Lauren writes:
Absolutely love your site! Currently trying for baby number one, and in discussing names with DH, I got to wondering if you had ever addressed the issue of honor names for deceased family members who might not have been the greatest of people. Let me elaborate. If we have a daughter, I want her middle name to honor my beloved paternal grandmother, Virginia. She was an amazing grandmother and an amazing woman all around. If we have a boy, we’ve discussed using my paternal great-grandfather’s name. He raised my grandmother Virginia by himself. So our first child will be an honor name on my father’s side.
For our second child, I highly suspect my mother will hold a grudge if we don’t give the baby an honor name recognizing her side of the family. Unfortunately, the issue is that my mother was raised in a fairly abusive household. My grandmother had a serious anger issue, and my grandfather was a philandering alcoholic who occasionally hit my grandmother. But the thing is, by the time I was born, these issues had mellowed out with old age and they were absolutely amazing grandparents to me. I loved them both very much, and have been able to compartmentalize my relationship with them and see them for the wonderful grandparents they were to me and my brother. However, my mother has suffered crippling, lifelong depression as a result of her tumultuous childhood, so it’s hard to deny the toll their abuse took.
So what do you think? Could I name my child after my maternal grandmother/grandfather knowing their abusive past? Obviously I can picture myself explaining to my child that his/her name recognizes someone I loved immensely, but I can’t see myself keeping my mother’s dark childhood a secret from my child into adulthood, as it’s the illuminating reason behind her stunted adult life. And I’m not sure that’s a burden I want my child to bear.
Would love your thoughts. Thanks so much!
We’ve done one post that might be helpful: Baby Naming Issue: When Do a Person’s Flaws Rule Out Using an Honor Name? In that situation, though, the grandfather had “maybe” been verbally abusive (unconfirmed), and his flaws mostly seemed to involve drinking and dancing, both of which are highly subjective activities in a discussion of inherent wrongness; also, a telling detail is that the people related to the honoree didn’t see any problem with using the name.
In your situation, we have a case of established physical abuse as well as known cheating. We also have people from that household who were severely affected by the abuse, to the extent that they are still suffering those effects even to this day.
So no, I don’t think the honor name is appropriate in this case—not so much because you can’t still appreciate your good relationship with your grandparents (and how nice that they DID triumph over their issues with age), but because the use of their names would appall and hurt other people you have a relationship with, such as your mother. It’s one thing to understand that ALL human beings are flawed and that there is no such thing as an honoree who is absolutely perfect in every way; it’s another thing entirely to have an honoree whose behavior gave someone a dark childhood and a permanently stunted adult life. In imagining this situation down the road, I would not want to be the child finding out the family’s dark secret and then thinking of that in connection to my own name.
Your reason for looking for a name from your mother’s side is that you think she’ll hold a grudge if you don’t; if your plan is to accommodate those feelings, it may be necessary to ask her if using one of her parents’ names is what she’d have in mind. Your grandparents are only two people from that side of the family; are there other people you could honor? Your mother? Your mother’s siblings? You could consult with your mother about other honor names; perhaps she had good grandparents or a good aunt or uncle, or perhaps there’s a family surname that would work well. Or perhaps that discussion will demonstrate to her that using an honor name from her side of the family is not something she wants.
I also think it’s important to realize that there is “your side” of the family and “your husband’s side” of the family; it is not necessary to further divide that into your mother’s, your father’s, his mother’s, his father’s. Perhaps the second baby could have an honor name from your husband’s side of the family, rather than a second honor name from your side. If you put it that way to your mother (that the first baby has an honor name from your side of the family, so the second baby has an honor name from your husband’s side), I would hope that would seem reasonable to her. She may still be in the mindset of naming her own babies, where there would have been “her side” and “her husband’s side.”
Three points:
1. If you do want to honor someone on your mother’s side, you can search around for another name- but if that doesn’t appeal to you, then you need not do it.
2. The father, in general, always has an honor name associated with most children, the last name. So if you are using your husband’s last name for your children, you should feel free to advocate for family names from your side that you fee strongly about.
3. For me the key to honor names was that I felt connected enough to a person to make me want to think fondly about them occasionally when I say my child’s name. For example, my oldest son is named for my grandfather, and when I see him growing into a deep love of reading (as my grandfather encouraged in me and my father) I think fondly about the honoree. But I wouldn’t necessarily consider it to be an honor name to reach back into my family tree for just any name that I like. That would just be a family name.
You say your mother will hold a grudge if your father’s parents are honored and hers are not…I think sometimes it’s hard to be the one in a marriage who comes from the “crummy” family. It’s not clear from your letter how your mother feels about her parents now. They made her childhood harder…but is she angry at them for that, or sad that they didn’t have access to the same mental health help that they might have been able to get if they’d been alive today, or just philosophical about the fact that they were flawed people who were also very important to her? I think the important thing is to make sure that she knows that you care about what she wants your kids to know about where she comes from, even if you decide that an honor name isn’t your first choice of how to do that.
I would not want to be named after my abuser. Maybe the best route would be to use your mom’s name or maiden name . Or if she had someone she loved from that side – and adult who treated her kindly, or a sibling or cousin, that’s what I would do. That said you should totally talk with your mom about it. She may not want a name from that side at all.
After AN abuser rather.
I feel like a name from the grandparents in this situation would carry a lot of baggage. I could only imagine how disconcerting it would be, as the child in this situation, to learn that your namesake was horribly abusive.
My other thought is the idea of “fairness” brought up here. For instance – one side of the family was chosen, so now it’s this side’s turn. What’s the game plan here – have 4 kids, so all grandparents ‘sides’ can be represented? Also, if you or your mother has issues with using honor names from her side due to the character of the people being honored, I don’t see why you should feel obligated to choose a name from that side, unless there is an obvious person you are close to. Otherwise, it seems like you would be just searching through various not-close relatives in order to check the box for “honored mom’s side.”
If you want to avoid having to deal with your mother’s hard feelings if there isn’t a namesake from her side, I would consider naming the baby after her. Could her first or middles work? Many names have male/female versions or related names, so this could work even if your next baby is a boy. Her maiden name is also a good idea, so long as she feels a connection to it.
Another idea would be to let your mother chose the middle name (you’d have veto power of course). By letting her be involved in picking a non-family name, she could still feel honored and involved with the naming process.
I’m so glad Swistle mentioned the “sides” of the family. It may be time for a name from your husband’s “side”.
I agree with Swistle–use a different name from your mom’s side or a name from your husband’s side, or just talk to your mom about it to see if it’s even going to be an issue. If for whatever reason using your grandparents’ names or not using an honor name at all are the only options, perhaps you could ask your mom to choose a middle name for the baby? That seems like a good way to honor her side without potentially offending anyone, and she has the choice of naming the baby after someone or choosing a name she likes but never got to use. Of course you’d run the risk of her choosing a name you don’t like, but if it’s in the middle name position that won’t matter as much.
Couldn’t you sidestep the whole issue by not declaring either the first name or middle(s) to be “honor” names? Even if it or is, or they are, why declare it/them to be so? If you as parents choose the name(s) you prefer without turning the naming into an extended family discussion about why the name(s) have been chosen, can’t you have your cake and eat it too? Who would be the wiser? In this instance, I’d be tempted to present it to your mother as “We really liked the name” that happens to be the same name that (relative) had.
Also, it’s great to take each child as they come. There are just so many, many names with myriad reasons for wanting to choose them for a child. Maybe one child gets an honor name, and another doesn’t. I hope you’re able to have as many children as you’d like, but even this is an unknown at this point in time……
As a new grandmother, I’m just utterly amazed at the size of the gene pool that contributed to my little grandson! Go back just a couple of generations and we’re talking about 16 great great grandparents. How could they each be equally honored?
I was thinking that too. Maybe you could say something like, “We really like the name Virginia/[great-grandfather’s name], and the fact that it’s a family name sealed the deal!”
Other commenters have had some really great ideas about honoring your mother in ways that would be a better fit for your family (I especially like the idea of asking her to choose or help choose the middle name), but I feel like I need to point out something that hasn’t been mentioned yet — your mother does not have a RIGHT to be honored or have her family honored by the names you and your husband choose for your children. If you *want* to honor her by using a name that is connected to her and her family, or that she has helped choose, then that’s wonderful, but that doesn’t sound like it’s the case here. In the first paragraph of your letter, you talk about choosing a name connected to your “beloved,” “amazing” paternal grandmother, and you sound genuinely excited about it. When you talk about using a name from your mother’s family, the only reason you give for doing so is that otherwise your mother would hold a grudge. To me, that would be incredibly unfair of her. The idea of her having those feelings, initially, is a little bit understandable, but for her to act like you’ve wronged her would be way over the line. Swistle actually wrote something similar before (https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2013/09/09/baby-boy-or-girl-davis-sibling-to-abigail-abbie-and-william-park/), so I was surprised that she didn’t bring up this issue here.
Give your babies names that you and your husband have chosen and LOVE — whether you love them because you love the names, or because you love the family meaning that they hold — NOT names that you feel obligated to use.
Coming back to this, because I think there are a lot of different issues here:
1) Is it unkind to your mother to name a child after her parents, who you had a positive relationship with, even though she has every reason to have negative feelings about them? I think this depends completely on how she feels about it.
2) Is it unfair of your mother to pout and hold grudges if you don’t pick the names she thinks you should, with the exception of respecting the negative feelings she might have about people who were abusive to her? Absolutely. But it seems like you already know that.
3) Is it unfair to a child to name them after someone you will eventually have to tell them negative things about? I think it’s a matter of how negative. “Your great-grandfather was a better musician than he was a husband or a father, but your grandma was still very proud of him and it makes her very happy that you have his name” or “Your great-grandfather struggled with his temper/drinking/self control when he was young, and that was very hard on your grandmother as a little girl, but luckily we got to know the other sides of him when he was older” is very different than “your great-grandfather was a cruel, bitter, worthless human being, but I had to name you after him to make grandma happy.”
I had a somewhat similar situation, in which my maternal grandparents were not great parents, and after my beloved grandfather died, my grandmother became a wretched grandmother. It was primarily her poor influence that soured all the relationships. I did want to choose a name for my firstborn daughter that recalled that side of the family, however, because there were some fantastic and positive influences among its members, aside from my dysfunctional grandmother. So my choice was to name my daughter after my grandmother’s sister, who was a loving and supportive figure in my mother’s life. My great-aunt and great-uncle never had children of their own, so it was unlikely that there would be honor names coming their way from anyone else. My daughter’s name is one everyone in the family is fond of, because my great-aunt was a gregarious, friendly, loving person, even though my own grandmother was not.
I have a similar situation on my maternal side…mom was raised by a step-parent who was very hard on her as a child. A lot of what this person considered “strict parenting tactics” would have been pegged as child abuse nowadays. However, by the time I was born they had wholly reformed and were a wonderful grandparent. I do not plan on honoring them with a namesake, because I feel as though my mother honored them enough by accepting their apology for years of torment. I think that if I wanted to honor my mother’s side, I would likely let my mother pick the middle name out of a list of favorites. You could even explain to her your discomfort with the thought of honoring her parents just to “keep the pattern”. I’m sure she would understand. It’s really tricky when you loved a person but you KNOW they did bad things in their past. My in laws have an entirely different situation, where they inadvertently named a child after a grandfather who, it later came out, kept two additional wives and families supported for many years. Not the greatest namesake on earth. But I think the fact that they simply didn’t know excuses it. Here, you know for a fact that these were abusive parents, however reformed. And unless you want to keep their less savory characteristics a secret for life (which might not be fair to your mother) I’d say the simplest thing would be to find another way to honor your mother if not her “side”. When it comes to honoring your grandparents, recount nice stories about them to your children, but don’t put their names proudly on the birth certificate unless your mother is 100% on board. Maybe I’m callous, but a namesake sounds like more than they deserve.
Hmm, I think you are right. The thing is, I can’t imagine saying “I’d never name a baby after either of your parents, for obvious reasons. But what about these other alternatives?” Though they were extremely flawed people, those are her parents we’re talking about. I’m worried if I just asked her to pick from a few other family names, she would ask why her father wasn’t on the list. She still idolizes him and has never seen the damage clearly. I don’t know how to have an open conversation with her about this issue without insulting her parents.
I don’t think anyone has brought this up, but could you look to your own name to honor your mother’s side of the family. After all, your mother chose your name. So using your own first or middle name as the middle name? Maybe Lawrence if it were a boy?
But I also think if you use the middle name for an honor/family name from your side for the first child then by default, I would look to my husband’s family for the next middle name honor/family name. As someone else said, unless you plan to have four children, it doesn’t really work to have everyone’s sides divided into paternal and maternal and equally represented.
I’m the letter writer. Thanks so much for the feedback, everyone! A few clarifying points:
1) As far as my mom recognizing that her parents were abusive, she has moments of clarity but generally idolizes her father, despite irrefutable evidence of his abuse. Her sister cut all ties with the family, and she has no positive relationships with any living relatives. It’s really sad when I put it that way, but it’s the truth. Thanks to everyone’s comments, I recognize that though I loved my grandfather, I would not want to explain to my son that his namesake was a confirmed abuser.
2) I do think honoring my mother directly could be a solid option, and one I’ve never really considered. Despite her issues, she has always been a wonderfully loving and generous mother to me. Her middle name honors her favorite aunt, a wonderful influence on my mother until her long, slow death from Alzheimer’s. I had never considered this option before, so thanks for the nudge in that direction if we have two girls!
3) I think you guys are right that I need to let go of the idea of perfectly symmetrical honor names. I guess my confusion about the second baby receiving an honor name from my husband’s side stems from my belief that receiving his surname already honors that side, so it would like a double honor, coming off as a snub to my side.
4) All of this really does depend on the sex of our future children, so we will have to make these decisions once we have more information.