Hi Swistle!
I love your blog and have been a reader for years! Our first child (a boy) is due in 4 short weeks and we thought we had the name figured out but now are second guessing. My husband is a junior but goes by a nickname (and never his legal first name). If we were to continue the naming tradition and name him as a third we would only call him Tripp and never his legal first name. We started to doubt if Tripp is a name that would be setting him up for success one day? Is Tripp a successful doctor, lawyer, insert professional job here? We also worry if he will feel like he has his own identity if he’s a third. Perhaps we are just getting cold feet as the date gets closer or maybe these are valid concerns? I’d love your thoughts.
Other names we like but aren’t sold on are Reid (husband feeling luke warm on this one), Charlie (husband loves more than I do – I feel like it’s too common), and Emmett. Other names we like but don’t feel like the one/one of us likes but the other doesn’t as much are Lane, Grey, Walker, Lee, Harrison, Cooper. If you have any other suggestions I’d love to hear them!
Thank you!!
I think Tripp would work fine for a doctor, lawyer, etc.; it’s a nickname that smacks of patriarchal naming traditions, which in our society can further smack of wealth, higher education, and success. It sounds like prep school, and summers spent wearing all white on a boat or a tennis court; it also sounds friendly and approachable: the smiling boy with good eye contact and very white straight teeth and a good haircut and an even tan. Tripp, Skip, Chip—they’re absolutely DESTINED to be lawyers and politicians. And if he does grow up and feel like it’s not the name for him, he has the ability to change it: he can choose to go by his given name, or by his middle name, or by another nickname.
But here’s the question I have started asking myself about Sr./Jr./III/etc. naming traditions, and the question is only getting stronger and louder over the years: Why?
That can’t help but sound rhetorical and combative, but I also mean it literally and actually: What is the reason any of us WISH TO DO IT? Where does the positive warm feeling come from, when we choose a name the child won’t use, and we decide to choose it over all other possible names? What is the part we like about naming a child for his father, when it’s a name his father doesn’t use either?
What is the POINT of this tradition? No, no: don’t hear the rhetorical and combative version of the question, hear the ACTUAL question: What is the POINT. Of this tradition. What is the WHY of this tradition? What do any of us WANT FROM this tradition? What is the BENEFIT, what is the GOOD, what is the APPEAL, what is the part we LIKE? IS there a benefit? IS there something good? IS there an appeal? DO we like it?
We have had women get huffy over this question in the comments section: “Well, I LOVE my husband and WANT to honor him!!” Good, good! Is your daughter also named after you, and are you also named after your mother, including birth surname, and is your husband (who has taken your surname, because tradition is so important and he doesn’t want to have a different surname than his children) getting huffy on someone else’s name blog saying “Well, I LOVE my wife and WANT to honor her!!” Or is giving up naming rights to the husband’s family something we ask almost exclusively of women, framing it as an unreciprocated way for them to show love and honor to men?
And yes, we HAVE heard of some families that DO have matriarchal naming traditions! Those are so fun to hear about BECAUSE THEY ARE SO EXTREMELY RARE! I have never met a woman who was a Sr. or a Jr. or a III, but I have met many, many, MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY men who were Sr./Jr./III and even IV/V/etc. May this equalize in the future, one way or another. If you were to tell me that you planned to have more children, and that of course the two of you also planned to name your first daughter entirely after yourself and make her a Jr., including giving her your birth surname which you had also retained, I would feel VERY DIFFERENTLY about this plan to name your first son entirely after your husband and his father.
This little rant isn’t against honor names in general: I am VERY KEEN on honor names. But I am opposed to what happens when an unequal tradition gets so absorbed into society that we don’t question it or notice how unequal it is anymore. It IS WEIRD to have something that’s considered very normal to do with father’s/men’s names, but not with mother’s/women’s names. It IS WEIRD to allow one parent’s side of the family to have naming rights that interfere with one or both parents’ preferences. It IS WORTH EVALUATING what benefit we are getting when we give a child a name they won’t be using, and whether that benefit is actually worth something to us or whether we’re so steeped in the tradition that we just feel it somehow SHOULD be worth something to us. It is WORTH EVALUATING whether we are giving our child something we think they will WANT, or if we are just passing down another generation’s worth of burden and obligation.
Do you WANT to give him this name? Do you both love it, and do you both actively want to use it? Or are you feeling pressured to use it so that you won’t break the tradition? If you are feeling pressured, I encourage you to reflect on the exponential increase of that pressure with each generation; I encourage you to spare the future generations while the pressure is still relatively low. If future generations are not pleased to be spared, they are 100% free to start it up again: they can even legitimately use the suffix III! But I think it is worth noticing how few people DO restart a broken tradition. My guess is that the feeling is nearly always INTENSE RELIEF that the tradition was broken before it was their turn to make the decision to keep it or break it.
If you wish to break the tradition more gently, give your son one of your husband’s names as a middle name, and/or an honor name from your side of the family if your son will already have your husband’s surname. Perhaps the same initials as your husband’s name, but with different honor names from your side of the family; or perhaps variants of your husband’s names in swapped order (Michael David becomes Davis Micah, for example). This communicates that you DO want to honor family, but perhaps not to honor the same person over and over and over again, generation after generation without ceasing.
…Where were we? Yes, if you decide to name your child after your husband and your husband’s father, I think Tripp or Trice or Trey will make a perfectly acceptable nickname, and that the child will not find it gets in the way of his success.
We can’t answer the question of whether he will feel as if he has his own identity; it depends on how much of his identity comes from his name. Presumably he will feel as if he has his own identity, but not as if he has his own name. Perhaps like some of the other men I have known, he will get extremely focused on his little suffix, and will get clutchy and possessive about it because it will be the part of his name that will feel like HIS.
I love Emmett and Reid from your list. We had Charlie on our finalist list for Henry. I wonder if you’d like Reeve or Rhys.
Reid and Charlie makes me think of Rory and Riley.
Emmett makes me think of Everett and Elliot. Grey and Reid make me think of Grant. Lee reminds me of Leo which makes me think of Milo which makes me think of Miles which makes me think of Nolan which makes me think of Simon.
Harrison makes me think of Harris and Davis, which along with Lee make me think of Louis, which makes me think of Wesley, which along with Walker and Cooper makes me think of Wilson and Warren.
I’m reluctant to think of any more options, because now I am eager to get my hands on your family tree and go hunting for candidates. Perhaps your own family surname, if that has been supplanted by your husband’s family surname? Perhaps a family surname from an earlier generation? Perhaps one of your father’s names, so that there is one name from each grandfather, which makes a bit of a point about how difficult it is to argue that the child should instead have been named for only one grandfather?
Related: I suggested we name our second son after my FIL. Long story but I liked the name and the nicknames available and my husband and I have radically different taste in names so it felt like a way to skip months of debate.
This child is now 8 years old, Last week my FIL said to me, to my face, while staying in my house as a guest, in front of said child, “I’m glad you’re not MY wife,” because my husband was cleaning up after dinner solo (I had cooked dinner and was going for a walk).
I named my child after that man. The Regret I Feel. If there is even a remote chance that you will be disrespected by your FIL, my advice is DO NOT NAME YOUR BABY AFTER HIM. It’s the worst feeling.
That’s enraging. I’m so angry for you.
Oh my god. This makes steam come out of my ears.
I have a daughter who I named after my husband’s grandmother bc I thought she would be SO touched and I honestly can’t remember why else. It sounded good. But she was completely flat about it, and only said “Make sure you spell it right.” And since then, never reacts positively when it’s brought up.
It kills me, because I could have named her after my DYING MOTHER. Or myself!!! I wish I could go back and shake myself. This is the woman who now pats my tummy and tells me I’ve been drinking too much beer. The only positive: when that daughter was 10, she became emphatic that she drop my husband’s last name, and use her third name, which is my last name. Her little sister agreed. It’s now legalized, and for 3 years I’ve gotten to hear:
“Emmeline Mylastname?” At the doctor’sand at school and my last name is so much prettier and more rare than my husband’s (he has 50 first cousins). And it turned my younger daughter Maud into an alliteration, which I love!!!! My older son stuck with Dad’s last name, and we’re all so much happier for it.
THIS! I only gave one of my sons the same middle name as my FIL and I can’t even explain the rage and regret and desire to change the middle name I feel after a disagreement years ago during which I learned what he really thinks about me.
Thankfully, it’s also my favourite uncle’s first name, so I just mentally transfered the honour.
I, too, would suggest making sure your relationship with your in-laws is iron-clad before naming a child after them.
My sister’s husband is a third, whose dad never went by the name they are both named. My sister’s husband went by their shared middle name. He and my sister broke the chain and named my nephew after two different beloved people.
My husband’s name is his dad’s name with the first and middle names reversed. We broke the chain and named our son something totally totally different.
Break the chain.
My husband’s father’s father had the name…well, we’ll call him “Alexander George,” and my husband’s father (only son) was then named the same names, but switched, so “George Alexander.” My husband (oldest son) was given his own unique first name, but given that “George” as a middle name.
When we were pregnant with one of our babies, Grandma strongly suggested we use “George,” to carry the name down. But the name was not for us (with no hatred for Dad or Grandpa).
So, we laid to rest a three generation naming trend, and ommitted the name from both our sons’ names. Not sure whether Grandparents had any issues with that, but we personally have no regrets.
And now, discerning a potential future son, and looking at the etymology of that “George” name, we’re seriously considering including a piece of the original historical “George” name (which was longer, and sounds like a surname). So, funny how that works. But if we do use this form in the future, as a sort of honor name, it will be because it was our choice, our time, and we found appreciation for the name, not because past generations dictated that we must.
Past generations–love them as we do–do not hold rights to naming our kids. We do.
It seems like your style leans preppy and in favor of surnames. Do you like Crosby? It feels like it could fit with your current list and be close enough to Charlie for your husband. I’d also look at surnames in your own family tree like Swistle suggested.
Also, there’s no rule that says a future son could not be named “Tripp” if the opportunity presents itself and you have more time to sort out your feelings about it.
I gave my daughter my name as a middle name, it felt weird but we needed an honour name from my side of the family and every other name was too tainted or vetoed. I should formally acknowledge your part in this, Swistle, after all your comments on this issue over the years. My daughter takes after me in a thousand other ways so it’s only fitting she has my name. She’s said she wants to name her daughter after me when she grows up (don’t worry, I’m not holding a 4 year old to their word) so she clearly likes the name!
I wish I had done this. Well done!! And I completely agree, the more we talk about it (and someone like Swistle blogs about it), the more normalized it’ll become.
My husband is a Junior and wanted a Third. I didn’t. Randomly, I said “if the 10th kid is a boy, he can be a 3rd”. The 10th kid was a boy, but I just couldn’t do it. I will be forever harassed for going back on my word, but I just couldn’t bow to the tradition. I wanted my kids to have their own names. Names are so important.
I agree that if the kid will never go by their legal name, don’t give them that name!
Love this!!
My dad would have been a III but his dad had always hated being “Little Bill” and didn’t want to do that to his son. So my dad shares a first name with his dad and grandad, but has a different middle name, which is the name he goes by. Perhaps something like this could be an option for you?
Matriarchal naming tradition: All the girls on my mum’s side of the family share the same middle name. I’ve always known I was going to use that middle name if I had a girl. My second child is a girl, and she does indeed share my middle name, which gives me great joy. My first is a boy, and he shares his dad’s middle name, which is also a family name on his side. I enjoy the symmetry, although it was a bit of a gamble since there were no guarantees we would have a girl (or even a second child), and I would have been really sad to not carry on that tradition. If we’d had a second boy, I would have likely used a name from my side of the family as a middle name.
My family does this as well! So my kid has my middle name and shares it with her cousins. It’s lovely because no matter if or when someone gets married and chooses to change their last name, they always carry our family name as their middle.
My wife and I both have middle names that ran in our families (in her case it was from her mother’s side but in mine it was from my father’s) so we gave our daughter my wife’s middle for her first name and mine for her middle. Then at age 11, the kid came out as non-binary and changed their first name, keeping the middle. I’m fine with it, but I miss the name, even now 6 years later. It was nice while it lasted.
As a person who was given a name that literally no one has ever called me: Please don’t.
(I am Am@nda J@ne Sm!th, only ever called K@tie) There is nothing wrong with my legal name; it isn’t offensive, and it doesn’t have any negative connotations for me or my family, but it also doesn’t feel like my name, because no one calls me that! My nickname is an obvious nickname- but people assume I’m a Katherine or a Kaitlin or something that logically follows.
The older I’ve gotten, the more annoying dealing with it has become. It’s an explanation with every new classroom, every person who sees my ID, every time I fill out a form. My professional email address (dictated by the university hospital I work for) AJSMITH- so it keeps coming up! It’s never a long conversation, but it is one I have at least daily STILL well into my thirties. Plus, no one can find me in any directory, which is another regular annoyance.
I live in a state where I have to appear before a judge, put a notice in the newspaper, and pay five hundred dollars (all within a certain time frame) in order to change my first name. (Don’t even get me started on how easy it would be to change my last name!) And I have tried twice only to get caught up in logistics and it hasn’t happened.
I think Charles called Charlie, or Micheal called Mike are easy sells, but a nickname unrelated to my legal name has been annoying almost every day of my adult life.
As someone who did use family names, I like them, but for myself I would prefer something more egalitarian than a whole name handed down from one side of the family.
I’m going to do a little mixing and matching. How about Reid Charles? It gives each parent a favorite and prioritizes yours, because the fact that he could be a III makes me pretty sure the last name comes from his family. I also like Emmett Grey or Harrison Lee.
Swistle makes a lot of good points. It doesn’t sound like this would be a *bad* name for your kid, but I think Swistle is absolutely right that the larger social context means you should take some time to really carefully think through *why* you are participating in this tradition before you opt in.
Something else I would add, related to/elaborating on Swistle’s comment that she knows men who are really fixated on their suffix, is that I have known some men who are the III or the IV for whom giving the next number to their future son becomes sort of a consolation prize – they fixate on it as though it’s the only way to make their own name worth it, and the tradition becomes more about imaginary future generations than about the prior generations who are supposedly being honored. A couple times I have heard someone talking about this and thought that it sounded almost like (mild) hazing. This is obviously not a universal phenomenon – there are also plenty of men who are the III, the IV, etc and feel neutral or negative about passing the name on! – but I’ve encountered it enough times that I personally would choose another honor name (people are suggesting so many creative variations in the comments!) over continuing one specific pattern.
Finally, I think both of you should also ask yourselves if you truly like Tripp as a name on its own merits. If your husband was not a Jr., would Tripp be in the conversation as just a regular name that you like, or is it only in consideration because it is your favorite of the common III nicknames?
My sister’s husband wanted her to name their firstborn completely after her. So it would have been something like Rosemary Middle Lastname, Jr. Called “June”, for “Junior”. I LOVED this option, but it got the WORST feedback from the older generation. They both adored it, their friends loved it too, and it stuck for a while, but they ended up not going with it. They instead used my mother’s name as their girl name. But it was all for naught – they ended up with two wonderful boys lol.
The firstborn got her last name, the second got his.
I think Tripp is a fine name that won’t have any issues as far being taken seriously. However, I would really think about if you actually want to continue the tradition of carrying on the name or not. If not, you have some great names on your list already.
Some suggestions based off of Charlie, Reid, Walker, Lane, Gray, Harrison, Lee, Cooper, Emmett:
Davis
Grant
Spencer
Elliot
Zane
Crosby
Grady
Everett
Garrett
Nolan
My husband is a junior. He has always hated it. His father refused to consider any other names and his mother gave in eventually. There was no way in hell my kid was going to be a III – I have been playing with names too long not to make my own choice – so thankfully my husband wanted the kiddo to have his own name. We hyphenated our last names for this firstborn boy-child and when my in-laws heard his name (day after he was born) – not the IIIrd, and then the hyphenated last name – they did not speak to us for days. Then my MIL called to yell at my husband about disrespecting his father. And you know what? It’s fine. It sucked, I don’t know if they got over it or not, but they decided to drop it and eleven years later we have heard nothing more about it and they love their grandkids.
So breaking the chain is not fun, but it’s my kid and I get to name him. In the end I only got one shot at naming a boy and I must (and do) love his name.
For the those who mention “breaking tradition” having a senior and a junior is not really a tradition. It more like one generation thinking really highly of themselves (or their name). For something to be a tradition the act has to be done multiple times. So if dad is a VI considering a VII – that’s a tradition. Parents who are considered naming a III are thinking about STARTING a tradition, not continuing one.
One dad naming his kid after himself is not a chain that you are breaking- it’s just one guy who liked his name. I’d feel zero pressure to follow that up.
“Parents who are considered naming a III are thinking about STARTING a tradition, not continuing one.”
Oh, well said. It’s sort of a bigger picture version of Swistle’s comment about “two times is a coincidence, three is a pattern.
If we’d had a 2nd daughter, it’s likely her first name would’ve been Elisabeth, too, simply because my husband *adores* my name and I like it (though I probably wouldn’t have given it as a first name if he wasn’t so enamored). She’d have had a different middle name, though. But if neither of you like your DH’s name, why use it? Just straight up use Tripp or whatever.
My grandparents weren’t planning on naming any of their kids after themselves, but Grandpa was deployed & couldn’t argue and when Grandma saw my younger uncle, he looked *SO MUCH* like his father that she dropped the Evan/Ethan one they were planning on and named him RL Jr. And dear God, he’s Grandpa’s mirror even still. Uncle’s personality is completely different, though. Uncle’s son isn’t a III; he’s got a name that’s unique on their side of the family.
I joke with my girlfriends that maybe I’m a “bad” wife because not even for one second did I ever consider a junior for my husband. They all asked why and I asked them what their reaction would have been if I had named my daughter Rachel. They all agreed that they would think it was odd. Precisely. My husband does not care about names and did not want a junior, so it was never an issue.
If we have another girl, I’m torn between Ellery Cate after my sister and Ellery Rachel. Cate flows better, but I like the idea of a daughter named after me.
I am a third generation woman born the same name as my mother and grandmother. They were not good people. I broke the chain (starting with my own name change) and did not give my daughter my old name.
She is now an adult and is aghast that I didn’t give her my old name. She claims that her daughter will have my current name… which is sweet (and completely flattering).
I know a male III. He goes by Trip. He loves his name. He says he’s honored to carry such a reputation as the one his grandfather and father have made.
I think the moral is this: be a good person, one even your grandkids would want to emulate. Make your name a blessing.
It’s a strong goal.
My husband is a IV and I told him while we were still dating that I wouldn’t name a kid V. I’ve been a name nerd for decades! I’m not going to waste all that study! He’s tried a couple mild guilt trips, but it’s a hard no from me. I’ve said that if he’d like to do family names, fine, we can use our parents middles (which still prioritizes him a little since his middle would be used and mine wouldn’t) but I’m not willing to give a kid all three of the same names as previous generations. We don’t have kids yet, but if we do, i want them to have their own names, not some 100 year old repeat.
I get to name my kids, not my MIL!
My husband is a third with one of the traditional T nicknames for such. He does not like the given first name and made it clear early in our relationship that there would not be a fourth (no argument from me!). More important to him than the name itself or the people involved or any patriarchal arguments for or against, is the frustration 50+ years in of being called by a completely different name from the one attached to all of his documents and work-issued contact info and directories and name tags at conferences and so on.
He had one request when we started naming our children: that we call the kids by their given first names or an obvious nickname of the first name. We stuck with that until the third one. We gave her my husband’s middle as her middle (third child got part of the III’s name) and called her by a double name that was a combination of obvious nickname+middle name (think Margaret Evan Smith called “Maggie Evan”). When she started college, she started going by the full first name only and it all worked out as originally intended.
Oh my gosh, as a Brit I just thought Tripp was one of those ‘preppy’ nicknames in a certain kind of American family, I had never made the connection between it and III.
I cannot suggest strongly enough that this is an unnecessary naming convention and that unless you have a strong personal connection with the first bearer of the name, it can, frankly, do one.
But also I fully recognise that I care more about names than most people. And I care more about what they mean and what they represent as well. And my opinion is just that.
my husband is a III and the original and Jr were not great men. There was no way in hell I was going to have a IV. the way it worked, with names we loved, are the same initials but that was definitely not intentional