Here they are–the newest berrybaby names from January, February and March–and they’re better than ever!

Every three months, when we prepare these quarterly reports, we’re knocked out by the endlessly creative variety of choices made (and I’m sure there are lots more that didn’t make it into the Birth Announcement Forum), the felicitous first and middle name combos and the great twin and other sibsets.

This time around there are reports of ten sets of twins:

Girl/Girl

Aria Violet and Harper Daisy

Lucille Violet and Coraline Hazel

Grace Vivian and Juliet Mae

Imogen Esteri and Phoebe Justine

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A while back, we asked you to list your favorite names, one for a girl and one for a boy, from A to Z.

Now we’re inviting you to reprise that exercise, but with a pair of twin names for each letter.

You are welcome to mix it up: some girl-girl twin names, some boy pairs, and some girl-boy mixes.  Create pairs with clever matching themes or flow, if that’s your preference, or choices that are very distinct from one another and are connected mainly by their first initial.

The only rule is that each pair of twin names start with the same first letter.

So your list might read:

Alice & Arthur

Beatrice & Bridget

Cassius & Cicero

…..and so on.

Your turn!

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It’s always so disappointing to see the most popular twin names in the U.S.   The majority are connected in such obvious ways, or in several obvious ways at the same time.  They’ve got the same first initial, they rhyme or at least have a similar rhythm, they share a derivation and/or a meaning, they’re identical in style and/or popularity and/or image – and often they’ve got all those factors going on at once.

Dominant pairs include Jada and Jayden, Taylor and Tyler, Ella and Emma, London and Paris.

But we think you can do better, much better, and we’re going to help you.  The point is to find twin names that share a strong bond yet remain distinct individuals, just as you would wish for your children.   Some ideas for fresh links between names are below — you might want to use these for finding compatible sibling pairs too!

Same first initial, different sound

Connecting twin names by using the same first initial may feel like the easiest and, let’s face it, most predictable and boring way to link.

But you can give the powerful initial connection a fresh twist by choosing names that share the initial but sound different.  Some first initials accommodate this idea better than others.  A few examples:

Cybele and Clio

Genevieve and Garrett

Imogen and Isla

Patrick and Philip

If you want to use a first initial that sounds the same no matter what, at least vary the second letter to give the overall sound of each name a distinct feel.  Examples:

David and Drew

Mabel and Murray

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We first talked with the lovely Natalie Hanson, whose husband is musical star Taylor Hanson, when she named her fourth child the amazing Viggo Moriah.  Not only is Natalie a celebrity mom, she’s a name nerd!  We’re delighted and honored to welcome Natalie to Nameberry as a guest blogger.  Here, she looks back on the names she and her husband chose for their four young children and what she’s thinking about for names for her fifth, due this fall.

This October I will celebrate ten years since I first took my adolescent name research and applied it to an actual human being.  This upcoming anniversary has inspired me to look back on the names my husband and I gave to our four children, the ways we chose them, and how they’ve worked out.   Have each of my choices lived up to my hopes? Was my perception of each name’s potential correct, or “ahead of its time”?  Our name stories:

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One of our favorite twin names blogs ever was on distinct names that had shared meanings: Esme and Imogen, which both mean beloved, for instance, or Asher and Felix, which mean happy.

So we’ve decided to reprise the idea with a whole raft of new pairs of twin names.   As before, the idea is to choose names that are compatible yet clearly individual — no shared first initials or other overly-obvious links — yet that are joined in a more subtle way by a common meaning.

In the girl-boy pairs below, the girl’s name goes first as per Nameberry style; in single-gender pairs, the names are organized alphabetically.

Anoush and Eulalia – sweet

Balthasar and Rex – king

Celeste and Juno  – heaven

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