Margaret

My identical twin sister carried my identical twin daughters for me. I named them Irene Lesley Ann and Margaret Elizabeth Ann. I named them for my grandmothers. Their names peaked in popularity in the United States in 1915, but they are old-fashioned names that fit my feisty daughters. We lost Irene when she was four months old due to failed heart surgery in a Boston hospital and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her and look for the elusive peace that is the meaning of her name. They share the middle name Ann in the same way that my twin and I share Ann as a middle name. I wanted them both to have Ann because it is the name I share with my sister. She made dreams come true by helping me to become a mother and I wanted our daughters to share in the love story that the four of us are together.

-Jen, Quincy, MA

Margaret

When we found out that our first child was a girl, I knew that she had to be named Margaret. My mother-in-law's family has a tradition of naming children after the parents. So, my husband and sister-in-law are Robert and Margaret and my father-in-law and mother-in-law are Robert and Margaret. Mother-in-law Margaret's mother? Margaret. Mother-in-law Margaret's brother Ira, is the third in a line of Iras who hailed from the Mississippi Delta. Mother-in-law Margaret told me that her father was actually the second son. His older brother had been born about six years earlier and named Ira for the boys' father. However, the new baby favored their father very much, while older brother, Ira looked more like their mother. So, the parents decided to name the new baby Ira, and bestowed a new name (Partee) on their first son, formerly known as Ira.

To properly keep with the tradition, I really should have named our first born daughter after me, but that felt a little strange, and since my sister-in-law didn't plan to have children, I thought that we should keep the Margaret tradition going. However, as you can see from this story, it is very confusing when you give everyone the same name, so I really wanted our Margaret to have her own identity. So, while her given name is Margaret, we call her Molly. She is spunky and cute and I think that Molly suits her perfectly. Also, when she's playing soccer, it's a lot quicker to shout, "Go, Molly!" than "Go, Margaret!"

-Susannah, Atlanta, GA