Name regret and changing a child’s name?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

I’m wondering this too. Is it because you chose a trendy name? Caved to the spouse? I don’t get it. I’ve never felt this even for an instant. But we chose very classic names. I only have two kids, but even if I had needed to name 10 kids I had a list a mile long of classic names I would have been happy to name my child. My kids are teenagers now and I still love not only their names, but all the other names we considered using back then.

DCUM is how I learned how much trouble people have with having empathy using really basic imagination. Here are a variety of ways that someone could wind up in this situation that are perfectly understandable to me:

- Their pregnancy was not "routine and healthy" -- they had complications that distracted them throughout the pregnancy and perhaps made them postpone choosing a name out of fear the baby would not make it to term.
- They had perinatal anxiety, which can be hormonally caused, and affects 15-23% of all pregnant women according to Google AI. Anxiety can disrupt your decision-making process and cause procrastination, second guessing, and difficulty in communication, all of which could impact the name selection process.
- They have PPD or PPA and it is causing them to second guess the name they chose.
- They experienced a major life event while pregnant that made the naming process harder. Death of a parent or job loss come to mind as not uncommon and likely to cause stress during pregnancy and make it harder to choose a name or potentially harder to agree on a name.
- Marital issues making the naming process fraught.
- Family issues making the naming process fraught, like an overbearing grandparent insisting on an honor name (or two grandparents competing over an honor name), a family naming tradition that doesn't feel right to the couple but they get a lot of pressure to follow, etc.

And that's off the top of my head without putting any thought into it before starting this post. I didn't have this issue with naming my kid but it's not very hard to see how people wind up with naming regret if you have even a little bit of empathy and imagination, two qualities that some folks on DCUM seem sorely lacking in.

[Anonymous]

Legally change it asap. You will be extremely glad you did so. EVERYONE else will adjust.

File this week!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

I know two Sylvias and a Sylvie under age 10, it's very consistent with all the other common names going around. It's better than some of the other old lady names I've come across on little kids, actually. And much better than a super trendy name like Bexley or Havensleigh or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

What's wrong with the name Sylvia? You sound like a terrible friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

Let me guess, you have a Taylor and a Paxton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

What's wrong with the name Sylvia? You sound like a terrible friend.

I kinda like the name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

Let me guess, you have a Taylor and a Paxton?

Um exCUSE me, it's Braxton.

[Anonymous]

If you change it, change it ASAP and make sure you get a new birth certificate with the NEW NAME on it so that your child doesn't spend 40 years of their life having to carry around a birth certificate and a court affidavit proving their name change only to discover AT THE AGE OF 40 when they rip their birth certificate and apply for a new one that they could have had a birth certificate with their actual (new) name on it THIS WHOLE TIME.

Sorry. I'm bitter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

What's wrong with the name Sylvia? You sound like a terrible friend.

I kinda like the name.

Yes, that's my point. It's a perfectly fine and normal name. So many people nowadays are giving their children grandparent names that Sylvia/Sylvie is actually quite common. I mean, heck, I even know a little Mildred (goes by Millie) and not one, not two, but THREE Maudes. Sylvia is lovely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

What's wrong with the name Sylvia? You sound like a terrible friend.

I kinda like the name.

Yes, that's my point. It's a perfectly fine and normal name. So many people nowadays are giving their children grandparent names that Sylvia/Sylvie is actually quite common. I mean, heck, I even know a little Mildred (goes by Millie) and not one, not two, but THREE Maudes. Sylvia is lovely.

Any of those are better than the trendy ones like Hudson or Paisley or Brynlee or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

I’m wondering this too. Is it because you chose a trendy name? Caved to the spouse? I don’t get it. I’ve never felt this even for an instant. But we chose very classic names. I only have two kids, but even if I had needed to name 10 kids I had a list a mile long of classic names I would have been happy to name my child. My kids are teenagers now and I still love not only their names, but all the other names we considered using back then.

I can only speak for myself because I don’t know the OP’s situation. My husband was set on a really awful, trendy preppy name for our son (Brooks) and wouldn’t consider anything else. He told his parents that this was going to be our son’s name before it was even agreed upon. I was heavily pregnant and didn’t feel like debating him over it so just gave in.

That’s where my baby name regret stems from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the OP. DH and I decided on a name before baby was born. Now that our child is here, we realize what a mistake we made. We’re both (DH even more so than me) regretting the name. We tried to give it some time to see if our thoughts would change, but they haven’t. I just know we’re going to get pushback from family if we say that we’re legally changing it.

If the child is under 6 months, just do it. People will get over it. If the child is over one year, don't do it, it's too late, unless the name is VERY similar to the current name (think changing Jennifer to Jenna or something). Between 6 and 12 months I'd consider a grey area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

I’m wondering this too. Is it because you chose a trendy name? Caved to the spouse? I don’t get it. I’ve never felt this even for an instant. But we chose very classic names. I only have two kids, but even if I had needed to name 10 kids I had a list a mile long of classic names I would have been happy to name my child. My kids are teenagers now and I still love not only their names, but all the other names we considered using back then.

I posted earlier that my friend got a tearful phone call begging her not to use their chosen name literally in the delivery room, and she relented because she had other things on her mind like birthing a child. She changed the name a month later back to the one they'd originally picked. IMO that's totally legitimate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not trying to be rude here, but how do people find themselves in this situation? If you had a routine healthy pregnancy and found out that you were pregnant at the typical time, then you had many months to choose a name. You didn’t start feeling like this name wasn’t so great in all of those months?

Hormones sometimes make people crazy. My friend, while pregnant, was considering naming her daughter Sylvia. SYLVIA. She is normally a reasonable person. Thank god we all rallied when the baby was born and kept her from filling out the birth certificate until she came to her senses and realized what an awful thing it would be to name a baby in 2023 Sylvia, and decided on a much more reasonable name.

I know multiple girls who go by Sylvie who are under age 8 or so. What a weird thing to protest. It's a classic name.