A tale of two Lillys

Julia's Sweet Streets Schoolhouse, a birthday gift this past year, came with 6 little dolls. Their names, as decreed by Julia a week or two after she got the set, are Miss Cindy (the teacher), Jonathan, Jon, Carrina, Lilly and Lilly. Yes, two Lillys. And both a Jonathan and a Jon. Multiple kids with the same name, you see, are a fact of Julia's life.

I knew years before Julia was even conceived that if I ever had a girl, I wanted to name her after my grandparents, Julius and Fay. "Julia Fay," the nurse smiled at me the day after she was born. "What a beautiful name. I'm surprised that we don't hear it more often." I laughed. "I hope you don't start hearing it too often," I replied. I'd hate for her to have to be Julia T."

Fat chance.

Apparently, that nurse was either new on the job or she sent out some sort of immediate naming memo, because there are no shortage of Julias in this area. In fact, everywhere we go now, there are boatloads of Julias. Julias at the playground. Julias at the pool. Julias on the Internet, even. So far, we've escaped any Julias in her class (there are 3 Abbys, 2 Rachels and 2 Madelines in Julia's small preschool age group, but all of the Julias in the school are a year older or younger), but it's only a matter of time. "We already know of 3 other 3 year old Julias in our elementary school district," another Julia mom told me at the pool last week. It's not our district, thank goodness. But there are God knows how many more around here, and they'll all meet up by middle school. At the rate we're going, Julia's going to get off lucky if she's the only Julia T.

When Evan was born, we thought we'd be smarter about this naming thing. We still loved Ethan, the boy name we'd selected for Julia, but it had shot up in the rankings in the past several years and seemed too trendy now, so we settled on Evan, which had the same sound and cadence and flow with our last name, but none of the popularity of our first pick. Or so we thought. "Evan Benjamin," friends said when we introduced them to our new son. "What a great name. I just met another Evan recently..." And so it began again. Evans at the playground, Evans on the Internet, and this time, Evans at school. Unlike Julia, Evan is already Evan T in his Mommy and Me classes, and his friend Evan H will be in the same schools as our Evan straight through high school. And wouldn't you know it? Not a 1 1/2 year old Ethan to be found.

Being one of several kids with the same name isn't all bad. Abby J's mom tells me that the highlight of Abby's last school year was being "one of the Abbys" (go figure). And Julia certainly doesn't seem to mind -- perhaps even welcomes the idea -- of sharing her name. Even though I giggle every time I hear her playing with Lilly and Lilly, she seems completely oblivious to the fact that there's anything unusual about her naming choices. "Do you think our Julias are this generation's Jennifers?" I asked the other Julia mom at the pool last week. "Oh, God, I hope not, but I guess they may well be," she replied. We both looked sadly at our daughters for a moment, mourning the small amount of individuality they'll miss out on as a result of having such a common name. "I still love the name, though," I said. "And I can't imagine her as anything else." She promptly agreed.

Julia T. and Evan T... they both have a nice ring to them. Not quite the ring I had in mind, but I'll adapt. And if Julia gets annoyed at me some day for giving her such a common name, I'm going to remind her of the two Lillys. Those poor girls don't even have a last name to help people differentiate between them, and yet they seem to be doing just fine, thank you very much.