Did you take your family’s opinions on board when you chose a name?

We have the same problem!
We loved Luna but PILS have flat out said they don't like it and keep asking if we've found another one.
We've been looking through every girls name list we can hoping to find another name we like just as much but no luck so far! My mum did tell me my DGM didn't like my name though so that kind of made me feel better 😅

With DD1 I mentioned a name I liked to my mum - think along the lines of Tessa, and she responded "Why would you call your daughter Tesco, what an awful name" on and on. By DD2 I thought "Screw you, I still love it" and went with Tessa. DM "loves it and can't think why she would have ever made such a stupid comment"

I took into account how each side of the family would say the name, and it ruled out some names.

Some names sounded awful in one or both accents.

Nope! I picked Eloise, I hadn't heard of the name before and wanted something 'different'. My stepmum mocked it asking if it was made up, I had numerous comments on how to pronounce/ spell it and my nana still refuses to call her it.

It honestly made me love it more😂

My poor daughter was thinking about a name for her son and when she told me it must have been written all over my face that I thought it was horrendous. When she gave birth and we went to see her she said they had chosen a different name because it was obvious I thought that the name they liked was terrible. I will practice my poker face next time.

Absolutely NOT. It's nobody else's business!

I remember one of my closest friends discussing names a lot in her pregnancy and then when the baby was born the name was one that she hadn’t mentioned once. Obviously she had decided to keep it to herself without coming out and saying so, which worked well really. No one got offended, all was well.

I think use a similar rule as to when you are newly pregnant and don’t want people to know: Announcing to everyone that you can’t drink because you’re on antibiotics is guaranteed to make everyone guess you’re pregnant and likewise announcing that you won’t be discussing names and it’s nothing to do with wider family will just get everyone’s backs up and make them angry. Just be vague and don’t bring anything up unless asked “oh we don’t know but I quite like the names Ava and Beatrice, Cora is also nice…” (when really you’ve set your hearts on Daphne).

DH and I had our boys name picked out 10 years ago! But, we hated all girls names, couldn't pick one to save our lives.

We didn't find out what we were having and spent the entire 9 months googling girl names! Then, one day, whilst scrolling social media, I saw the name Marley next to a picture of a little blonde girl. I instantly loved it and sent it to DH and he loved it too. I excitedly told my family on the whatsapp group and they responded with pictures and GIFs of the dog from the film 'Marley and Me'. When we told his family, they said it reminded them of Jacob Marley from 'A Christmas Carol'.

I told them all that when the baby was one year old, I would ask them what the name Marley made them think of and when her first birthday came around, true to my word, I asked them all how they felt about the name Marley. I then sat back with a smug look on my face. whilst listening to them all gush about how they couldn't imagine her having any other name and how her name suited her so very perfectly.

The moral of the story is that, it absolutely doesn't matter what name the little one gets as, whatever it is, will be their name and they will be loved for who they are. Their name will become a part of their lovely little character.

Also, I personally loved the conversations with people, trying to work out a baby name. I remember being offended when they didn't like one and excited when they agreed with me. It's just another one of those little fond memories from my pregnancy, that I wish I could fold up and put in my pocket, to give to Marley when she's all grown up and asking me for advice on what to call her little one.

Lesson one.
Never tell anybody other than baby other parent your ideas.

Lesson two. If they really cant keep their noses out, offer some "untraditional" choices. We really love Gertrude on a boy.
And cuthbert is so sweet and girly

I’m not too bothered about discussing baby names in a vague way - “names like Sam and Ben are nice”. I think we’re leaning towards having a short list and find a name that suits when they’re born, so we won’t have a name to give. Our families know they aren’t going to change our minds though, so if they do say something it’s never going to be acted on! However, I’m also prepared to throw out some some names I know they’ll hate if they push too much.

why not have that input from people you know and trust?

Just because they're your/ your partners family doesn't mean that you completely trust their taste and want their input.

I was talking to DH about family names only yesterday and we actually both said that if we had to name our baby after a family member we would struggle as there's not a single name in either of our families that we actually like enough to give to a child, including our own names.

So while we may know and trust our families in some ways, we certainly don't share their opinions on what is/isn't a nice name and people who care more about their families opinions might be quite hurt if they made rude comments or turned their noses up at a name they really loved.

why not have that input from people you know and trust?

Because I didn’t want anyone knowing, I wanted the name to be a surprise.

Because I didn’t want anyone’s opinions, as soon as someone wrinkles up their nose it would have made me doubt the name.

Also I didn’t need anyone else’s help.

We made this mistake first time around and actually ended up choosing a name some members of the family were rude about. This time around they keep wanting to chat about it, so I told them bluntly that they were rude last time, so we aren’t discussing names. They seemed a bit upset, but they’ve had their time to name kids and most of them picked boring names for their kids.

My friend also had her SIL tell her she couldn’t use a name because it’s what she wants to call her next hypothetical child

Named DS after my DH's late father's nickname. Did not consult with my parents or ask their opinion at all. I could tell by my mother's "hmmph" when I told her the name (before DS was born) that she did not like it, but his name is so so him and I think it has grown on everyone now, including her.

No

The only person I was telling my rough list to was my mum and she kept doing the face of ‘hmm I don’t know’.. so I stopped telling her a thing 😂 We’ve had the name picked for a while now and it’s so much easier when you make it clear you know the name and don’t want anyone else’s opinions on it. My husbands mum asked if we had picked a name and then I think presumed we were going to tell her it 🤔 When we didn’t she then started trying to drop names into every story that someone has called their dog/cat/budgie/baby that she doesn’t like! If she does it again I think I’m going to snap 🙈 It’s no one else’s choice other than yours.. as I say, they had their chance to name their baby and it was 30 years ago!

One word of advice.....keep the names ideas to yourself! Call your baby what YOU want, they will come around to most names I'm sure.

People are opinionated If they hear it beforehand. If you don’t tell them untill the baby has been born they’re less likely to be negative or rude.

Equally, call it what YOU want to. It’s literally nothing to do with them.

The only baby name conversation I’d have with them would be after the baby was born, and it would be ‘this is Jack.’

I actually did take name advice from my sil, I mentioned the name we were thinking of for dd5 but I didn’t realise that with our surname it sounded very close to a famous fictional character name. I was glad she told me, but she is nice and your family sound rude and overbearing.

Didn't even enter our heads to discuss it with anyone. We just announced names when they were born.

We didn't mention our name choices to anyone before our children were born. They found out after delivery. If anyone asked we just said we hadn't decided yet or that we were keeping it a secret till they were born. Mil hated two of the names and was quite rude - I'm glad I didn't know till afterwards.
Most people won't comment negatively once the baby has actually arrived...

Their opinion doesn’t matter. Wait until the baby is born to tell your family what name you’ve picked.

DD told me her shortlist and asked me to put them in order of preference and then showed me her order - they didn't match and some were red herrings ie 2 out of my top three 😁. I gave my opinions in the knowledge that she will ignore them and make her own mind up. If I thought I could influence her I would keep quiet!
My dad hated her 2nd ds name and gave him a nickname which only he used, luckily this amused my dd.
My dd's former mil gave her a list of names for ds1 and generously told her that she didn't mind which of the four she chose! Apparantly dd managed to decline reasonably politely - if I had tried something similar I would have got the Anglo Saxon version of no 😂.
It can be fun to discuss names and if I hear something I like I will mention it, but usually dd will bring up some suggestion made by her dp and question his sanity!

If people are asking you just have a generic answer prepared like "we're still narrowing the list, baby names are so tricky aren't they?" I also find a lot of people love talking about themselves so you can always add something like "did you find it hard to chose something you both liked?" Which will move the conversation along. Obviously this will only work if they have kids already.

Or if it's people that have been negative about your name choices in the past you could just say "After the nasty comments we got from you lot when we mentioned names we liked we've decided not to discuss names with anyone and just wait until baby is here to announce the final name."

We only told grandparents the middle names as we used their names, they were perfectly happy after that.