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Re: Family of 5 Boys Named After Saints
The names are fine in general (although Blaise stands out-- not because it's bad necessarily, it just doesn't blend in with the other common and well-known names). But mostly I think the combos don't feel like combos. They feel like the names were pulled out of a hat in terms of which first name got which middle name and which name in each combo got to be first. For one, Nicholas and Michael are too similar to be together. They look similar, share a lot of letters, both have "ich" and the "ch" K sound, they both have an l, M and N are like honorary identical twin letters, and both names just look balanced in the same way. I think parents who were actually crafting the combos would not have put Nicholas and Michael together when either one could have gone with another name. Nicholas Andrew and Anthony Michael would have worked great. Dominic Vincent is good, but Anthony Thomas looks matchy again ('thon' looks like 'Thom' even though they don't sound alike), plus if Anthony ever wants to go by Tony then you've got Tony Thomas, Tony Tom, all it takes is one very common nickname to turn this combo into a matchy-matchy cartoon name. Andrew Paul is fine but again, doesn't sound intentional. Blaise Joseph seems a little more intentional just because Blaise seems like a deliberate choice here among otherwise common names (sort of with the exception of Dominic and Vincent), but because it stands out so much I wouldn't make Blaise the first name in any of these combos.
Any of these would have been better than pairing "Nich and Mich" and "thon and Thom":
Nicholas Anthony
Nicholas Andrew
Michael Thomas
Anthony Michael My attempt:
Nicholas Paul
Dominic Vincent
Anthony Michael
Thomas Andrew
Joseph Blaise
or
Nicholas Andrew
Dominic Vincent
Anthony Paul
Michael Thomas - meh, but Thomas had to go somewhere
Joseph BlaiseETA I also wouldn't use two "An-" names as brothers, and I'd be wary of Nicholas and Dominic because both of them might end up as Nick or Nic.

This message was edited 11/30/2023, 5:00 PM

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