Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Literary Siblings

There seems to be a lot of concern over whether siblings' names "fit" together. If your first daughter is Mary, is it okay to go with Moonbeam or Misty for a second? What about Madison or Maliah? Or are you stuck with Mathilda or Mabel? Whether you're in the "same style" camp, the "whatever goes" camp, or somewhere in between, I thought a survey of literary sib-sets--stylish, stodgy, or just plain strange--might be fun.
  • Josephine ('Jo'), Margaret ('Meg'), Elizabeth ('Beth'), & Amy--Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
  • Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine ('Kitty'), & Lydia--Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
  • Elinor, Marianne, & Margaret--Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
  • Wendy, John, & Michael--Peter and Wendy [aka "Peter Pan"], J. M. Barrie
  • Juniper ('Junie') & Oliver--Junie B. Jones, Denise Brunkus
  • Peter, Valentine [♀], & Andrew ('Ender')--Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
  • Beatrice ('Beezus'), Ramona, & Roberta; Howard ('Howie') & Willa Jean--Ramona series, Beverly Cleary
  • Artemis [♂], Beckett, & Myles--Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer
  • Gregor, Elizabeth ('Lizzy'), & Margaret ('Boots')--The Underland Chronicles, Suzanne Collins
  • Katy, Clover, Elsie, Dorry [♂], & Joanna ('Johnnie')--What Katy Did series, Susan Coolidge
  • Simon, Jane, & Barnabas ('Barney')--The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
  • Martha, Belinda, Peter, & Timothy ('Tiny Tim') [+ an unnamed brother & sister]--A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
  • Mycroft & Sherlock--the Sherlock Holmes novels, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Louise, Marie [changed to Clara for the ballet], & Fritz--The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, E. T. A. Hoffman
  • Sophie, Lettie, & Martha--Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
  • Margaret ('Meg'), Alexander ('Sandy'), Dennys, & Charles Wallace--The Time Quartet, Madeleine L'Engle
  • Jeremy ('Jem') & Jean ('Scout')--To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
  • Peter, Susan, Edmund, & Lucy--The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
  • Tommy & Annika--Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren
  • Jonas, Lily, & Gabriel--The Giver, Lois Lowry 
  • Wade, Ella, & Eugenie--Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
  • James ('Jem'), Walter, Anne ('Nan'), Diana, Shirley [♂], & Bertha Marilla ('Rilla'); Gerald ('Jerry'), Faith, Una, & Thomas Carlyle ('Carl')--Anne of Green Gables series, Lucy Maud Montgomery
  • William, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ronald, & Ginevra ('Ginny')--Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling
  • Goneril, Regan, & Cordelia--King Lear, William Shakespeare
  • Viola & Sebastian--The Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
  • Violet, Klaus, & Sunny--A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
  • Jane, Michael, John, Barbara, & Annabel--Mary Poppins series, P. L. Travers
  • Henry, Jessica ('Jessie'), Violet, & Benjamin ('Benny')--The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner 
  • Avery & Fern--Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
  • Fritz, Ernest, Jack, and Franz [sometimes translated to Francis]--Swiss Family Robinson, Johann David Wyss

1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful list!!! We have named our first two children after literary characters and plan to follow suit with the third - Lord willing!

    My husband is a librarian, and even though he doesn't understand my obsession with names, he'll love this post!!

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