To want to choose my babies own name?!

Depends how awful the name is 😬 my child would be Ian if I did this. No way was I having a baby Ian.

If you live there you may as well (unless he’s got a horrible name) and the compromise is that you have two middle names of your choice even though it’s not common there?

best of luck.

If you couldn't handle standing up for yourself before naming the baby how about afterwards?

For 10 YEARS your FIL and your DP have said that they expect this to happen

For 10 YEARS you've said nothing except to your partner secretly that you don't want this to happen, and your partner didn't sway

For 10 YEARS you knew this would happen

Why are you having a kid with him?

I don't pity you.

I would use the name, Italian names are beautiful.

My DH was insistent on calling our son his name as it would have made the 5th (maybe 6th actually) generation of it. He was also adamant that our daughter would be called his grandmother's first name. Neither are bad but anything for an easy life I had the same thought as many on here, use a middle name and actually call the child that. As it happens we weren't lucky enough to have either so didn't get his way anyway.

Hope you manage to come to a compromise OP, I'd be getting my words in now if you're thinking of having any more ie a girl that he wants to call after his mother/aunt/grandmother.

I can sympathise with this @Blossomflo as I’d probably have a similar reaction!

Middle names … I don’t know. I have always been known by my middle name and it is a real headache in various contexts - I wouldn’t choose to do it to a child to be honest. But I have a ‘difficult’ name generally.

Oh fuck no.
Not even the naming him to appease family and then using the middle name. As you know your DH will bend to pressure and use the FIL name full time and your kid will be called that.
Patriarchal and tradition bullshit. Although my ND brain doesn’t follow social niceties and having to respect your elders when they are not nice to you!

This. All my husband's family are known by their middle names anyway.

“I’m not Italian. It’s not my tradition.”

Just give it as a middle name and tell FIL it’s his first name. How often do you see them anyway? If not that often then I think this would work fine.

I would not be gestating a child for 9 months to follow my FIL’s orders about what to call it.

FIL named his own child . You can name your child - having FIL’s name as a middle name is plenty.

It sounds like you took your husband’s family name on marriage, so the baby will already have his family name.

Don’t be a doormat.

sorry I've just seen that you did talk about it in the car on the way home. Did your fiance reassure you that he would of course stand up to his parents? or was he wishywashy even then?

So when this happened, did you have a discussion with your husband to be, to make sure that he would be on your side? Because of course you don't have an in-law problem, you have a husband problem, if he won't stand up to them.

Nope to this. My husband wanted to name our son after his grandfather, and I was not having it. I think people deserve their own name, not just a direct copy of someone else's.

It's such a boring way of thinking.

I was married to a rural southern Italian man for years. Happily divorced this month.

had same thing. If you live there could consider it but if you live here why does his traditions trump yours? Assuming dc will have dad’s surname?

so, we called DS a name that exists in both countries and have nonno’s name as one of his middle names. There was no way he was going to be called Luigi. Besides ds is multicultural (on my side) and ultimately living in UK with UK life.

I also refused baptism and I was absolutely right to.

doesn’t make DS any less Italian in my view (might do in their’s). Most important things are to love the baby, ensure they are integrated with all family, they speak Italian and get an EU passport.

good luck!

My husband for example has the exact same name as all of his male cousins and grandad.

Are they all known by that name? Or middle names, or nicknames?

Yes exactly - in which cast the whole thing would have been hashed out 10 years ago and presumably by now there'd be no expectation that OP would go along with it?

Have to assume she just nodded and smiled along for 10 years, and that's why they are all so upset now the day has arrived (which if it's true is - sorry but - VERY foolish).

Like pp my dh doesn’t use his birthname, he uses an Anglicised version of our surname that sounds nothing like his first name. If that were me I’d have his name as a middle name since the dc will already have this surname and go by the opinion that if he’s a good man, he’ll accept it was your decision and maintain a relationship with his son.

In my family it’s not sexist because the first daughter takes the maternal grandmothers name too.
some families go further so first son is paternal grandfather, second son is maternal grandfather, first daughter is maternal grandmother and second daughter is paternal grandmother
The parents only get to choose a name if they have more than 2 of the same sex
however I understand it’s frustrating if you want to choose your own
could you choose a middle name and just call the baby that? I’d consider it if they are really supportive and otherwise lovely.
Obviously you don’t have to name your baby anything you don’t want though and this is also a potential sign that DH expects his family traditions and wants as more important than yours, which would bother me.

This seems to be quite common in Scotland as well- a LOT of people go by their middle names where they've got a traditional family name as their official first name. I wasn't aware of it being such common custom when I've stayed in other parts of the UK.

I'd probably give him the first name after FIL, then give him a middle name you love and use the middle name.

Or if there's a derivative of FILs name that you like, aim to use that (I.e. I know a whole family of Elizabeth's but they are l
Lizzie, Eliza,Betty, Lisa, Beth etc etc- no-one goes by the same name as anyone else)

At those 10 years of dinners I'd have been telling the father in law that I have my own names for my child when he or she is born.

As above, your DS's official name could be 'Grandfather ' but he can always be known as whatever your choice is. However , I am not sure I would let my husband force me to name our child something I wasn't keen on. You carry the child for 9 months, you get a say in the name.

You need to gently explain to your DH that, within your culture, dictating to the mother what her child's name must be, without allowing her any input, is also a huge sign of disrespect. And so he needs to let go of what "must" be and instead have a proper conversation with you, and accept that this (including whether or not you use FIL's name) will be a joint decision between the two of you.

At those 10 years of dinners when your FIL said your son would have his name, what did you say?!

It's crazy that you've been told for a decade that this is a huge deal for them and only now you're pregnant are suddenly realising that they weren't kidding...?

Families are about compromise. In your shoes I'd let them have the names on the birth certificate and then try to negotiate with your DH that the nickname/ middle name will be what you're calling him every day...

Otherwise the harsh truth is that you should have got pregnant by someone else/ used donor sperm.