Loggerheads over baby names

Gosh, here we go again, a woman who mysteriously hates her surname marrying a man with a miraculously lovely or unproblematic surname. Tell me, are the men in your family also changing their awful surname to their wives' on marriage?

Hey OP,

How about Micah instead of Michael ?

But in any case most names can be shortened so he'll have to get used to it, whichever name you go for. Personally I'm not keen on nicknamey names as full names - people here tend to say "don't call him Theodore if you'll only ever call him Teddy" but I always think these people forget that you're not the only one who's going to call him ! A man may not mind his mom calling him Teddy, but might well prefer his boss or colleagues to call him Theo or Theodore...

Does your DP like football or video games or any such thing ? You could see if you like the name of any character/player and use that to convince him ?

A few ideas...

Arnaud
Xavier
Alexander
Simon
Arthur
Jonas
Tobias
Elias
Marcus

My son is called Rocco, my mother had sheep and named them so it was difficult to find a boys name she hadn’t used on her farm! I’ve never met anyone called this before and he is 18 now. we have still not come across anyone who is called it. I am not keen on many names, though I love the name Thomas it’s turned into a common name as has Teddy, Edward, Alfie etc. I wanted an original name and now he is 18 people always commenting on what a lovely name he has.

Elio
Friso
Levi
Leonard
Bartholomew
Neville
Russell
Barry
Patrick

Something short and snappy(ish) but also arguably trad/classic/strong?

Adam
Asher (or just Ash)
Ezra
Hugh/Hugo
Isaac
Ivo
Jair
James
Joel
Judah
Lachlan
Leo (or various longer versions, if you like)
Liam
Louis
Marco/Mark
Matteo/Matthew
Miles
Niall
Samuel

I prefer your names, but I actually really dislike teddy, not keen on the names Michael and Victor at all!

Couple of suggestions:

Max - nice and short, but also seen as a strong name
Lucas/Luke - instead of Luca

I had a similar issue with my partner and tbh I did have to compromise.
I wanted something unusual and we managed to go with a traditional name (quite underused) with a more modern nickname.

How about Austin, Harvey, Dexter, Otis, Elliot, Vincent, Lucas.

I think Noah might fit in both camps. It has the short, vowel heavy feelings of your names whilst being traditional and strong for him.

If he can't even suggest a girls name, then you get to choose. It sort of indicates he's imagining being called these names himself rather than his child, which might explain why he's picking names from our generation. Has he seen lists of current popularity, which might make your choices seem less weird to him.

Go with Theodore if you both like it! I think DP will come around. It will be Theodore on all documents/ID etc. Love a previous posters suggestion of Nicholas nn Nico or how about Nicky like the boy in The Tiger Who Came To Tea?

How about:
Wilfred nn Wilf
Alexander nn Xander
Gabriel nn Gabe or Gabby
Leonard nn Leo
Richard nn Ricky

Might be worth NOT telling your DP any nicknames!

My child would not have somebody else's surname that's for sure.

What about
Eli
Drew
Otto

Or get one of those name apps and go through it see if you have any crossover.

Download an app where you can bith input names and sync with each others app so it should throw out similar names and match ones you agree on. Or write down a massive list of names you like and i mean try and put as many as possible on there even if you arent in love with them and make him write a list too.

Im 37 weeks. Found out the baby was a boy at 16 weeks. We named him last week because we simply couldn't agree with each others choices. I literally despised his and he hated all of mine. It doesn't help we also come from different countries and i really dislike names from his country and he is adamant he wanted one of them. In the end we had to completely go through hundreds of names and list anything that could be a possibility. In the end we settled on a name we both like but neither of us love it and it never would have been either of our first choices but we liked it enough and it fitted the bill and we both agreed.

I love the shortening mikey, absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Although Michael pops up on the most hated boy names, I would use it over the nicknames Mike, Mick and Mikey. They are really awful shortenings. particularly Mikey which is horrendous.

Sorry, I generally prefer your DP’s taste in names - as trendy names usually date badly. Plus babies won’t stay babies forever - not every 40 year old might appreciate having Teddy on his BC. I do really like Luca though, despite its trendiness (as it just sounds like the European version of traditional Luke? So I’m not sure why your DP dislikes it so much). And I do understand why you are drawn to Enzo and Rocco with your Italian heritage, though they aren’t my personal taste (although I love the full Lorenzo).

Your DP really needs to compromise, because it sounds like you are willing to, with names like Theodore but nicknamed Teddy. If he’s getting the surname and the middle name too! 😱, you just have to insist on this - hopefully he’ll come around once you have actually given birth 😡

Some ideas of traditional names with modern nicknames, as well as some Italian names that have a more traditional feel to me:

Matthew/Matteo (Teo) (love this, can see why it’s internationally popular)
Max/Maximo (Max just works everywhere)
Nicholas/Nicolo/Nico (Nico works everywhere too)
Dominic (Nico) (might be more to DP’s taste?)
Michael (Mica/Cal might be more modern nicknames for you?)
Edward/Edoardo (Edo/Teddy/Bear lots of cute nn’s for this)
Thomas/Tommaso (Tommy - traditional yet cute nn)
Joseph/Giuseppe (Joey - traditional yet cute nn).
Vincent/Vincenzo (Enzo) (might be a more traditional option for DP than just Enzo).

Baby should have your surname

How pregnant are you? If its early days I would take a break for a few weeks from discussing names. Write down names you like but don't speak them out loud. See if that helps

You like Teddy, so Edward would really work all round, can be Eduardo in Italian (or French), too. It's a good strong name.

Also, you say DP not DH so DP's name doesn't get to be the surname automatically, you can call your baby whatever you like!

The baby should have YOUR surname.

Victor and Michael are both great.

I suspect that when he sees the tiny, tiny, scrunched up baby he will relent on a big, butch name because the two simply won’t go together

We couldn’t agree so we decided whoever felt more strongly about girl names (you and my Dh) choose if we had a girl and the other decided if we had a boy (your dp and me). Luckily we had both and love all of their names.
Also worth remembering that they don’t need a name immediately so what feels right right now might not suit them when they are born.

A few ideas

Theo
Max
Alfred nn Alfie
Joseph nn Joey
Albert nn Albie
Arthur nn Artie
Frederick nn Freddie
Robin nn Bobby
Jacob nn Jake
Rory
Toby
Luke
Reuben nn Roo
Milo
Jonah
Noah

Baby should have your surname OP.

WRT first names - DH and i struggled to agree on DD4s name. So we both sat and each wrote a loooong list of names we'd consent to in order of preference. When finished we swapped and read them out until a name popped up which was on both lists.