Husband is trying to back out of naming agreement

Would he settle for MK for short as she got older?

Really lovely names in my opinion. What’s his suggestion for names this time round?

It was a very silly agreement to make. What did you think was going to happen when you picked a name he hated? He'd just say, "Well, we shook on this 5 years ago, so I'm quite happy for my child to be saddled with this tragedeigh for the rest of their lives,"?

Ridiculous!

Is it Moonunit?
Tiger Lily?
Apple?
I can't endure the suspense!

We need to hear the names to tell who is unreasonable

Why are people saying they didn't compromise? They literally compromised by agreeing to name a child each.

Would you share the name? It's hard to help if it's something really really out there!

I can see why you made it as it avoids picking bland names but you should never have let him go first!

What a stupid thing to do in the first place. There’s hundreds of thousands of names in the world. You should have named your child(ren) something you could both agree on.

I'm with you OP, I think its better for one parent to love a name than for both to settle on what nobody wanted.

I got my way because I always loved one name from childhood and he didn't 'love' any (never even thought about girls names before) but he didn't like the name I picked as it sounded 'weird' and 'made up' to him (purely because he hadn't heard it before because its not 'Classic' or 'English' sounding)

He now LOVES her name, now that its hers it no long seems strange to him. She is the face to her name and his worry of people thinking it was strange didn't come true, literally no one has ever questioned it or reacted anything other than normally.

Absolutely NO. I can't believe he actually even did that? Most men once they see what the woman go through say 'no, no, you choose'. He must have thought you wouldn't ever really follow through.

Bloody ridiculous

This sounds like the kind of agreement a couple would have for picking what takeaway to have or movie to watch not naming their children!

Surely for something this important the grownups can compromise- there’s literally 000s of names. No parent should be agreeable to a name they absolutely hate

We need to know the names to see if he’s being unreasonable backing out of agreement or if your choice is so off the wall it’s right that he can veto it. Though I’m not sure about the agreement in the first place…

Well a deal’s a deal - but what a stupid one to make! So you hate one name, and he will hate the other! Ffs op, that’s plain daft..

There’s an app called Kinder which is basically a digital naming book, but works like Tinder for baby names. It has thousands of names in it and you link it with your partner and you both swipe left or right of you like or dislike a name and it ‘matches’ when you both swipe right on one. You can filter it for different things too, and you can then view the matched names in a list to narrow them down. I know this doesn’t solve the OP’s issue of the agreement, but it’s a good option that I wanted to call out.

I found my ex said he ‘hated’ a name just because I suggested it, so this took that bit away as it matched before he knew I had also swiped right on it. Another reason he’s my ex tbh 😂

You have both behaved quite childishly.

You should have insisted on a name that you liked for your first child, and he should not have called your first child a name he knew you disliked.

Likewise for this child.

You both needed to put the work in the first time around - find a book of names, put a tick by any that you could stand and work out where the overlap was. And slowly move towards a compromise. I believe there are even apps that do this for you nowadays - you can both tick names and then it comes up with a common list.

Lazy and petty behaviour by both of you, and now he's trying to bully his way out of his part of the deal.

That's the key - your last sentence. They knew how to be in a partnership.

Go ahead and name your child op. It’s your dhs own fault for insisting he chose your first child’s name. It didn’t matter what the name is, he should gave compromised if he agent want this to happen
FWIW, I would never have agreed to this in the first place. I’d rather choose a name both parents liked, rather than a name one loved and the other didn’t really like.

Not in the slightest. My dad likes unusual names and mum likes traditional/Biblical. They're just not combative people.

Yeah, that agreement is a bit daft - especially as it probably now means the siblings will have very different style names which they may resent when older, “I’m George … and that’s my sister Sheherazade”.

Personally I would have compromised for the first name and each chosen a favourite middle name (or taken it in turns for middle names if you didn’t want DC to have 2), I think that’s what most parents do. Still, too late now - I agree he should stick to the agreement since you did.

But is DC2 a boy? Sadly sometimes men can worry that their sons might be made fun of with certain names (especially those they consider “wet” or geeky) - could that be the reason for his extreme dislike of your name choice?

Yes, but your parents were obviously compatible in terms of naming preferences?

oh shut up, you both sound like absolute children. what a ridiculous agreement and how on earth could you not find a single name that you were both ok with? you've made you're insane bed, now you have to lie in it I'm afraid.