In my team we are versioning a project with SVN for the first time and are having problems with syncing our work.

How do I create branches? Currently, after having done “Check-out” I have a folder with withing “branches”, “tags” and “trunk”.
Inside this folder I go right-click and select “Branches/Tag…”, then enter the URL /branches/newBranch1.
After updating to sync with the server the new branch appears in the branches folder.
Problem is: inside this branch there’s a copy of trunk, branches and tags. Is this normal?
Furthermore, when someone opened a second branch with URL /branches/newBranch2, after updating to sync with server this will be containing /branches/newBranch1 as well in a strange recursive pattern. I’m facing multiple recursive folders and don’t know to manage this

I tried opening the repo-browser and correcting from there but to no avail.

Edit: The checkouts didn’t include “/trunk” at the end and neither the location to branch from. Was it necessary?