LITERARY SIB SETS–AS IN AMY, BETH, MEG & JO

May 1st, 2009 at 8:25 am

Lovely list! I like: Stella & Blanche, Virgil & Byron, and Flora & Miles.

May 1st, 2009 at 8:32 am

I immediately thought of to Pontipee boys from Seven Brides for Seven Brother:

Brothers:
Adam
Benjamin
Caleb
Daniel (Dan)
Ephraim
Frankinsence (Frank)
Gideon

May 1st, 2009 at 9:33 am

Totally there with ya on the seven brothers! Its my favorite musical, and I’ve always thought of naming a boy Ephraim after that movie!

May 1st, 2009 at 10:48 am

I love the list! On the Little Women part, though, you just listed the nicknames (save for Josephine and Amy). Really, it’s Margaret (nn Meg, and named after Marmee), and Elizabeth (nn Beth).

May 1st, 2009 at 11:19 am

I’d love to do the P&P thing with three or four girls and one or two cats. (Who would want to be named after Lydia?)

I also love the idea of Weasley names: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginevra.

But unlike sea turtles, we can’t choose the sex of our babies and I’m not sure I’d want Jane, Elizabeth and Murray.

May 1st, 2009 at 12:51 pm

Great entry! I’ve always loved the sibling names from Jane Eyre: Eliza, Genevieve, and John.

I LOVE the Pride and Prejudice names, too!

May 1st, 2009 at 1:44 pm

In Little Women, I believe Amy is short for Amelia.

May 1st, 2009 at 8:25 pm

I also love the musical ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ and appeciate the names in it Catherine and ricamaca.

Another set of sibling names appears in Sue Monk Kidd’s novel ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ (that has recently been made into a movie). The three sisters all have names inspired by the months of the year-August, May and June (the name of their late sister is April). I love the idea of connecting siblings through a common theme in their names or a common letter. I’m definitely doing it with my children’s names.

A few other sibling sets that I remember from literature are Laura, Mary and Carrie (short for Caroline) in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books, Ramona and Beatrice (Beezus) from Beverly Cleary’s ‘Ramona’ series and Emma and Isabella from Jane Austen’s classic ‘Emma’. Happy naming everybody!

May 2nd, 2009 at 1:51 am

The Weasleys

William (Bill)
Charlie
Percy
Fred
George
Ronald (Ron)
Ginevra (Ginny)

Bill and Fleur’s Children

Victorie
Dominique
Louis

Percy and Audrey’s Children

Molly and Lucy

George and Angelina’s Children

Roxanne and Fred

Ronald and Hermione’s Children

Rose and Hugo

Ginny and Harry’s Children

James
Albus
Lily

May 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 am

Flora & Miles is one of my favorite literary sibsets! Josephine, Margaret, Elizabeth & Amy (I’ve never noticed if it was short for anything) was probably the first literary sibset I liked. Octavius & Violet is an awesome pairing and of course, I have a very soft spot for “The Five Little Peppers” Fronsie has been a favorite for almost as long as the “Little Women” girls! But I have to admit, Ebenezer, Mary, Joel, David & Sophronia in full are pretty awesome as a whole.

Neat Post!

May 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am

Some of the names are lovely. Though many 18th/19th century/ Victorian literature writers chose similar names, they always seem to blend well together

Though I don’t particularly like either name, I’ve always liked the idea of Edgar & Isabella Linton (Wuthering Heights)

Oh! I thought I might mention – The Jane Eyre siblings names are John, Eliza & Georgiana, not Genevieve I must say, I would prefer Genevieve though!

May 3rd, 2009 at 3:37 am

In the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books Mary, Laura, and Carrie have a little sister named Grace. So it’s Mary, Laura, Caroline(Carrie), and Grace.

May 3rd, 2009 at 4:50 am

Thanks CountryLizB, I forgot about Grace! Cheers:-)

May 3rd, 2009 at 6:59 am

I simply must add to your wonderful siblings list the sisters in my favorite children’s series: All of a Kind Family, by Sidney Taylor (1904-1978). (Linda, tell me you’ve read these books!)

Ella, Henny (Henrietta), Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie (Gertrude). Little brother Charlie was born later in the series.

May 3rd, 2009 at 7:31 am

Ooh, I have to admit I haven’t. Maybe it’s not too late.

May 3rd, 2009 at 8:23 pm

When I was a little girl, I loved a book by Ann M. Martin called 10 Kids and No Pets. The mom had a system for naming the kids. Kid number 1 was named the first A name in the baby name book, kid number 2 was the second B name, kid number 3 was the third c name, etc.

These were the kids’ names:

Abigail
Bainbridge
Calandra
Dagwood
Eberhard
Faustine
Gardenia
Hannah
Ira
Janthina

May 4th, 2009 at 2:28 am

From the much beloved Australian children’s classic Seven Little Australians, here are the nicknames and proper names of the Woolcott children:
Meg (Margaret)
Pip (Phillip)
Judy (Helen)
Nell (Elinor)
Bunty (John)
Baby (Winifred)
The General (Francis)
In many instances I prefer the nickname to the proper name!

May 7th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

Great post idea. A few of my other favorite literary sibsets:

from Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey”:
Frederick, Henry, and Eleanor

from C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia”:
Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy

from Wilkie Collins’s “The Moonstone”:
Julia, Caroline, and Adelaide

May 9th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

Did Barrie really invent the name Wendy? I never knew that!
I just finished reading East of Eden and have come to really like the name Aron…Cal and Aron go together well, and they ought to, since an entire chapter of the book is devoted to their naming.
From this list, I also like Eben, Peter and Simeon
and Sebastian, Julia, and Cordelia.

May 9th, 2009 at 7:56 pm

I also love Daisy and Demi (Meg and John’s twins) from Little Women/Good Wives.

May 11th, 2009 at 11:04 am

Aurelia–Yes, Barrie really did invent Wendy–he took it from the nickname Fwendy-Wendy that a young acquaintance named Margaret Henley had given him.

May 14th, 2009 at 9:33 am

My parents joked when my mom was pregnant with me that my name should be Holly because my older sister is Hannah. Thank god they were only joking.

If I had five daughters I would not be adverse to them being named after the Bennett sisters, simply because in America no one would really get it and they are all such lovely names (although I do prefer Katherine to Catharine).

May 21st, 2009 at 7:31 pm

I have a particular interest in this one, being an amateur writer. I’m always looking for new and interesting names…I think that’s how I first got into the whole name thing. I have to be careful not to go back to my favorites all the time, though, and I tend to give “bad” characters (villains, bullies, etc.) names I don’t like.

I think the sibset that appeals most to me from the list above is the Little Women. Their names could easily be given to a set of four sisters today. A few of my sibsets are as follows:

Leslie
Kristy
Kelly

Toni
Jackie
Kristen
Louisa

Arnulf
Carl Johan
Anna-Laura
Christian (these are my “royals”)

It often seems to me that a lot of sibset names don’t “match”. But then again, I’m sure others would feel that way about my sibsets.

June 16th, 2009 at 6:34 pm

They aren’t really sisters, but the four friends in Libba Bray’s book (and I have never heard of that first name before I saw the book) A Great and Terrible Beauty have lovely names: Gemma (love this one!), Felicity, Pippa, and Ann. Okay, I don’t really like Ann, but I like the others.

September 1st, 2009 at 2:53 pm

What about the Boxcar Children?

Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny