We are expecting twin boys (our first children) in early May! We are very excited, but are having some problems with choosing names. My name is Nicole, my husband is Sam, and our last name is Mattke (pronounced Matt-key). Almost all of my favorite names are for girls, so that's one of the issues that's made naming twin boys difficult. I'm looking for names that sound good together and maybe some that are linked somehow, but NOT "twinny" names (ie Jaden and Jalen-- ugh!).
My husband and I don't have the same naming taste AT ALL, so I was shocked when we agreed on a pair of names we both were happy with: Milo and Oliver. I liked how one ended with an "o" and one started with an "o", and we were thinking of having both of them paired with "s" middle names: Milo Samuel (after my husband) and Oliver Scott (after my dad), thinking that Milo would be the first baby to be born since he'd be his father's namesake, and we'd refer to the twins as "Milo and Oliver". Well, our first mistake was telling these name ideas to my very vocal and opinionated family. Not a single person has liked the name "Milo", making me concerned that we are the only ones who will like his name and he will go through life disappointed or frustrated with it. (I have a brother named Torry who detests his name and don't want my sons to feel that way, if we can help it!) Also, nearly everyone has said, "Oh, like Milo and Otis?" from the movie from the 80's about a dog and a cat. Do you think this will come up throughout their lives? Would it help enough if we switched the birth order, so that Oliver is the one born first and we call them "Oliver and Milo" instead?
I'm not sure if no one being thrilled about those names has tainted them too much for me to use or not. Maybe you could suggest another pairing of names that we'd like better?
Other names I've liked are:
Finn- my very favorite boy name, but I found out a close friend (who isn't pregnant yet) wants to use it if they have a boy because her husband's middle name is Finley-- so sad for me because this is the name I loved most
Luca- love it but not sure if it sounds too bad with our last name; very Italian with a German surname that doesn't seem to flow very well?
Jack- too popular
Henry- too popular
Charlie- too plain
Graeme- husband doesn't like it, rhymes with Sam so don't think I'd want Graeme and Sam
Malakai (Kai)- our friends just used it
It's just hard for me to love boy names!
For girls, I love
Camille
Coralie
Magnolia
Jovie
Isla
Jubilee
Please help-- picking names for twin boys is much harder than I expected!
Thank you!
My very first suggestion is one you've already thought of: say "Oliver and Milo" instead of "Milo and Oliver"---at least at first, until people get used to the names. I think that might nip the problem in the bud entirely. I also like the way that name order emphasizes the way one boy's name starts with Oli- and the other boy's name ends with -ilo.
But if the question continues to crop up, the answer to "Oh, like Milo and Otis?" is "...No." Slight pause, slightly confused/amused expression, and then a mild "No." The tone should reflect the slight amusement you might feel when contemplating that anyone might actually name twins after two animal characters in a children's movie, combined with the slight confusion you feel that someone is asking you if this is something YOU did. Especially since one of the names has nothing in common with the movie name other than starting with the same letter, and that letter isn't even pronounced the same in both names---so if you HAD wanted to name them after the cat and dog, you would not have succeeded.
You could make the difference even greater by naming them Miles and Oliver---but I'd be disappointed to lose the O theme. Or you could change to Leo and Oliver, or Theo and Oliver. I suspect, however, that the question will die down very quickly: it's the kind of question that gets asked upon first introduction, but not again after that. And even if the Milo & O____ format makes people think of the movie, it isn't a negative association. If anything, it gives a pleasant "buddies" feeling to the two names.
You don't have to switch their birth order to switch the order in which you say their names: we don't always say the names of non-twin children in order of age. If you want Milo Samuel to be the older twin because he's his dad's namesake, then have him be the older twin and still go ahead and say his name second. But I will also add that a friend of mine who had twin boys deliberately gave the dad's name to the secondborn twin, so that they would each have something special: one is the older/firstborn twin, and the other has the dad's name.
I see what you mean about not wanting to give your child an experience like your brother's, but the name Milo is not a strange choice for a boy; I don't think it will be an issue. In the meantime, I would use your brother's situation as a reason to not take your family's strong opinions too much into consideration: they chose your brother's name, and that did not turn out well.
Or, to put it more kindly, their tastes are not the same as yours---and different tastes isn't something you need to adjust for. If a friend with sons named Ian and Charlie tells me she doesn't like a name I'm considering, I might pay attention because I know our styles are similar, so her input is meaningful to me. But if my friend with sons named Addison and Jayden doesn't like my name choice, I can comfortably disregard that, because I know we just have different styles: a name that pleases her is not going to be one that makes sense for me to use, and vice versa. And to add a vote to the other side, Milo was one of our three finalists for our youngest child. (Oliver would have been a fourth finalist, but unfortunately I had made the mistake of naming a cat Oliver. We considered it anyway.)
I am not sure what you should do about the name Finn. I am thinking about how you will feel if you give up the name and then your friend never has a son. If it's your top favorite name, and if your husband loves it too, and if your friend is not even pregnant, it feels too severe to have you give up the name as if only one child at a time could have it. Even if she later has a son named Finn, the two boys wouldn't be very close in age. But only you know if using the name would cause a rift in your friendship that wasn't worth it. Could you use, say, Griffin, and then call him Finn as a nickname? Or do you like the name Ian? Or Quinn?
We did a post awhile back where I got a little carried away and made a long list of names for boy twins. I wonder if any of those would work? I'm just going to post all of them again here:
Frederick and George
Edmund and Henry
Simon and Frederick
Simon and Isaac
Isaac and Frederick
John and Daniel
Elliot and Malcolm
Louis and George
Milo and Emmett
Milo and Malcolm
Oliver and Benjamin
Oliver and Henry
Daniel and Jonathan
Ian and Rhys
Ian and Leo
Davis and Harris
Ruben and Rhys
Rufus and Ruben
Rhys and Aidric
Felix and Aidric
Calvin and Sullivan
Calvin and Malcolm
Anderson and Sullivan
Anderson and Harrison
Keegan and Declan
Daniel and Declan
Simon and Oliver
Milo and Felix
Wesley and Henry
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