So nice, their name happened twice.
Married couple Nicole Marie Skutelnik, 35, and Nicole Marie LaCroce, 37, have the same first and middle names – so when it came to having to decide on a last name, they had to come up with a creative solution.
The couple, who met in 2021 on an LGBTQ dating app, didn’t even realize they had the same middle name, too, until two weeks later — when they added each other on Facebook.
Instead of adopting the same last name, they decided to forgo it altogether and keep each of their own in order to prevent more confusion for others.
“I know for Italian girls born in the ’80s, Marie is the most generic middle name,” LaCroce told South West News Service.
“So [after I found her on Facebook] I asked, ‘Are you the kind of Italian with the middle name Marie?’ and the answer was, ‘Yes!’ “
However, according to SWNS, both LaCroce and Skutelnik find the strange coincidence to be funny, as it shows just how much they have in common – LaCroce even goes by the abbreviated Nikki, while Skutelnik goes by Nic.
Before the wedding, they thought about potentially using both of their last names and connecting them with a hyphen but later decided against it.
Even so, they admit that their name has left some people in their life – and strangers – a bit puzzled.
When they got married last October in a virtual ceremony, some guests got confused about which Nicole was being addressed — including LaCroce’s dad.
“My dad couldn’t make it, so Facetimed us,” she explained. “He was getting confused who was being spoken to!”
The happy couple just laughed it off.
“It was actually funny during our wedding ceremony,” LaCroce said.
“The amount of times the officiant said, ‘Nicole Marie’ — I wish I had counted.”
Even though they’ve been together for several years now, they admitted to SWNS that whenever their mutual name gets called out, it’s tough to figure out which one of them is actually being spoken to.
Things also get murky for the couple when they travel together, as it causes some bewilderment when they have to present their identification documents.
Previously, they had to do a lot of traveling, as Skutelnik lived in Vancouver, Canada, while LaCroce lived in Pennsylvania. Now, they both live together in Vancouver.
“One time we drove across the border together and the guy asked, ‘Which one of you is Nicole?’ and we both raised our hands,” LaCroce explained.
“Then he asked, ‘Which is Nicole Marie?’ — and we both raised our hands again.”
They admitted that, at first, that type of interaction annoyed them a bit, but they can still have a good laugh about it now.
“We roll our eyes but we’re both light-hearted people, so we do chuckle about it,” LaCroce said.
In the future, the two don’t plan on having any children, but they quipped that if they ever did, they would want to name their kid “Nicole Marie” and also give them a different last name.
“We don’t get too confused by it anymore and if we do, it’s just funny,” Skutelnik said.
“But it compounds exactly how much we have in common!”
And, strangely enough, the Nicole Maries are not the only ones who have had the same name in common before.
Last February, one mom went viral on TikTok after she revealed that every single member of her immediate family has the same middle name – Lauren.
Another couple, Kevin and Kellie, gave their daughter a mashup of their first names – naming her Kevleigh.