Sibset Lines

Inspiration :: Olive (Olive Trees, Van Gogh)

It makes sense to think that the more children you have, the harder it is to choose a name. You use your absolute favourite for your first, your runner-up for you second and, by your third and fourth, you have run out of all of the names on your original list. But in my opinion, your second child is the most difficult.

I see sibsetting as the same process as drawing a straight line. You start with a dot (your first child’s name) This dot can be anywhere on the page (meaning the style of the name can be almost absolutely anything). Your second child is a second dot. This can also be anywhere on the page – but once you draw the line between the two dots, the direction of the sibset is pretty much determined. This is why the second child is the hardest – it determines your style. There is a little leeway with the next few children but it is hard to take a complete detour.

Imagine that the black space represents all the names in the world. The coloured circles represent different naming styles. Some overlap and some are closer together than other.

You start a sibset line by putting a dot where your first name of the sibset will go. You can imagine that this will fall into one or two of the style circles from the previous picture. Repeat but with the second name of the sibset and then join the dots.

I added another second child possibility to show how the second child can change the direction of the sibset.

And a third child cements the sibset style. You can imagine a Hannah, Talia and Mary but Talia stands out and doesn't quite fit the pretty but conservative style of Hannah and Mary. You can imagine Talia, Maya and Mary but Mary stands out just like Talia did in my previous example.

So how can you create different sibset lines? Let's pretend that Olive is your first child. You are unsure about naming your second because Olive was the 'perfect' name. You need to first analyse a name. Olive is a nature name, a food name, a vintage sounding name, an 'O' name and a tailored name. These are your categories - look at its historical period, popularity, phonology (sounds) and meaning. These will reveal the types of names you need to connect to Olive. This sounds very stereotypical - a floral sibset, a popular sibset and others. But the categories you use can be very personal - they can be certain feelings or colours.

In fact, the whole premise of sibset lines sound stereotypical. There are obviously exceptions and downsides to the model. But I think that lines are the main type of sibset - but there are others! In my next post in this series - I will look at sibset triangles.