6 ways to deal with the ‘2 moms’ naming dilemma! A guide for lesbian parents

We are a two mom lesbian family, and so, as well as coming up with a name for our daughter, we had to come up with names for ourselves. We put so much thought into our daughter’s name, and didn’t really consider that she’d need some way to differentiate between us two!

It’s so much work being same sex parents! We did some research online and found a few different options that we could use:

1. Mom and Mum

We did like this option but felt it would get confusing, especially when our child was older and going to school. The words ‘mom’ and ‘mum’ are really similar (especially when a baby is saying them!), so we felt that the confusion would still be there even if one of us went by ‘mom’ and the other went by ‘mum’

2. Mom and Mommy / Mum and Mummy

We originally liked this idea for when our little one was a baby, but we worried that they would grow up saying it even when they grew up- I was once at university and talked about my ‘nanny’ (nan), just because that’s what I’d always known her as. It sounded fine when I was a baby, but not so much when I was a university student among my peers!

3. Using your first names

I personally didn’t really like this idea- I’ve only known people use their parents’ first names if they have had a falling out. I didn’t actually know my dad’s name until I was about 10 years old. We also cared about how outsiders see our family, and by not using any ‘parental’ names, we felt that we might not be seen as ‘proper’ parents.

4. Let the baby decide

This was not an option for me, I was worried the baby would know Nat as “the fun one” and me as “the boring one” or something even worse. My daughter called her two nans ‘nanny crackers’ and ‘nanny choc choc’, as that reflected what food they gave her. It’s cute as a baby but not so much if it had caught on!

5. Different languages / cultural names

We loved this idea, where each parent is called ‘mom’ in their native language (e.g. mamá for the Spanish mom). The only problem is that we are both English, and so this wouldn’t have worked for us. A lot of the names also sound very similar, which could be confusing in certain situations

6. Make your own up

We also considered merging words together to make our own words up- for example merging ‘mom’ with our names at the end- so for us that would have been ‘momma’ (mom + Emma), and ‘momat’ (mom + Nat), or shortened to ‘mat’- we didn’t really like any of these options for us as they didn’t work well with our names, but it could always be an option for others! There are also other ideas, such as merging ‘other mommy’ together to get ‘omie’

…and this is what we did! We liked the idea of ‘omie’ and so we used it. Nat said she wanted to be the ‘Omie’ (pronounced “oh-me”) because that aligned more with how she felt (as the non-bio mum). Our family and friends were very accepting of our situation and they called us mom and omie from the very beginning- and the same was true of her nursery and school- we even had 2 Mother’s Day cards from her nursery- one for mom and another for omie.

The only issue we encountered was within the product market- there weren’t many suitable products for mom and omie, other than completely bespoke products. We looked for a baby record book suitable for lesbians that we could use- the only way we could find one suitable for us was around £90 and made for us. We didn’t really need to have a bespoke book- we just wanted one where we could write ‘omie’ on the family tree (without scribbling through ‘dad’). After searching for months, we decided to design our own, and that’s what we did! We now sell these books on our website- each book has a space to write about both parents, and a space for ‘what you know me as’- perfect for the two mom and two dad families! We also found the same issue when it came to our first Mother’s day- we couldn’t find a Mother’s Day card suitable for two mums (or moms!)– so we also made one of those too! We’ve since expanded our range even more to include Pregnancy Journals suitable for all types of family as well.

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