Hi there
My brother passed from cancer 5 years ago. It devastated my family as he was the youngest of 16 children. He was a wonderful fun loving dad, brother, son and friend. I was so happy and recite to hear that his only son and wife are expecting a boy. Though my happiness was diminished when I heard they are not including any of my brother’s names in their son’s name.
I am shocked and deeply saddened and I know my other 14 siblings will as well. Seems they have chosen a first name which is not related to anyone in our families, and his wife’s brothers name will be the baby’s middle name. AITA to assume that they would honour my brother by including his name, and to feel this is dishonouring my brother’s memory for excluding him.Aunt anonymous
I am so sorry about your baby brother; what a terrible loss.
I don’t know the dynamics of your particular family. Perhaps your nephew has a long history of using symbolic behavior to hurt and exclude members of his family. Perhaps you know him to be someone who would want to dishonor his father’s memory, and as someone who would want to do that in a way that would shock and hurt his aunts and uncles. In that case, it may very well be that he is using his child’s name as a way to dishonor his late father’s memory, and as a way to hurt you and your siblings, and as a way to symbolically exclude his late father and the entire rest of his family from this baby’s arrival.
Is that a theory that rings painfully true for you in your heart, given what you know of your nephew and his relationship to his family and father? Or did you find yourself bristling at this portrayal of your nephew, because it’s so utterly unlike him? My guess is he doesn’t have a long history of trying to hurt you, or of trying to dishonor his father’s memory, or of trying to symbolically reject his father and his entire family. My guess is that he’s a good boy and you love him, and that he misses and grieves for his father and was devastated by the loss of him, and that he wishes nothing more than that his father could be there to see his first grandchild. My guess is that this is a very simple matter of him not seeing the choice of his baby’s name at all the same way you do.
It is in no way wrong for your brother’s son and daughter-in-law to name their baby without using that baby’s name as one of the ways they honor and remember your brother; it does not have to mean anything negative about how they feel about your brother, or about how they honor your brother overall, or about how they remember your brother. It is in no way wrong for them to choose a first name that doesn’t honor anyone from either side of the family; it is in no way wrong for them to use a middle name that honors someone from the mother’s family; it is in no way wrong for them to use your niece-in-law’s family surname (or whatever surname they used) instead of your brother’s/family’s surname.
Using someone’s name is an honor, but NOT-using a name does not mean ANTI-honoring: a baby’s name is not a slap in the face to every single person the baby is NOT named after, and thank goodness for that. I’m not saying a non-naming CAN’T be used as a slap, because it certainly can be, but it’s not automatic: the intention has to be there. I can imagine many, many reasons they might have for thinking it best not to use your brother’s name, especially when his death was and is such a devastating event in your family’s history. It could be that they think they are sparing you pain; it could be they are sparing themselves pain; it could be they don’t want to saddle a baby with such an important and emotional family name so soon after the loss of your brother; it could be that they wish to honor your brother by saving that name for their memories of him; it could be that they’d prefer to use the name for a non-firstborn; it could be that your nephew’s wife also has a recently-lost beloved family member, and your nephew/niece-in-law felt that using either name first would hurt the other side of the family, so they decided to use neither. Or of course it could be that the name is by coincidence the name of your nephew’s wife’s serious ex-boyfriend who continues to send her inappropriate emails about his enduring feelings, or that they just don’t like the name, or that in general they are of the “everyone should have their own name” philosophy and don’t want to use any honor names as first names. It could be any number of reasons, but I think it’s unlikely that the reason they didn’t use your brother’s name is that they wish to hurt you and your 14 other siblings, and to dishonor the memory of your brother, and to symbolically exclude your brother somehow.
Perhaps you know to calculate that likeliness differently, based on your own experience of your nephew. But if not, then my vote is that you are solidly in the wrong—that you made a strong assumption that turned out to be incompatible with reality and are now reeling a little from the shock of THAT, rather than from any act of hurtfulness/dishonor. Once you have given yourself some time to adjust, I think you should put SIGNIFICANT effort and energy into not allowing that mistaken assumption to continue to diminish the happiness you would otherwise feel at the arrival of this new family member, this baby descendant of your baby brother, this sweet new little life in the family.
I feel for you, LW, and I’m so sorry for your loss. My younger son and his wife always said they would name their first son after my late FIL, who was a horrible, mean alcoholic but was loved by my son anyway (which says more about my son than it does my FIL). I kept my feelings about it to myself because MY father, who objectively was a better person and grandfather, was still alive.
Then in 2021, my dad died unexpectedly. And when my son and his wife announced their pregnancy last fall, their chosen boy name did not change. The thought of their baby boy being named after my FIL and not MY father struck me as the cruelest of wounds. Still, I kept it to myself because Not My Baby. I nurse that wound to this day, even though they’re having a girl.
Yes to all of this thoughtfully written response.
I was curious and unclear if the brother’s last name is being used. Not that it matters that much… but I find it is often forgotten about as an honor name. It is just assumed that the husband’s name is carried on and not considered an honor when perhaps the couple is viewing it as an honor. If not, it’s still not something anyone has a say in.
Yes to this! I definitely considered my children’s last name to be, not exactly an honor name, but a point connecting them to my husband and his family. For the middle name slot, my husband and I agreed on a name that would connect them to me and my family.
My mother-in-law expressed disappointment when we didn’t name our son after my husband’s late father. We pointed out he had his own name and wasn’t being named after anyone, but that his name’s british origin, and usual use as a last name instead of a first name was a nod to my father-in-law. (as well as the fact that his actual last name would be my husband’s last name, which was his father’s last name). She fell in love with our son’s name and got over herself.
I’ve come to the point that I feel like honour names have lost some of their significance when they’re expected rather than a tribute made occasionally. My brother, cousins and partner’s names are all “Uncle 1 Uncle 2 Lastname”. My brother always hated it and isn’t any closer to the uncles he was named after than anyone else.
That meant that when we did give my son his late grandfather’s name as a middle name it didn’t feel as meaningful as I would have liked. My son also isn’t any more connected to his grandfather than my daughter who doesn’t carry his name.
Your nephew may have been asked by a sibling to leave their father’s name for them. He and his wife might have picked their son’s name on their first date or they might just prefer the other name.
A different perspective: my husband and I chose not to use the name of a recently deceased relative because it just felt too…morbid? I guess? We imagined looking into that little face and telling our child that they were named after someone who had died in a terrible way and we couldn’t get comfortable with the idea. It’s possible that your nephew is feeling the same way.
Yes, I’ve had friends in the same situation where they chose not to name after the deceased grandfather of the baby because it was too painful for the parent. What might seem like a good honor name to some might be just too painful for the people naming the baby.
I don’t know your particular loss, but I know grief and how it amplifies all wounds. I’m sorry. I have a loved one I’d like to name a child after, but the person died so tragically that I wonder if it would be too heavy a burden for a child, that there are other ways for me to connect my lost loved one to my (still hypothetical) child. Perhaps this is how your nephew feels.
About three weeks before our firstborn’s birth, my husband lost his twin brother in a sudden, tragic way. We changed our child’s middle name right before his birth because it felt right for us at that moment. We both feel like it was the right decision, although neither of us ever cared for the name and still do not.
I might have felt very resentful if anyone had pressured me or my husband to name our beautiful, wonderful, bouncy, happy child after something so tragic and associated with so much grief. It was the right decision for us because it was OUR decision.
I hope that you find peace, and I am so sorry for the huge hole in your life. Everyone has to mourn from their own perspective and in their own way and time.
If the baby has dad’s last name, he has an honor name which reflects your brother. The last name is not required or mandatory, but has been chosen just like the first name.
I’m so sorry for your loss. But I’m also sorry to hear that you feel you (or your siblings) have a right to dictate the naming choices of your nephew, when that is a decision so far away from being your right or your responsibility.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to feel the pain of losing his father every time he says his son’s name. Perhaps their relationship wasn’t as simple as it might have seemed from the outside. Perhaps he adored his dad but just doesn’t love his name, or feel that it fits well for a new generation. Or perhaps he doesn’t particularly care about names, or feels that he gets the last name so his wife has full naming rights when it comes to first and middle. There are so so many reasons why his choice might not be your choice, and none of them need to be an insult to the memory of your brother – unless, as Swistle says, you think that’s his intention.
I feel for you LW. This letter seems very heavy with sadness and on the edges of bitterness. It is a terrible thing to lose a sibling and I’m sorry.
Re the name. Yes. To answer your question, YWBTA to see your grand-nephew’s name as a dishonour. What a burden to put on an innocent baby or on loving parents (I assume they are, you say nothing to the contrary). I wonder what your brother would say? Would he have been over the moon about a grand baby or stewing angrily about his name? I imagine the youngest of 16 children would be good at compromise.
Sometimes we feel how we feel. Especially when we are mourning. What we can control is our behaviour. For a start, you can resolve never to bring up these thoughts to anyone in your family. You can resolve to be a loving great- aunt. You can resolve to find every positive thing about the child, his name, and his upbringing that you can and to remind yourself off these things every time you feel that bitterness returning. It is possible to change the way we feel about things with sustained effort. I suspect with time, this will feel more bearable. Best wishes to you and your brother’s son and grandson.
I feel for you LW. Thank you for reaching out to Swistle and asking this question. I hope you are likewise reaching out to friends, loved ones, and/or a grief counselor during your grieving process.
Swistle – your answer is why I come back to this site time and time again, even though I’m done having babies.
I had my first child about 6 years after my mom died. I had a hard time imagining saying her name over and over. We ended up using the Irish version of her name and really so glad we did. My daughter deserves to be her own person.
For what it’s worth also, this great nephew, I assume, would have the same first name last name as his late grandfather. This can be a bit of a pain in its own right. My name is very similar to my late mother’s and I still occasionally get her mail, many years after she died and to a house that she never set foot in.
Your nephew could have unresolved grief. I lost my dad when he was 49 and couldn’t bear giving one of my sons his name bc it would make me too sad. I used my maiden name (dads last name) but didn’t want to use his first name.
Consider your nephews point of view and unique grief. Losing a sibling is not the same as losing a parent.
My then-28 yr old brother died tragically at the hands of a drunk driver one month before the birth of my second child, While we considered using his childhood nickname, and also a name that he had told me he loved, as middle names, we never considered using his name as a first name. It would have just been too painful at the time. With a decade of time passed now, I’m still glad we didn’t use his name: I wouldn’t want my child to carry that painful association.
Just agreeing with everyone here. You are never the AH to feel grief. But you would, hypothetically, be the AH if you let these feelings out to the family.
I am so sorry for your loss, and I can only hope time dulls its ache.