We changed our son's name in middle school though it wasn't a whole name change. In my H's culture, sometimes they put an initial before a first name so we did that for our son. My H had a prename, and over the years all of his IDs were different...some had the full prename before his first name, some just had an initial, some had his regular first name. So he decided to simplify his name so everything could match.

In the process we decided to remove the initial from our son's name too. It was actually pretty simple. We went to the courthouse and filled out the paperwork. Our appearance with the judge was over Zoom. She approved it and we received the stamped papers in the mail. We ordered new birth certificates, changed his Social Security card, then passport. I'd been dreading the process but it ended up not being that bad, and only took a few months overall. It fixed the regret we did have over adding the initial.

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’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?

Children acclimate to names and sometimes even self-select as the get older. My own brother went by one name until 9th grade then decided to be called by another name. We can easily pinpoint when his friends came into his life because of ow they address him. So yeah, no big deal. Change the name.

Can’t you simply call your child by their middle name, but not formally change their name?

Agree, the sooner you do it the better.

Just do it. One thing is for certain - it won’t get easier by waiting.

I’ve experienced name regret. I was extremely young when I became pregnant for the first time and had a very immature taste in names (I’m sure you can imagine why). I saw nothing wrong with the (horrendous) name that I had chosen at the time, but the regret hit me hard a couple of years later, once I had matured. I changed her name as soon as the regret set in. That child is a teenager now and loves her (2.0) name.

My dad's name got changed when he was an infant. He was a twin, and his parents thought the twins initials HAD to match at first. Then they realized that was silly and they didn't like his first name, so they dumped it and gave him the male version of his twin's middle name.

Like if her middle name was Jamie they renamed him James. I think he was three or four months old.

If the baby is a few months old, it's fine to change it, but the paperwork is a nightmare. We changed our child's last name for adoption and it was a lot of work post-adoption and the court part was easy with the actual name change but the health insurance, social security card, new birth certificates, etc., were a pain.

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.

oh, important piece of info- the sister WASN'T EVEN PREGNANT. OR MARRIED. It's not like she was due the following month and desperately wanted to use the name Larla. Which made it even more ridiculous.

Friend of mine changed her baby's name at around 1 month old. They'd had a name in mind- had been telling everyone that Baby Girl Larla was the baby's name for months- then suddenly, they come back from the hospital and announce the birth of Baby Girl Darla. Apparently, in the delivery room, her sister called her crying and begging her not to use the name Larla because she (the sister) had always wanted to use that name and she just couldn't contain herself any longer and just had to say something before it was too late. Apparently in the heat of the moment, my friend was like "uh, ok?" and named the baby Darla instead.

Fast forward one month and she was like, nah, and changed it to Larla hahaha. She was like, my older kids had literally made a painting in school as a surprise that said "LARLA" in big rainbow letters to frame and hang in her nursery and everything. And she said neither her, DH, or the kids could get on board with Darla even after a month, so, they changed it. I'm still not sure how her sister reacted, lol.

I don't know what the maximum age would be but one of my siblings adopted a 3 yr old who had been in foster care and they gave her a new name because her foster parents had given her a name my sib and their spouse really, really didn't like. The adoption agency said it's fairly common. My niece had zero issues acclimating to the new name. They did keep her original name as a middle (she has two middle names) because it's part of her history.

I remember the adoption therapist they worked with at the time said that choosing a name they really loved could only benefit the parents and the child in terms of forming a bond, which can take some time, especially with kids who are no longer infants. I feel like that idea would apply to non-adoptive kids too -- if the name bothers you so much that you are having negative feelings when you use it, then maybe it's best for everyone you change it.

Would you change your baby/child’s first name if both you and your spouse were experiencing major name regret? What would you say is the maximum age limit in which it is still socially acceptable to change a child’s name?