Question of the day.

Congratulations, you just gave birth to triplets! Two girls, one boy. Their names start with S, M, and J. What do you name them?

My answer:

This one’s gonna be super rambly, because this is the kind of question that Bibiels like best, yay! Yeah, I think most of you know by now that, as much as I don’t want and don’t plan to have kids, on the other hand I’d love to have a lot of them for the sake of naming them. On a side note, my cousin just gave birth to a boy a few days ago and earlier on during her pregnancy I was very thrilled to help her find the right baby name. Now I’m quite thrilled that she actually named her baby really well, even if not necessarily what I would call my style but obviously that doesn’t matter. Anyways, back to the question.

Hm… so of course for me that would depend what language we’re working with specifically, or whether it could be any language. If we’re thinking realistically, I can only use names that work in Polish –
either because they’re used in Polish or because they don’t pose any linguistic challenges – since I live in Poland and am Polish myself, and while I love a lot of names from other cultures, I’m not a fan of too much name importing when it comes to Polish language, unless you are a mixed family, have a mixed background yourself or live abroad/live in Poland but aren’t Polish, as the result will usually be that your child’s name will be considered rather pretentious, and there will be a lot of pronunciation/spelling problems very likely. The first is due to the fact that we had fairly strict naming laws until not very long ago and most people still aren’t comfortable outside of them, and the second is because Polish is a phonetic language so if something’s spelt different than it is pronounced, it’s bound to cause trouble.

So, in Polish, for the S girl I would most certainly use Saskia. Unlike a lot of name nerds I don’t really do my favourites rankings, I used to but it’s not really helpful with anything for me, but if I were to have one, I’m sure Saskia would be featured somewhere in the top 10 every year for the last 5-6 years or so, I’m absolutely in love with it.

The M girl… I’ve always liked Milena, but it feels very 90’s, so by the time my hypothetical daughter would grow up, it would feel like Melissa or Jennifer does in English now, I suppose, and she wouldn’t be too thrilled, and neither would I. And also it’s too normal. Oh but hey, speaking of Melissa, I really love it! The problem is, it’s hardly fresh anymore in English, and it’s weird in Polish. There are Melisas and Melissas in Poland, I even know a Polish YouTuber who has a little Melissa, although I believe she lives somewhere abroad, but I still feel like for an average person, Melissa is more likely to be associated with the plant, you know, the melissa tea and its soporiphic qualities, than a human name. One of the naming laws we’d had is that common nouns couldn’t be used as names, except for a few that felt more or less traditional and somehow established themselves for some reason. Thus, I’d be afraid that there is a higher than normal name-calling potential here. But maybe I’m overthinking. My Mum, who’s quite narrow-minded when it comes to names, says she doesn’t feel like that would be the problem at all. So yeah, maybe Melissa, but maybe not… There are too many beautiful M names for girls. Another name I’d be highly tempted to use is Michalina. Michalina however, is extremely popular and I guess going up every year, so that’s a downside. Also, would people think that I’m weird having (or even having had) a cat called Misha and naming my daughter Michalina which is commonly nicknamed to Misia? Probably yes. I don’t know if I would/should care about what people would think in this case. And I wonder if it would be a huge discrepancy if I had triplets, of which one would have a highly unusual name (Saskia) and the other a name from top 20. I could go with Michaela (mee-khah-EH-lah of course, not mi-KAY-luh) which is a lot more obscure feminine form of Michał, but… I don’t know. I feel like it could be considered very snobbish by some people who don’t know that it’s been in use, albeit sparse, for ages, and I would hate it if Polish people tried to pronounce it the English way, which I think could happen sometimes because I think people are more acquainted with Michaela as an English name than a Polish one. I wouldn’t even be surprised, although would definitely be very disgruntled, if someone tried pronouncing it like Michael but with an a at the end. But I guess I love Michaela pronounced the Polish way even more than Michalina…

Okay, I’ve made up my mind: I think that while I’m leaning towards Michaela the most, Melis(s)a would be the best in this sibset. I could give her some more common middle in case she’d be teased by other kids about how she makes everyone fall asleep, so that she could use it instead if she wanted.

And for the J boy, well, that’s pretty easy, I’m sure most of you already can predict where I’m going to go with this. Jacek is my Polish male name crush and has been forever. The problem with Jacek is, it completely doesn’t feel at home with Saskia and Melissa. Jacek is a homey Polish name which peaked in the 60’s I believe, and now, while it doesn’t seem to have as much of a boomer feel as other names which peaked then to most people, it’s definitely out of favour. Also there is a practical problem. My Dad is Jacek, so if I lived with him, it could get a bit too confusing when my Mum would call either of them. But there is a great alternative. Over the last couple years, I think, in a way, this alternative has become evenn more attractive to me than Jacek. It is Jacenty. Jacenty is so vintage that I don’t think there are still any people bearing it who are alive, at least as a first name, because as a middle name, it’s my grandad’s middle. Which, to me, means that, while very retro, it could be ready for a comeback. Also apparently it was most popular in the eastern part of Poland, where my Mum’s family comes from. Americans have the 100 years rule when it comes to baby naming, here it doesn’t always work but with this name I think it absolutely could. Jacenty is the original name from which Jacek evolved, originally Jacek was only a nickname. And eventually Jacek sort of trampled his ancestor to death, so I really wish someone would finally give Jacenty the credit he deserves and compensate for the neglect he has experienced for so many years. I feel like it’s a stronger, more serious and masculine name than Jacek is – even though you can’t say Jacek lacks masculinity despite it means hyacinth – it feels sort of more cultured, and I quite like that very very retro feel. Additionally, Jacenty is my great great grandfather’s name, so here’s another reason why it feels like I SHOULD use this name if I ever had a son. It also matches my overall taste a bit better than Jacek, who feels out of place with other names that I like. It doesn’t solve the problem of confusion, because I’d still definitely call him Jacek on a daily basis, or Jacuś, which is a nickname of Jacek, so like a double nickname you could say (we really like diminutives in Poland so you can seriously have a diminutive of a diminutive of a diminutive sometimes) rather than the full form, it would feel extremely overwhelming to call a little boy Jacenty all the time, I’d only do that if he would be misbehaving. 😀 And I’m sure my Mum wouldn’t call him that either. But at least his formal name would be different than my Dad’s. I think I wrote some time before on here about how I believe there is a risk of muffling ones identity as an individual when using exactly the same family names. So here that risk would be diminished because he’d still have his own full name, and of course a different middle.

So, Saskia, Melissa and Jacenty. Jacenty still stands out as a lot more vintage and traditional, but I think he doesn’t feel too mismatched.

If I were to name an English/multilingual triplet set, I think I’d still stick to Saskia. I also really like Sophie or Sofia, but all these Sophie names are too popular for my liking.

For the M girl, I’m tempted to say Millicent because I’ve recently started liking it a lot. I mean I always did, but recently I just do even more, I also like Millie both as a nickname and a full name. But I’m not sure if Saskia and Millicent go well enough together, guess not. Maybe the earlier variant Melisande would be better, but I’m not fully convinced to that one on a real life person, even a hipothetical one. There are too manyy M names I like. I could use that Michaela but the Mikayla pronunciation and the plethora of spelling variations put me off very effectively, I’d only use it in a country like Sweden where they pronounce it mee-kah-EH-lah. I love Michelle, I seriously do, but it’s way too dated and way too common for my liking. Another M name that I’ve recently started to appreciate more is Marigold. And I think that, while I’m not so much in love with it as I am with Saskia, I’ll pick this one because it’s nice and fits well with the sister’s name.

And for the boy – most definitely Jac(k). – Like, there’s no other option. I know Jack feels a lot less complete and unexpected than his sisters, and Jac (the Welsh spelling which I slightly prefer) even more so, but I have no other ideas that I would both love and see fit at the same time. A lot of people consider Jack a very default classic, but I’d make sure that he knows I called him Jac(k) not because I didn’t care about what he’s going to be called, but it’s simply one of my absolutely most favourite names. I could call him something like Jackson, John, Jacob or Jacinto and then call him Jack all the time anyway, but I don’t feel like either of these names fit the sisters’ names any better, and I like Jac the most as just Jac.

I’m curious what you guys think about Saskia, Marigold and Jac as triplets. 😀

Perhaps the best thing I could do is adjust the sisters’ names to Jac to make them fit better. In this case, I’d probably go with Sophie and Millie or something else light and friendly like that. I would be quite satisfied with that but probably not truly fulfilled. 😀 Or maybe I should go Welsh all the way, because Jac would feel like a misspelling withh typically English names like Sophie and millie. In which case, Sophie would become either Soffi or Siriol, which means cheerful, and Millie… maybe Melangell, which is the Welsh version of the Latin name Monacella and the name of one of Welsh saints. As much as I love a lot of M names, with Welsh ones, I can’t think of one I’d like very much, and I think Melangell is the best.

And how about your triplets? 🙂