On a recent post, Emily commented, in part:
I still kind of regret not using [my maiden name] with at least one of my kids…I am very proud of my family and my name, and it is a nice way to stay connected to that.
(Plus my MIL likes to acts surprised and disappointed that we didn’t give any of our boys my husband’s first name as a middle…I would have liked to not only *not* give my husbands name, but use my maiden name instead.)
I identify with this sentiment so strongly. So, so strongly, Emily. My mother-in-law kept hinting things like “You know what’s a great middle name? Paul!,” even though SHE HERSELF deliberately refused to use ANY family names for her own kids. In fact, she and Paul’s dad defiantly broke a generations-long naming tradition of alternating father/son names, causing a family rift that makes me angry every time I think of it (Paul’s grandfather didn’t acknowledge Paul’s birth for years). Why would Paul’s grandfather think he gets to name not only his own children but also his grandson? And why did he think it so strongly that he would be willing to take such an amazing stance? Well. Screw the patriarchy, basically, since they don’t seem to be able to handle it.
Where was I? Oh yes! Emily’s comment, which reminded me of my mother-in-law’s hints about using her son’s name. If Paul had said to me, bashfully, “Hey…I wonder if we could consider using my name as the middle name?,” I don’t know exactly what I would have thought about that, or what I would have negotiated for in return, but I absolutely would have been willing to consider it—just as I’d want him to consider using my name for Elizabeth’s middle name if I’d wanted that (I didn’t). And if it had been very important to him, I almost certainly would have figured out a way to make it work. But because Paul didn’t want that and his mother KEPT HINTING…well, let’s just repeat that I identify very strongly with Emily’s comment. Whatever it says about my temperament, I took some satisfaction in NOT using Paul’s name as the middle name, and then additional satisfaction in using more honor names from my side of the family than from Paul’s, and I feel that satisfaction TO THIS DAY. If anything, I only wish we’d gone further: EVEN MORE names from my side; a hyphenated surname; maybe a double surname.
Here is what I am in the mood to talk about, and it seems like a nice Friday-afternoon topic:
1. Were there any naming ideas/traditions that your parents or in-laws or other relatives wanted you to follow, when THEY THEMSELVES had not followed those ideas/traditions?
2. Do you, too, identify strongly with the satisfaction Emily and I took in NOT following someone else’s ideas for baby names?
These two things can be separate questions or linked, depending on your circumstances, and can be expanded to include situations where you did succumb to the pressure but resent it (even if you now love the name), or where you were pressured by people who HAD followed the ideas/traditions themselves, or where you are currently being pressured or worry you’ll be pressured in the future. I won’t speak for the crowd, but for myself and my current mood I’d say this would be the wrong post to talk about how you in fact felt honored to use your husband’s name or family naming tradition or whatever. Those are GREAT stories for another post, but today is more about defiant satisfaction and/or resentment.
My mom still talks about how my paternal grandfather repeatedly told them how he couldn’t wait to have another [dead paternal grandmother’s name] in the family while they were pregnant with me. Repeatedly. Subtlety was not this man’s strong suit.
Not only did they not give me that name, but they gave me my mom’s maiden name for a middle name. There is zero connection between my name and my grandmother’s name. It’s one of the few things my mom put up a fight about, and I’m proud of her. Ironically enough, I would totally consider my grandmother’s name for our child (currently pregnant with our first!), but my husband doesn’t like it.
My MIL is going to be a beast when it comes to names, so we are keeping quiet about the baby for now. My husband’s family has numerous males of a certain first name (both grandfathers, my FIL, my BIL, etc) and no one has used that name in the first name spot yet (six grandchildren in). I don’t think it’ll happen, but I know my MIL is dying for someone to carry that name to the fourth generation. It sure as hell won’t be us.
PS- This topic is amazing and I love it.
If/when my husband and I have a child, they will likely have my last name. I’m very attached to it and have a very strong family identity, and my husband has zero feelings about his last name. He suggested we use mine.
I don’t think it’ll go over well with my in-laws. They would NEVER say anything, but I definitely saw the shock on their faces when I said I was keeping my own name. This would be their only grandchild, so I can imagine it’ll be weird for them.
Part of me is happy they’ll have my name because my in-laws have the polar opposite political views of my husband and me! We had to stop ourselves from telling the ILs that we weren’t having a kid right now due to the current administration.
My husband’s name is his father’s name with the names reversed (his dad’s name was akin to Hubert Matthews Miller, and my husband’s name is akin to Matthews Hubert Miller).
My MIL hinted strongly that our son should be named Hubert Matthews. Well, he isn’t. His first name is a last name (F0rd0n), but there was no way in hell either of us were going to saddle him with his grandpa’s name.
My aunt faced that dilemma. Her husband came from a long line men with the same first and last name. There was pressure to continue the tradition but my oldest cousin ended up with his own first name and Dad and Grandpas names as his two middle names.
My former mother-in-law had two choices when naming my ex. Her husband’s name or husband’s fathers name. She wasn’t fond of either but went with her husbands name because she really hated his father’s name. Twenty-five years later she was still telling the story of how my ex got his name and it wasn’t a happy story.
Yes, #2!
Much to the dismay of my mother, we did not share names with anyone before either of our babies were born because we did not want their opinions to sway us. My mom reacted during both pregnancies by constantly questioning not only my reasoning but also our relationship and inundating me with suggestions, regardless of me requesting her not to.
After my first daughter was born, in a hormonal haze, I had a momentary lapse in judgment and divulged our runner up name. She immediately told me how glad she was we did not use that name and went on for an uncomfortable amount of time about how much she hated the name. It validated the reason we didn’t share when we were pregnant.
5 years later, I have a snarky little glimmer of joy every time I think about my second daughter’s name….which happens to be the runner up name ;)
My mother pretty much had the same reaction when I we refused to share names while I was pregnant. She told me, repeatedly, that by not sharing name ideas, by not finding out the sex of the baby, and by not telling anyone we were pregnant until 12 weeks (following a prior miscarriage) that I was “zapping the fun out of this pregnancy for everyone else and it was simply unfair and rude!” *Insert eye-roll here*
Defiant satisfaction here. My kids’ last names are hyphenated (my last name-husband’s last name). After our first was born and my husband told his parents the name, my FIL’s first comment was, “oh, I don’t like that sort of thing.” After 29 hours of labor, I was heartily pissed off that he felt like that was an appropriate comment, or that his opinion mattered. It gives me enormous satisfaction when my kids correct FIL if he ever uses just one of their last names (it’s not something we’ve taught them, they apparently just think he’s forgetful). And I remain happy that we did give the kids both last names, even though their last name is on the long side.
I don’t want to say my in laws expected me to make my daughter’s middle name Jane (after my MIL’s deceased mom) but I knew it was very much hoped for. I felt both excited/ satisfied and scared/guilty that we went with Beatrice, my mom’s deceased mom’s name. The guilty feeling has gone away completely and I feel so proud that my daughter has my grandmother’s name. And surprisingly my in laws use her middle name often when referring to her and seem to love it now too.
However, if the baby I’m currently expecting is a girl I think they might still he hoping for Jane… but it’ll be Pauline. And this time I’ll feel no guilt because our middle child has my MIL’s maiden name as his middle, so I don’t think that side of the family needs any further representation.
My MIL made my husband promise from a young age that he would name his first born son after her father. It was a promise she frequently came back to throughout his childhood.
When we were expecting our first baby my husband mentioned this promise (that at the time he still felt bound by) I laughed hysterically and said that was out of the question. I get along fine with my MIL but she’s not naming my kids. Incidentally we ended up with 3 daughters.
I kinda regret going with the Gunn@r IV for my first son’s name…but I wouldn’t say I’m bitter. It’s just meh, especially since we call him something completely different and unrelated… I think of it as a really nice thing I did for my husband since he really loves his name and the tradition. Though one time I did get really mad and told my husband that if he died I would legally change our son’s name to the name we call him, haha.
He agreed to let me have full control over the names of all our other children and has stood by that with kid 2 and kid 3. They have perfect, wonderful names. I might have been bitter if that IV was our only child though!
My MIL and FIL faced significant pressure from FIL’s mother to use family names for their kids since none of her other children had used family names. They ended up using family names from FIL’s side for first names (and the only son’s middle name) and the girls got middle names from MIL’s side. We ended up naming our kiddo after MIL’s mother and my father’s grandmother. Any future kid will get names from my mother’s side and FIL’s side.
Family names are big on both sides of the family. My partner and my brother both have two uncles names smoothed together to form their names (although due to duplicates my partner actually has three uncles in his name). I wanted my son to have his own name and, although we both have ancestors with his name, it is largely just his. We also decided that we would only use names of people who had already died mainly because my grandmother, who I was previously very close to, turned out to be a piece of work. I would have hated it if I’d had her name as a reminder of that. Luckily (unluckily?) it was easy for my son because my father in law died before he was born. I’m really not sure what we’ll do for future children but I’m quite keen on my name for a girl. She’d already be saddled with me as a mother anyway!
My oldest son’s first name is a family name on both sides (husband’s middle + my grandmother’s fathers name) and his middle name is in honor of my grandfather. My MIL and her mother are/were Very anti-nickname. The first time MIL heard me call first son by his nickname. She looked at me and very offended sounding asked “What did you call him?” I very sternly replied “His name.” I will never forget the surge of joy I had in that moment.
Youngest son has a first name from my side (grandmother’s paternal grandfather’s) & a middle name dh wanted. We don’t announce names before the babies are born. MIL made it Very Clear after we announced his name that she did not like it. She actually tried to say she couldn’t pronounce it in her native language (it’s actually the same as in English). She then asked us to call him by his middle name-and had SIL call and say “well obviously he’ll go by his middle.” So I had the chance to use her own line against her “A child should be called what he is named. It’s ridiculous to name them one thing only to call them something else.” Oh the joy!!
I do regret not using a family middle for my younger son. I had planned on my grandmother’s middle as middle for a girl. Knowing it was our last child, I did suggest a masculine version for younger son’s middle, but DH didn’t like it. He had given me full control over first son’s middle, and I wanted to return the favor. But it would have made my grandmother so happy. I like to think that using her father & grandfather’s first names made up for it some.
I absolutely identify with point #2. Had using family names been important to my husband, I would have considered it for one of my four. Luckily, it wasn’t and he totally supported my idea that since the kids all carry his family surname, the middles could all come from my side.
Now, I will say that my eldest daughter’s middle name happens to also have been an important family name on my side (it is my mom’s middle, my middle and my great aunt’s first). It also happens to be my MIL’s middle. So, I was happy thinking that I would also be honoring my MIL although it was actually more of a coincidence. But MIL didn’t graciously accept the honor. She basically pointed out that out was just a coincidence and also that she never liked her middle anyway. Ugh. So on top of being ungracious she also insulted our family name. She then proceeded to not so subtly bring this up with the impending birth of every subsequent child (we have four).
When we discovered that our youngest was another girl, I decided to honor a dear friend who had recently passed (instead of my paternal aunt as originally discussed). MIL again hints about using her first name. I finally just looked her dead in the eye and said something to the effect of if she were to keel over before baby arrived that I would take it into consideration. That shut her up! 😄
Awesome!
I’m very lucky that my in-laws are total sweeties and have never pressured us into any choices. But we gave our daughter both of our names, double-barrelled, and we’ve had SO much flak about it – from friends who have no business giving us their thoughts – and from my aunt who is still incandescent I didn’t change my name when we married and still sends post addressed to ‘Mr and Mrs G…’ and to my daughter as ‘Miss G’ – it enrages me so much!
One tradition my husband’s family have is the Ashkenazi tradition of first syllables honouring dead relatives. Both his first and middle initials are for his grandparents – so I’ve agreed to go along with it as long we like the actual name! My daughter is Margot Josephine, with the M honouring her great-grandfather. And if we’d had a boy she would have been Frank after my grandfather. But for our next child (if we’re lucky enough to have one) my husband really really wants an A name for a girl, and I’m not 100% sure he’ll get his way because I can’t find any I love enough. We’ll see!
Oh!! I have a story about this. My husband really wanted to give our eldest son his first name as a middle name. He went on about how it was a family tradition, he had his dad’s middle name, his dad had his grandpa’s, and so forth. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but his name ended up working really well as a middle with the first name we chose, so we went ahead and did it (and i secured the promise that if we had a second son his middle name would be my maiden name, which we have).
Then, after we named our son and announced it to the family we learned that A – it is a family tradition that doesn’t go back that far (only goes back to my husband’s dad, so our son is just the third in the line of the tradition) and B) my husband’s parents very nearly didn’t do it for my husband, they almost named my husband B___ Emerson D____ but then they didn’t want him to have the initials BED so they went with the second option. It was a good lesson to me to screw tradition, but I don’t regret giving our son his name at all as I think it sounds really nice.
So many interesting stories shared about family stuff and naming. I have complicated feeling about it. My dad’s family has a big tradition of initials – there are two sets of initials (for boys) that are used again and again – RDB and JDB. My dad is a JDB, and he has his grandfather’s old pocket watch with the JDB initials. Well, my parents had five girls, and every pregnancy they had a boy’s name picked that was JDB, but they didn’t give any of us girls JDB ‘because our initials would change when we got married anyway’ (spoiler alert – for some of us they didn’t). Sooooo the pocket watch will go to a nephew who is JDB, probably. There are many deeply unsatisfying things about our patriarchal naming culture.
I can’t say that I really identify with this since my family doesn’t have any naming traditions (although almost all of the families have a daughter with the mom’s middle name as daughter’s middle name, including my own daughter). However, I really felt strongly that my seventh child should be named Clover Mildred and my husband didn’t like it. I held firm, and like with almost everything else where I’ve held firm to something, it still makes me uneasy now. I don’t know if I even like her name sometimes because it has that tinge of . . . selfishness? anger? discontent? whatever? about it–even I though I still think it is supposed to be her name. I told my husband I would change it to whatever he wanted (months after she was named) and he told me that he didn’t ever think about it and it didn’t bother him and it was firmly her name now. Still. I absolutely adore my other children’s names, and Clover’s just don’t feel the same. I hope I get over it at some point.
My family did harass me for naming a daughter Harriet, just because they didn’t/don’t like it. When she turned 2 I told my parents I would never visit again if they brought it up one. more. time. They haven’t ever said anything again and sincerely apologized. I don’t think they realized how often they made comments like, “Good thing Harriet’s cute since her name isn’t.” My sister called me once and said that her family had just had a religious lesson that included Harriet Tubman and now that she knew more about Harriet Tubman (who my daughter is named after), she took back all the comments she’d made about the name. I took it as a win despite rolling my eyes a bit.
There are so many awesome literary and historical Harriets! It was one of the names I would have loved to use for a daughter, had we had one.
Our daughter has a first name unique to her which we plan to continue with other children. Her middle is a variant of my mother’s first name. Her initials (coincidentally) match my FIL’s which he actually goes by at times. We didn’t share names before the birth and didn’t receive any family pressure related to it.
We are expecting again and I think if it’s a boy, that will change. Recent generations of boys on both sides have their fathers’ first names as middles. FIL wanted a junior or a son named after his father and MIL settled for making FIL’s name DH’s middle. While I love my husband and think his name sounds good with the first we have in mind, part of me doesn’t want a piece of my child’s name chosen by my MIL. I plan on using another female name from my side for another daughter. The only man I’d want to honor from my side has a namesake already and I’m not crazy about my maiden name.
My SO and I have a hyphenated last name, but we choose to give our children just my last name. In part because my SO’s name is a little embarrassing, but largely because his relationship with his dad’s family is nonexistent. It felt pretty good to unload that one, frankly!
On the flip side, my SIL had a baby 10 months after us and gave her daughter a first AND middle name that are variants of my daughter’s names, even though she knew it bothered me. So I guess it cuts both ways!
Michael is a big name in our family, it belongs to: my paternal grandfather; all of his sons as a middle name, including my father; my brother as a first name; my nephew as a middle name; and coincidentally is my husband’s first name as well. So I knew there was no way I was carrying on that tradition, there’s already too many Michaels in my life.
My mother and I were talking about names in general for my unborn child (sex unknown) and she said that the only thing for certain would be the middle name of Michael if it was a boy. I said the only thing I’m certain of, is that the baby’s middle name would NOT be Michael. Mum was really surprised, I think she thought I was joking. We ended up having two daughters so it was a non-issue, but I do think if one of them happened to be a boy, there would have been a few more conversations about the must-use name Michael.
My relationship with MIL is … rocky. When we started dated she instructed me to call her Mrs Lastname and I continue to do so after nearly 20 years (I think that sums it up).
I love family names and each of my children has a family name in the middle (2 that are shared with mine and Dh’s family which made it easy, 1 from just mine and one from his). My daughter’s name is the one that makes me warm inside. MIL insisted (demanded) that she have her middle as it is a tradition. It is actually, Dh’s grandma, mum and older sister all have the same lovely middle. I did not want to do it! Firstly MIL has never been pleasant to me or particularly nice to her grandchildren and hubby told me straight up he doesn’t like the name. Also the name ‘belongs’ to his older sister to pass down not us.
We decided not to do it. I was really worried about hurting her feelings so I suggested using a name that was a compromise which is the feminine version of my hubby’s name. (similar to Adrienne for Adrian). My MIL looked me in the eye and said ‘I don’t get it – what has Adrienne got to do with Adrian?’ Now she isn’t that dumb. Her rudeness just cemented my feelings about how much I love the name and the outright satisfaction that I hadn’t used hers. I love the link between the names and the feminist idea that a daughter can be a namesake for a man just as much as a son could. I like everything about it… and a little, stubborn, wilful part of me especially likes that it was my idea!
Love all of these comments !!
My daughter is named after my husbands grandmother and my grandmother. We absolutely love her name because those women are/were extremely important to us. After my daughter was born my MIL asked me why I didn’t name my daughter after her!! She said it in the rudest/snarkiest way and I was so happy that we didn’t and that it literally never came up in all of our naming conversations. Plus I have three nieces who weren’t named after her and I’ve always wanted to ask my sister in law if her mom gave her a hard time about it.
My husband’s family has the naming tradition that the first son receives the fathers first name as a middle. I was pretty clear with my husband that I did not want to or plan to do that. My MIL has mentioned it a few times, but it hasn’t come up in any non theoretical way because we’ve had two girls so far. My MIL does like to ask what our plans for boy names are. We sometimes mention names we like but are pretty sure we wont use. In response my MIL has said “well you want to give a strong masculine name that can be used on a business man.” It makes me even happier to know that all of our names are decidedly not in that category even though I know if a theoretical son decided to go into business, his name would be fine.
My husbands grandmother was June and I took pleasure in naming our daughter Juniper. No one expected a subtle honoring of the grandmother because everyone assumed we would either honor one of the men. Bahahaha!
On a slightly different note, we both took my maiden name as a second middle name and also did the same for our daughters. I really regret not hyphenating or combining our names into something new when we got married. We didn’t want to deal with any drama during the drama of our wedding/short engagement/and cross country move, so we went with the traditional, non-controversial choice and we both regret following that naming convention.
My parents chose my first name because it was the first girl name they agreed on, and gave me my grandmother’s (Father’s side) maiden name as a middle. Five years later, when my cousin received my grandmother’s first name as a middle, she remarked to my dad that “it’s so nice to finally have a grandchild named after me”. My mom is still angry about it, and of course, my cousin inherited all of the nicest jewelry.
We -like- family names, but we -don’t- like the one my father was pestering me about. His dad was apparently a good bloke (he died before I was born), but we just don’t care for the name Paul. Drove me nuts about it while i was pregnant, but he let it go about a month before my kiddo was born. Not sure if I finally got through to him or if his girlfriend knocked him upside the head. Either way, it worked.
(He was deeply gratified to see our kid(s) with a hyphenated name. DH *really* wants everyone to have my surname alone; his rhymes with duck and other a few other things but he has to explain it to his parents. THey’re pretty cool about stuff, but I suspect that would upset them.)
Oh my word, I’m get riled up from reading all these comments! Thank goodness my in-laws have no weird naming traditions. Although, after almost 10 years of marriage I still have some resentment that I took my husband’s last name because it was important to him. Ugh. I still fantasize about switching back to my maiden or hyphenating. Short story: my sweet sister in law named their son after her father in law, with her husband’s name as middle name, and a second middle name that was her husband’s favorite baby name and with her husband’s last name. I almost stroked out from annoyance when I heard it even though it has nothing to do with me and they were all very happy with the name. Patriarchy. Blech.
I did not take my husband’s last name when we got married. There were a variety of reasons for not doing so (two advanced degrees with my maiden name, professional recognition with my maiden name, etc). but chiefly, my name was simply *my* name and his wasn’t. My husband, rightly so, never had any qualms with this decision. When I got pregnant, my husband really wanted to hyphenate our child’s name. I thought it over, but ultimately decided I did not like the idea. I personally feel like it works well for a single generation and then, it gets dicey. It’s fine to have a Jane Elizabeth Smith-Doe, but what about when she gets married and has kids and wants to pass on HER name. Are the kids, Smith-Doe-Jones? Just ___- Jones? How do you pick between Smith and Doe? Or what if she wanted to take her husband’s name? Or, with a son, what if he married a woman who WANTED to take his name? Does she drop White to become Smith-Jones? Anyways, as you can see, I thought it through and ultimately decided I didn’t want to do that personally. Instead, we decided to give our daughter two middle names. Her second middle name would be my last last name. So, it’s akin to Jane Elizabeth Smith Doe. So, legal first and last are just Jane Doe. I’m okay with this.
My husband’s grandparents do NOT like the fact that I did not take his name. In fact, they refuse to acknowledge that I didn’t. I get routinely get mail addressed to Kate Doe. They’ve made multiple snide remarks to my in-laws on various occasions about how terrible it is that I didn’t take “their” name. So when I was pregnant, they were apparently VERY concerned about the baby’s last name. They made multiple comments (again, to my in-laws. Never to me or my husband) about how the baby “better” have their last name or better have the “correct” last name and if not, that they wouldn’t have anything to do with it at all. Once baby arrived safely (we didn’t find out the sex) after a very long labor that ended in an c-section, their first text after we revealed, “This is Jane Elizabeth” wasn’t “She’s beautiful!” or “Congrats! Glad you are both safe!” Rather, they texted: “What is her last name?”
Needless to say, they annoy me with the last name thing. And even though *I* decided not to hyphenate her last name for my own personal reasons, their are moments where the vindictive side of me really wishes we had just so I could tick them off and see if they truly would cut out their only great-grandchild over something as silly as a last name.
ugh, how annoying. This reminds me of the time that parents of a friend of ours were harrassing me about not taking my husband’s name. The look on their faces when i told them he wanted to take mine! (forgot about it earlier because it had nothing to do with naming the spawn. We’ll tell them we don’t mind if they drop one or the other)
That’s a good strategy. IF I can talk my husband into a second, we’ve discussed inverting the “second-middle-name” and “last-name” order so that essentially the second kid would end up with his last name as a second middle and my last name as a legal last name. I’m still not completely sold on the idea, but it is somewhat appealing to me and probably made more so by the Christmas card I just received made out to Mr. and Mrs. ___ Doe. Ugh.
My in-laws did the switching of middle name-last name order thing. My husband and his brother both have their mother’s last name as their middle, and their father’s last name as their last, while his sister has their father’s last name as her middle, and her mother’s last name as her last. Personally, I’m not a big fan, but that’s in large part because it was done based upon the sex of the babies (the only daughter was born last, so this wasn’t coincidental).
We both kept our own names and he suggested we do the same thing with our own children, and I gave that an immediate pass. We don’t have children yet and haven’t landed on how we’ll do names, but I’m personally lobbying hard for his last as a second middle name, and my last as the legal last name.
My kids’ last names are hyphenated. Periodically they receive mail from various relatives addressed to Firstname Husbandslastname. Also periodically friends or (other) relatives comment on how hard it must be on them to have such long last names (12 letters plus the hyphen) or make jokes (or express concern) about how confusing it will be when they marry and the names go EXPONENTIAL. I don’t care. I love that they have both our last names, they are learning to write them just fine, I am happy whenever I write them out, and I pledge to be gracious and 100% supportive however they choose to alter their names as adults and name their own children (if I am so lucky as to have grandchildren).
We gave our second child (first daughter) my first name, which is a long-ago family surname name I share with my aunt (and many ancestors who had it as a last name). Pretty regularly people say things like, “You named your daughter after yourself?” Which always pisses me off because as far as I am concerned I SHARED my awesome, unusual, beautiful family name with my daughter, who is an independent person and not expected to be a mini-me. I also occasionally have a conversation with some kind of bureaucrat to the effect of,
“What is your name?”
(Something like) “Amity Church”
“What is the child’s name?”
“Amity Church-Cooper”
“No, not your name, the child’s name.”
“We have the same first name and similar last names, except hers is hyphenated.”
The next response varies, but I have had it be “you named her after yourself?!”, “But I need her name not yours” (spoken as if I am very stupid), “Why do you have the same name?”, “Sorry you don’t have your own name, honey” (to my daughter), as well as relief at understanding the situation. Through it all I unflaggingly love our name and I love that we share it. But it raises my feminist hackles every time because I am sure no one would say that crap to a man with a son who was a junior.
Slightly unrelated, but I, too, get treated like an infant whenever I’m asked for my name because my last name is a girl’s name that was very popular in the 1980’s (when I was born), and my first name is a far less common, sort of surname-y sounding girl’s name. I’m constantly told, “No, sweetie, what’s your LAST name?” as if I have not yet learned what a last name is at age 30.
I am late to this, but I did want to raise my hand and be counted among those who know the satisfaction of disappointing people who should have not said anything in the first place.
I’m late to the game here as well … but oh man. We have a relative who is pushing for a certain name. It honestly *does* make sense, because it’s a prominent name in our family tree on both sides. Plus, it’s a name I’ve always liked well enough and have considered independently of her. However, since she keeps bugging my husband about considering the name, and has asked me a few times … she’s basically ensuring that we will never use it. :P My partner and I are both people who hate to be told what to do (which makes me realize why my 3-year-old is the way he is, above and beyond being 3, ha! But I digress…). Anyway, I’m getting to the point that I’m a little sad not to use the name, but then I think of the satisfaction of not using it because that means we aren’t condoning her not-so-veiled opinions.
oh! Haha, I forgot to mention that I’m currently 34 weeks pregnant, and all of this naming stuff with the family member has gone on since she found out we were pregnant (at like 8 weeks)…. so this post felt especially relevant for me right now!
After reading the comments of others, I feel very blessed that my husband and I were never pressured by either side to use any specific names and/or naming traditions. Both set of grandparents (our parents) were just overjoyed with having a grandchild (the seventh for my parents and the first for my husband’s parents) and very supportive of our naming choices. I felt comfortable enough with both sides to share our top boy and girl choices and their responses were always positive/supportive.
I did borrow a naming style from my mom (three syllables with multiple nickname options) and we did briefly consider an honor name, but there were too many relatives with that exact name or variants of it. I’m the middle of three girls and my husband is an only child, BUT we both have very large extended families we are pretty close to. After talking it over, both of us wanted our children to have their “own” name and identity as much as possible. We are very satisfied with the name of our first child (a 14-month-old boy), are rather happy with the name of our second child (another boy, due in just a month), and are holding on to our favorite girl name for a possible future child… though I think I might be done with two. With our first two going to be only a year and a half apart in age, I’m tired of being pregnant and my husband is terrified that, if we do have another, we’ll end up with a third boy.
To “Beep”, who wrote above about the disbelief people express when they find out she named her daughter after herself: I fully sympathize! On my mother’s side there’s a naming tradition that started out as a coincidence (my mother’s grandmothers had the same name) but has been deliberately continued because we all love the name. Granted, growing up with exactly the same name as my mother had its headaches, so I gave my daughter the longer version (the one that’s on my mom’s grandmas’ baptismal records, rather than the shorter one that the rest of the generations have used), but I get weird looks and confusion nevertheless. (The pharmacy had us conflated at first. It took several years for them to straighten it out.) But this modern American aversion to maternal namesakes makes me especially glad that I *did* continue the tradition.
Not answering the questions, exactly, but related points I wanted to make:
Me and my brother both have my mother’s maiden name – Robertson – as a second middle name. I love it so very much – especially as my mam fought hard for us to have it. I ended up with two birth certificates as my dad had initially mistakenly registered me without her maiden name in the middle. She was furious – I mean absolutely LIVID – and we got it changed! I love the connection to her, (especially now that she has remarried and we no longer have the same surname), I love having a shared middle name with my brother (not a twin but my only sibling) and I love the actual name itself. So proud and pleased that she fought for it.
Me and my partner have decided that he’ll take my surname when we get married and I feel extremely good about that. I think I might add his name as another middle name of my own. We are considering doing the same as my mother did and giving it as a middle name to any future children – but, in all honesty, he doesn’t seem too bothered by it so we might not!
So this is pretty late but I thought it might be fun to add anyway.
My husband and I just had our first child, a boy, and prior to his conception we fought pretty badly about the surname issue, neither of us wanted to hyphenate. Ultimately we agreed to give him my husband’s surname since its a stronger name and much rarer (I’ve NEVER seen anyone with his surname, while I share mine with a well known celebrity and have met or seen others with it, plus my father and I are estranged which was one of my husbands go-to points about not using it) but in exchange I got full control over the middle name. I’ve chosen to help create a new family naming tradition, my son will be the 4th generation of first born sons to have his middle name. I was intent on doing this before we even got married.
My MIL gave all her sons her family surnames as middle names, which is fine, except she kept insisting that we also do this. Specifically that we use her maiden name, which isn’t even my husbands middle name! She used it on one of his brothers. Even after we announced what middle name we were definitely using, she kept “suggesting” that her maiden name would make a great middle name. Thankfully after our son was born she never brought it up again but jeez did it annoy me to death!