When it comes to naming a baby, parents often consider how their desired name could impact their child later in life.
With this in mind, one mum shared her intension to give her twin boys "matching names" so they'll be 'together' even when they're spending time apart.
However, her bright idea didn't go down well with everyone - especially her husband. He said on Reddit: "My wife and I have recently been deciding names for our twins and she wants them to be matching. I said I don't like this idea. I have a twin sister who I matched everything with and it got so annoying to me.
"She says it's cute, but I told her for the sake of our kids, lets not do the matching name thing and only make them match on things they both want to." He went on to explain how his mother-in-law started siding with his wife, believing it would be a missed opportunity otherwise.
The 33-year-old added: "Children are individuals. I hate watching people try and make their twins like two identical people when I promise you that is very unlikely to happen.
"If they wanna match, let them, but don't force them to look more like their twin than they already do if they don't want to."
Taking his side, the vast majority of social media users applauded him for trying to maintain his twins' individuality by giving them completely different names.
One user said: "You are the one with actual experience being a twin. Your wife should listen to you on this one."
Another user added: "As someone who looks after children for work, I've seen so many poor, poor children who have awful names because their parents clearly weren't thinking.
"Parents don't seem to think of the child when naming them and what they will have to go through for their 'unique' name.
"I can't see a good side to having matching names and when your wife says 'It’ll be cute', she's clearly not thinking her children will grow up one day and won’t be little babies."
A third user said: "Twins need to be treated as two individuals, not half of a matching set.
"From their names, their clothing, their activities, etc. They can have things the same sometimes but they also need to be independent of each other.
"They will have a much better life if being a twin is part of their identity rather than their entire identity."
One more user added: "I have seen numerous twins while teaching. The ones that do the best are the ones who are treated as simply two siblings - not made to be a set.
"Matched names ended up with one twin name Edward and his sister Edwina. Imagine Edward and Edwin both end up being called Eddy.
"Please explain to her your experiences and how it affected you."
Do you have a story to share? Email paige.freshwater@reachplc.com.
