disagree with husband over baby name

[Anonymous]

My husband and I can't agree on a baby name. I had my heart set on my grandfather's name because I wanted at least part of our son's name to reflect my family heritage (I kept my maiden name and our baby will have my husband's last name). My grandfather's name is a nice one -- classic but not too common--but my husband just doesn't like it. I'm so sad about this because I really wanted to honor my grandparents, who I was very close to.

So we agreed on a second choice, which is a nice name but doesn't have special meaning for me. Now we can't agree on middle names, and the baby is due any day now. How do you resolve these issues? We get along really well together and work well as a couple, but for some reason, can't agree on baby names. Basically, he wants something that sounds cool and I want something that is meaningful or reflects family heritage.

[Anonymous]

I think you just need to keep looking at names. In our case we both had girls names that we loved -- unfortunatley they were different names . So we went back to the drawing board and looked and looked. It just so happens that my husband was looking at the Social Security Administration website one day (they have lists of popular babies names for every year going back into the 1800's). He was just shooting out names and said one, and I said -- "Hey that wouldn't be bad". It turns out we both like it and it just so happens that it is a name from his side of the family that he just wasn't aware of. Anyway, when it came to the middle name, we both wanted to use our mother's names, so our daughter is getting two middle names.

The two middle name thing isn't that strange for us as my husband talked me into a second middle name for our son while I was in labor. In our son's case we had picked a name that was not in either family, so he ended up with two middle names so that he could also have a name from each side of the family. The way I look at it -- the child is a joint product of ours so both parents get equal input -- so I didn't feel like it was fair to leave out my husband's wishes just because we are artifically constrained to three names (1st, middle, and last). I also know my husband and know that he would not have brought it up while I was in labor if it wasn't weighing heavily on his mind.

My case is a little bit different as I took DH's last name as my last name when we married. I don't see it as "his" last name but as our family name.

Best of Luck!

[Anonymous]

Sems reasonable to ask that your grandfather's name be the middle name.

[Anonymous]

Why not have your maiden name be the baby's middle name?

[Anonymous]

I agree with 22:55. I think you should go through all the lists of names that you can find or think of until you find a name that you both like.

[Anonymous]

Because our kids took DH's last name, he gave me wide girth in choosing first names. It only seems fair, particularly if you're trying to honor your family (which he's been able to do by passing on his last name), not just picking a "cool" name.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP. When a child is named with a surname of the father, the mother's preferences should have FAR more weighting with regard to the first and middle names. And, years from now, it will mean more to your ds to have a name that is reflective of his ancestry than one that his father just like the sound of.

[Anonymous]

Have you considered using the first letter of your grandfather's name? That is common in Jewish naming tradition. So if his name was "Max" you can name your child "Matt". You can let everyone know that he was named for his grandfather, and he will grow up knowing that.

As for middle names - if you lose the first name battle you should absolutely win get to name the middle name after your grandparents. Make a deal - this baby gets to be named after your grandparents, the next baby (if you have one) can be named after someone special to your husband.

Did your DH know your grandfather? He may not want to name his child after someone he never met, which I can understand. In which case the middle name should work well.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I too kept my maiden name and my husband and I decided it was only fair that I have complete decision making power on the middle name. I think you should too, given your desire to include something from your side of the family. you might approach your husband and tell him how dissapointed you are about not using your g-father's name. Then try to explain how important it is to you to have some part of your son's name reflext your family,narrow it down to three options(you must like all of them) and then tell him you'd like him to decide which of those he would be open to for the middle name.
it is NOT too much to ask for his flexibility and abilitiy to compromise.
This is your son, his name should reflect both families, if that is the mother's wish.

[Anonymous]

OP here...thanks for your replies. Now my husband is open to using my grandfather's name as middle name. However, that would give the baby the initials TP! (-:

[Anonymous]

I don't have any advice, just wanted to give you some sympathy. I am in your same boat-- I kept my maiden name, but am okay with the kids having my husband's last name. (I say "okay" with some hesitancy because I would have preferred to hypenate.) My husband's middle name has been passed down three generations, so when we found out that we were having a son, he wanted him to have his middle name too. It has caused some anxiety because like you, I wanted my son to have some connection name-wise to my family and was hoping to use my maiden name as a middle name if we weren't going to hypenate. The thing that was frustrating was that if we were having a girl, it would not be an issue because he was totally fine with using my maiden name then-- but because we are now having the first grandson born into the family, our child suddenly had to carry on my husband's "male" family middle and last name. (There is no family middle name passed down for the female children.)

We had some pretty tense arguments about it. In the end the compromise was that I had total pick on the first name. However, my maiden name would be kind of weird as a first name so I picked a family name instead. I have to tell you that I am still not totally happy with the compromise, but I am getting more used to it. People tell me that when my son is actually here that I won't care about it as much and that kids develop their own identity and that names matter less to the kid and more to the parent. That is partly why I finally dropped the argument. So, I hope that is true. (This is my first baby.) I don't know about you, but part of why this was so important to me was because I was already worried that my son was going to bond more to my husband, just by virtue of the fact that they are both men. The mother-son relationship is kind of a mystery until you have a son, unlike the mother-daughter relationship which we all already experienced with our own mothers. What helped me with that was talking to some of my friends who had sons and learning more about their mother-son relationships, and realizing that I was going to have a special relationship with my son, no matter what his name. Good luck and I hope you can work something out.

[Anonymous]

To 11:31: why not hyphenate? We did and have noticed that the trend is growing.

[Anonymous]

I can relate to the need for a "family" connection. Our oldest is named after her great-grandmothers. In a very weird and strange coinkydink, our grandmothers have the exact same first names. It seemed like divine intervention, so we went with their names. Then I got pregnant with #2. In a moment of pregnancy induced stupidity I let my mother and my husband pick the names. She has a beautiful name, but as I got closer to delivering I started to want to give her part of my great aunt's name. Especially when I realized she was going to be born very close to my aunt's birthday. I told my husband. He poo-pooed the idea. I caved as I felt I had already committed, but to this day it bothers me. A few months after she was born I brought up the name thing, and you know what he said? You should have told me, we would have changed the name. He has no memory of me bringing it up. But, it still bothers me and I really wish I could change this one little thing. It doesn't seem right that her big sis has a family name and she has nothing. I know, it is crazy, but it worries me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here...thanks for your replies. Now my husband is open to using my grandfather's name as middle name. However, that would give the baby the initials TP! (-:

OP, I understand how you feel! my DH and I both wanted to name DD "Emma" and I also wanted to give her my grandmother's name, June, as a middle name because I really admired my grandmother. As she was growing up, I often wondered whether she would eventually curse us for giving her those two names because people might start calling her "Emma June" -- it's a little too "farm girl" for me -- but that didn't keep us from giving her both names. And I think eventually she may switch to "EJ" anyway!