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 AnthonyNicholas Andrew Michael Thomas Anthony Michael
My attempt:
Nicholas PaulDominic VincentAnthony MichaelThomas AndrewJoseph Blaise or
Nicholas Andrew Dominic Vincent Anthony Paul Michael Thomas - meh, but
Thomas had to go somewhere
Joseph Blaise
ETA 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