Parents criticised our chosen baby name without knowing it was ours

This has to be a wind up…Charles isn’t out there nor is it having a revival because it never went!

Goodness me.I don't blame them. It's so out there and weird.
he'll be teased no end for having such a freaky name.
Call him something normal like Beauregard or Ptolemy instead.

Charles is fine OP, and Charlie is cute. If I met a baby Charlie I’d think absolutely nothing of it. Once he’s here and that’s his name, your parents will get used to it - they’ll probably like the name much more once they associate it with their lovely grandbaby. In the same way you can be put off names by unpleasant kids with those names, the reverse is true - I’ve come across some names I wasn’t keen on originally but the kids were so lovely I ended up liking the names. Anyway maybe baby will be a girl and you can avoid the whole issue entirely 😁 just don’t worry about it, it’ll be fine in the end. Everyone will have an opinion one way or another and they won’t all be positive (just look at the name threads on here), but it really wont matter. My eldest is Orla and my mum had histrionics that ‘everyone will call her Orca!’ Spoiler- that has literally never happened and no one, including her, has any issue with her name.

OP, you’ve gone down a hole.

This is not remotely similar.

They just don’t like a name, that’s fine. You can still use it. They haven’t betrayed you or done anything wrong.

My mother let me know whilst she was under the influence of medication in A&E that my grandmother never liked my name and had told her. DM had kept quite for 40+ years but obviously whatever they had given her had made her quite high. I was a bit sad at the time but my grandmother was dead by then and it didn't destroy my love for my grandmother and she certainly seemed to love me. And my mother absolutely adored her mother, absolutely adored her, no doubt about that whatsoever

You need to wait and see your baby, you might not think the name suits them when you see them. I had to take a long look at my DC before I named them.

I am not that keen on my granddaughters name but I tell you I worship the ground she walks on, her name is immaterial

My FIL did exactly this before we'd even told him we were pregnant - went straight in insulting our #1 boys' name choice (again, nothing that 'out there', it's been in the Top 100 for 20+ years). I don't value his opinion so we stuck with our name choice and once the baby arrived nothing further was ever said on the subject. He got to pick names that he liked for his kids, we get to pick names we like for ours.

My mum quite openly said she hated the name I’d chosen for my son. Unfortunately for her, I really loved it and had no intention of changing it. I did say to her that once my son was born and she got used to using that name for him, she’d probably get over her dislike as it would be his name and (I assumed) she’d love him.
She did get over it and I think she probably quite likes it now (it’s not even remotely “out there”, it’s a very normal name).

That's not remotely the same!

All they're doing is saying that they don't like a name! That's not remotely like your partners mate making an extremely personal comment about you!

I hope it's your hormones making you so illogical. And I REALLY hope that you don't take this out on your parents.

Charles is a really reasonable name to choose. Ignore them! Are they anti-royal?

You seem determined to find hurt in their actions despite the fact they were not discussing their dislike of the name with the intention to hurt you.

As I and many others have pointed out you've probably also said you dislike names at some point with no intent to hurt anyone listening who may love those names.

Just accept on this occasion that they meant no harm.

These are entirely different scenarios, don't be ridiculous.

When DH told my mum DC1's name, she said something like 'you're not really going to call him [name], are you?'. 😂

It's a name I've seen described on baby name board as 'low-end' and I suppose she thought the same. I wasn't that worried, I knew the baby would become his name- he 100% is the name, and I'd put money on my mum denying she'd ever said that if I asked, her thoughts around the name are so connected with DC1.

Thankyou - and that's where I first heard it too and I also loved it. She married Shane I think.
My Angel was born in 1998 so the name Angel didn't seem that unusual then either.
We've got a gorgeous painting of a red haired angel on the wall that my DH bought for me last year as our girl had red hair like her dad x

It really isn't. Virtually everyone on this forum will have had conversations like that with friends. And as long as they don't share those options with the parents, no harm done.

Seriously, you can't blame your parents for sharing how much they dislike a name, when they're oblivious to it being your choice.

Is it Rupert 😂

When we were expecting DS, MIL said "it doesn't matter what you call him as long as you don't call him X" (X being the name we had chosen and did in the end use) 😂

Stick with your name and just make a joke about it when you tell them. Honestly, they will come to love the name because they will associate it with your DC.

I find it strange that they had such a big reaction to the name of a baby of someone that they know. It feels gossipy and judgmental at the very least, and just...petty. Why care so much, too?

Did they also never stop to think that maybe some people don't like THEIR names?

They got to name their children what they wanted and you should be free to do the same. I would work hard not to let their opinions hold any weight. It's a name you and your husband have agreed on, love, and chose. It's not your parents' baby, it's yours.

Also, even if you end up choosing a different name because of this, unless your parents find another baby with that name to badmouth or praise, you'll never know their true opinion on that name either...

No, I wouldn’t be hurt. Hurt to me needs an element of deliberateness from the other person. The thing I’d be hurt by would be them having such little regard for my feelings that they’d be rude about the name. But that wouldn’t apply if they don’t know the name.

I’d be upset that I now know they hate my baby name. But I wouldn’t say they’d turn anything hurtful towards me.

I think you chose a really beautiful name for her. I first heard the name Angel as a girl’s name on the Aussie soap Home and Away back in 1993 and thought it was a gorgeous and unusual name.

I'm willing to bet it's a name in the top 100.

I know someone who called their baby that! He’s probably about ten now.

When our baby girl died because she was born extremely prematurely, my DH wanted to name her "Angel" so we did.
A few months later, my aunty was talking about baby names to my mum and announced really loudly "I really HATE the name Angel" and I remember my mum and I just looking at each other - my aunty hadn't said it to be horrible about my baby, she just had an issue with the name (and in all honesty, I think she had forgotten what my DH and I had named our baby as it was a very small funeral with just us and grandparents).
I've also heard and seen the name being absolutely slated on here and in real life and for a while, I'd pretend we'd named her "Angelica" but that got slated too and I realised that sod it. She's OUR daughter and her Dad named her Angel because she had passed away so the name meant something - if she'd survived, she was going to be called something totally different.

People often don't mean to hurt when they slag off a name and are just "in the moment" and thoughtless - if you want that name and it means something to you, then choose it and ignore what anyone else thinks,