Naming Children

[pinefamily]

Yes its true, naming patterns can be very helpful when tracing ancestors.
I have 2 instances in my family. The surname Dowdeswell is fairly uncommon, but surprisingly there are a lot of (as yet) unconnected branches, so it has been handy to find Jonathan's and Benjamin's; so far they have all tied into my line. Similarly with my Pine's, any combination of Luke Hogard Henry Pine is guaranteed to be a match.
Even now, tackling my wife's family lines, I am finding certain lines easier with distinctive names passed down through the generations.

[Gillg]

A schoolfriend's father thought he would have trouble in remembering the ages of his children, so named them John, David, Monica and Elizabeth (get it? 1, 2, 3 & 4 syllables in order of birth).  I wonder what a fifth child would have been called? 

[lizdb]

Anastasia?

[chinakay]

He'd have to learn to fight early on, then, wouldn't he

[Gillg]

How about Epaminondas for the fifth child, if a boy, though it doesn't match well with the other four very British, biblical/saint names. Their father was a clergyman, I should have said.  (I used to love the children's book about Epaminondas (now very un-P.C., of course).

Six syllables, anyone?

[lizdb]

Well done with 5 for a boy - I struggled there!

My only attempt for a six is Marieantoinetta
I did come across someone years ago who called their daughter that, but it may have been hyphenated I guess!

[Rabbit B]

Try,

O r e a n a = Oreanea in Spanish/Portugese, not quite sure which.
A d ri a nn a = Adrianna

[Alexander.]

No need to go too exotic for 5 syllables - how about Alexandria for a girl, or Maximilian for a boy? Though they'd probably end up as Alex and Max, so not much help for remembering the order.

And variations on the above, for the sixth child (if you wanted to be pretentious) - Alexandriana or Maximilianus. In fact...if you wanted to have more than six kids you could just add suffixes like 'na' or 'us' to the end of the names indefinitely...