so we did it anyway! :p

[brehon]

3 hours ago, stephanier.1765 said:

 

Same here. The only thing my 3 boys' names have in common is the fact they are all two syllables otherwise they start and end completely differently. But yet I can be looking directly at one and call him both of his brothers' names before I get to his.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Then add in 3 girls and someone is always being called the wrong name, though I, <ahem> I mean someone hasn’t mixed the boys’ and girls’ names...

...yet. 

[gardenmom5]

the only thing 1dd and I have in common about our names is it starts with a "k" and has an "n" sound towards the end . . . . .

not sure I'd do it again.   it's other people who confuse our names.  starting when she was preschool age.   (need a glare emoji)

 

as for mixing up names - I think that's par for the course.  I have called each of my kids the name of the child older than them.   except for 1dd. . . .    - and that includes calling 1ds by 2dd's name.    (but, I joke they're my "twins" because they are physically and personality wise so alike.   they're both full on stem majors too.)

[gardenmom5]

erma bombeck had a column about her mother calling her to come home when she was a child and playing out side.   and she wouldn't come.  Her mother finally yelled at her to ask her how to get her to come home.   "when you get my name right."

 

-mil - called dh and his siblings by her siblings names.   told us something about how she felt about each of her children by which sibling she calls them. . ..

[gardenmom5]

the BEST name mix up in our family . . . of someone calling someone by the wrong name . . . . was done by 1ds.   he called dudeling by his own name.   (are we getting our emojis back?)

[caedmyn]

That's funny, gardenmom.  We choose a name for DS4 that didn't start with the same letter as his brothers, because I was tired of mixing up their names, and still both DH and I often call him by his next older brother's name, and his brother by his.

[rose]

For me it would probably depend on how many syllables were in the older child's name and whether or not the emphasis was on the last syllable.

I have a boy name Silas and i completely nixed Titus, even though I like it because of this issue.

[HS Mom in NC]

I grew up with 3 older brothers.  That means I was the only girl, and yet my mother managed to call me by the wrong name now and then.  That wasn't the worst.  Once she called me Leo instead of Lisa. That was the dog's name.

[Guest]

I personally would not choose names that are overly similar. I think selecting one automatically eliminates the other as a choice. When my youngest was born, we were debating between Mason and Nathan. We chose Mason. We haven’t had another pregnancy since, but in my mind, Nathan was now out of consideration for the future. 

I think there are many lovely names so there is no need to choose one that has some “problem.” 

[mom@shiloh]

We have a few names that are quite similar in our family and I do know other families who do as well.  It is a bit confusing at first, especially for people who don't know you well.  It took me a long time to sort out the names of one of my friend's children because they all seemed so similar to me, but now that I know them well, it's not an issue at all.  Two of our kids' names are very similar, but they are opposite genders and 17 years apart in age.  We liked the names well enough to go with it anyway. There's really only a short amount of their lives when they're both living in your house where this might be a bit confusing.  Then, they have the rest of their lives where they will presumably not be living in the same house. The name you give them will last longer than the time they are actually living together. 

[Bambam]

I wouldn't. I struggle to keep the names of the kids right with families that chose a same starting sound, same ending sound name pattern for their kids.

I think it would only matter for the childhood years when they are living together and people know them as a family.

I may not be typical though.

My kids have very different names - starting sound, length, ending sound - everything. I still call them by the wrong names sometimes. Whatever. I've accidentally called my friends by the wrong name too. It happens. 

 

[Tap]

Find another name.

 

My sister's and my name are soo similar we hated it growing up.  My brother's name is similar sounding to our names too.

Our names would be similar pattern to this

Micha

Michala

Michael who goes by the nickname Mike   (so we are left with MIcha/Mike  or Michala/Michael)

 

[historically accurate]

I wouldn't. My three children's names all start and end differently. They are all 2 syllables though.

I don't like kids' names that are too similar: Caylee and Caleb, or Jaymie and James, Lisa and Alicia, Jayden and Jade, etc. However, whatever you decide, don't break a very strong pattern with only the last child though - in my family, we have one set of cousins similar to this pattern: Terry, Jerry, Merry, Kerry, and Nadeen. That's just weird. 

[gardenmom5]

17 hours ago, rose said:

For me it would probably depend on how many syllables were in the older child's name and whether or not the emphasis was on the last syllable.

I have a boy name Silas and i completely nixed Titus, even though I like it because of this issue.

frankly - I don't think it matters.

kid's names range from one to three syllables.    when I'm rushed - they'll get called by the next older child's name.   that has been my pattern.   doesn't matter the name - they're all fairly different.  (think michael and ben) -still happens.

[Sammish]

On 4/23/2018 at 7:04 PM, Zuzu822 said:

My youngest's name is Asher, and we call him Ash-Dash. Lol

 

Same here! My Asher gets called Asher-Dasher, Dasher, and Dashington. 

[mumto2]

We didn’t know what we were having so we picked both a girl and a boy name the same evening and used them both. Dh had gone through a huge popular baby name book and circled a dozen names he liked for each and I picked.   They do sound rather alike.  Same first and last letter but I really really like them still and would not change.   Occasionally they cause confusion especially since in the US the boy name became popular for girls. Dd wishes her name didn’t have so many spelling variations ...... she has the traditional Scottish spelling and at the time I named her I didn’t know that it had spelling variations. But they even like their names......

As a side note I don’t think it is possible to not have confusion because the grandparents always confused my kids names with the cousins.  The names are so not the same. 

[happypamama]

Most of my kiddos have different sounding names (one of them ends in “iel” like Nathaniel, but we would rarely have used Nate’s full name anyway), and we still call them the wrong one anyway!  I don’t think I’d do Asher and Ashley, but something like Asher and Joash — that wouldn’t likely cause me any more confusion than I already have with a bunch of little boys in a row. 

[BlsdMama]

Meh.  If you like the name, use it.  I have a Liv and a Liz, or a Livvi and a Lizzie depending on the day. ;)  Honestly?  Everyone gets their names mixed up.  My grandmother called me Dawn about a good 40%+ of the time because my next cousin's name was Dawn.  And she got called Kelly.