Baby name regret - any positive stories?

OP I know a Raphael nn Rafe in NZ and his parents are very much born and bred NZ. And he is the most gorgeous little dude.

Raphael is FABULOUS 👏

This

I much prefer Raphael to Leo. I think it goes really well with Max. Hopefully you will grow to love it again, I know you don’t like nicknames but maybe you could consider one if you still dislike the name, Raph is cute.

Not hard to pronounce but I do know someone who pronounces it ray-fee-el rather than raf-ai-el. I think panicking about name choice is normal. Hopefully you fall back in love with the name again

A positive story -

I have a girl friend whose middle name is Grae - her Mom was so tired she meant to write Grace and didn't notice until months later that she had in fact missed a letter on the birth certificate. She was at first horrified and wanted to change it, Dad loved the story and the name actually. They ended up keeping it and she LOVES her name, actually she just had a little girl and her name is, intentionally, Grae.

If it's any consolation, I had the same issue with child 2. we had two names picked out and then at the eleventh hour I got cold feet about the first name being a bit much, so I switched them around. The first name went on to become very popular (top ten within 5 years or so) but is still an enduring classic and not a name I could ever hate. Whereas the original name I had picked took on legs and become very popular around 10 years later among.....let's just say a demographic of parent I do not identify with, and I am now embarrassed that I was ever an early adopter of that name and THANK GOD it's only my child's middle name. <shudder>

Obviously that won't happen with Leo, but your gut feeling felt right at the time for a reason, so just let it settle and get used to it. Honestly, Raphael is a beautiful name.

It's completely fine to pronounce. Honestly. I'm a supply teacher, I can read one hundred names from a register in a week and I would not blink an eye at a Raphael.

If anything, I think Raphael/Raph/Raff goes better with Max rather than worse. They have that dramatic consonant sound.

Raphael is a beautiful name. Fine choice.

I too loved and wanted Leo but everyone with kids told me it was ‘boooooring’. Every other kid is called Leo they said. I still love Leo but accept it’s the modern equivalent of Dave.

My kid has a fiddly name too which sounded daft on a baby so we nicknamed him until he grew into it. Adore it now.

Raphael is a lovely name, one of my DD’s friends at nursery is a Raphael and he’s an adorable little boy (I’m sure yours is the same!). He is often shortened to Raffi (cute) or Rafa (cool) and my DD (2) also calls him Raphael so I wouldn’t say it was a fiddly name!

I’m not a fan of silly quirky names, and much prefer traditional ones, but Raphael is classic. It’s a lovely name. I know you said you don’t like nicknames OP, but are you OK with shortened names? Raphael will definitely be known as Raff when he starts school, which is also a really cool punchy name. Your son basically has the option of being sophisticated Raphael or cool Raff, depending on how he’s feeling! It’s a great name.

I had name regret and looking back, it was definitely a symptom of PPD. I do have a tendency to fixate on specific things when I feel a bit out of control, or anxious of depressed. I didn’t realise it at the time but I recognise it in myself now.

You made a great choice!

Leo and Max (still a cute pairing so I'm only joking really) would remind me too much of this 😂

*However husband would not switch back - decided how that we had thought about it, he doesn’t actually like original first name.

Lots of fighting, tears and stress and we ended up going with the name*

I'm more worried about your husband's attitude than the actual names.

Whose surname do they have? If your husband's, then the naming is all yours. Why do men get such a big input they they have their name all over everyone around them? Go with his choice but then give them your surname.

OP, in the nicest possible way, calm down about this. Look at the dramatic language you’re using about choosing a child’s name! I’d be asking myself in your shoes quite why this whole decision was so fraught — you had settled on a name before you even got pregnant, then had a wobble in early pregnancy and convinced your husband to agree on something else, then changed your mind again but your husband wouldn’t change back, causing ‘tears, fights and stress’, then you loved it after your child was born and now you hate it again!

It’s a perfectly fine, nice, ordinary name, OP. Leo is another perfectly nice, ordinary name. The name isn’t the issue.Your ridiculously highly-strung attitude to it over a period of many months is the issue. Are you under a lot of stress for other reasons and just fixating on this?

I wasn’t 100% sold on one of our children’s names but it was the only one we could meet in the middle on (both wanted completely different names the other really didn’t want) didn’t really hear many people called it at the time but now it’s quite a popular name and it totally suits him :)

Raphael has so many amazing nicknames, I bet he'll love his name especially when he's a teenager. Raff/Raffa/Rafe are all really cool!

You could call him Raf. I love it!

Raphael is a great name, and Rafe (Raffa) is a great shortening although you aren't keen on doing that. Remember that Max (also a lovely name) is also a shortening from other names even if used as a name in its own right. Same for Leo, which is nice too.

I'd stick with Raphael.

LOVE both names and I usually hate the names that come up on MN!

It's very early days OP. Sometimes it takes a while to feel a baby owns its name. I called one of my DCs "Baby" amongst other nicknames for months as the (wonderful) name didn't seem to fit yet. It was a name I had always loved but I couldn't quite get my head around it being DCs name (hormones). Now there is no way I can imagine DC by any other name.