Baby names for big families

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Written by Mary Fetzer

Coming up with one baby name is challenging – coming up with one baby name after another (after another, after another…) is mind-boggling! Get inspired by your favorite books, historical figures or pop culture icons.

Literary siblings

Draw your sib-set from the memorable characters in your favorite books:

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott gave us the beloved March girls and their good-hearted fellas:

Meg (Margaret)
Jo (Josephine)
Beth (Elizabeth)
Amy
John
Laurie (Theodore, Teddy)
Friederich

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series introduced reader to the delightful red-haired wizard children of Arthur and Molly Weasley:

Charlie (Charles)
Bill (William)
Fred
George
Ron (Ronald)
Ginny (Ginverva)

TV Siblings

The Brady Bunch was one of TV’s first blended families. Devoted parents Mike and Carol Brady, along with housekeeper Alice, passed along important life lessons about being honest (and popular):

On The Waltons, we looked forward to the end of each episode when each of John and Olivia’s children (and Zeb and Esther’s grandchildren) said good night to one another:

Musical siblings

Nothing brings a family together like music!

The Jackson 5 musical group had enough musicians on the bench to occasionally switch out members. Two of the Jackson kids, Michael and Janet, soared to super-stardom:

Rebbie (Maureen)
Jackie (Sigmund)
Tito (Toriano)
Jermaine
LaToya
Marlon
Michael
Randy
Brandon
Janet

There were a whole lot of other talented Osmonds before Donny &Marie took over the spotlight:

Alan
Wayne
Merrill
Jay
Donny
Marie
Jimmy

Siblings in the news

Having a big family is a great way to score a TV show. Two of the three families listed here did just that.

Not only did Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar accomplish the task of naming 19 children… they did so by giving each offspring a J name! The big brood is featured on TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting:

Joshua
Jane
John-David
Jill
Jessa
Jinger
Joseph
Josiah
Joy-Anne
Jedidiah
Jeremiah
Jason
James
Justin
Jackson
Johannah
Jennifer
Jordyn-Grace
Josie

Jon and Kate Gosselin acquired nearly half as many kids in a fraction of the time. Kate gave birth to twin girls before she and then-husband Jon welcomed sextuplets. We enjoyed the family dynamics on the now-defunct TV series Jon & Kate Plus 8 and (after the divorce) Kate Plus 8:

Cara
Mady (Madelyn)
Alexis
Hannah
Aaden
Collin
Leah
Joel

Then there’s Nadya Suleman. The single mother, best known as Octomom, had six children via in-vitro fertilization before becoming pregnant (again, via IVF) with octuplets. The doctor who planted the embryos has since lost his medical license… and Nadya is receiving public assistance for the care of her 14 children: