Hi all,
my husband and I are Greek with dual citizenship (Greek and British), currently livi ng and working in the UK. Our son is almost 12 months old and was born in Greece. As there is no strict time limit to register a baby’s name in Greece, we only gave him a name when we was 4 months old and we needed to travel back to the UK. We were in a rush and gave him my FIL’s name as is tradition in Greece. The name is Ioannis (Greek equivalent of John, with usual nickname Yannis). I liked the name better than my father’s name (who would be Harry in the UK but there is an unfortunate rhyme with baby’s surname) and thought it was ok. However, upon travelling back to the UK we found that British people really struggle to pronounce Ioannis and don’t really understand the name. My DH really liked Ian as a nickname (which I also like), however we heard it is considered very dated for a baby in the UK and in Greece I think he might either get bullied for it or it would naturally default to Yannis (which is an ok name but we aren’t super keen on it). We have since been debating adding another name (which might become the new first or middle name), which will fare well in both countries. DH initially suggested I add a family name from my side. My grandfather’s (and brother’s) name is Alexander, which I really like and is a name that I think he could use seamlessly in both countries. However, DH wants the baby to be called with some form of Ioannis and we couldn’t combine it with Alexander. He says he wouldn’t like calling him Alexander/Alex. My in-laws would also not take the news well. I have proposed other non-family names (e.g. Lucas, Markus) but he always raises this kind of argument. I moved to the UK as a 22 year old and although I really like my name (it’s the Greek equivalent of Catherine), I’m tired of having it constantly mispronounced/people not knowing how to say it and didn’t want the same for my son. On the other hand, my DH who is usually very laid-back has been uncharacteristically insistent about Ioannis not disappearing from the kid’s daily life and I worry that he will harbour resentment if the other name ends up being the default everyday name. We may also return to Greece in the next couple of years (so his family would argue that the addition of another name is pointless), but this is not 100% certain and I would like my son to have options in the UK too. At the moment we mainly call our son ‘bubba’ etc. but I think he should transition to a real name soon. We are now running out of time as we need to issue his British passport urgently and then travel for summer and I’m really stressed about this issue.. :/ Could you let me know your thoughts? Any words of advice would be appreciated. Also, how do you think the name Yannis would fare in the UK if used as a nickname? Thank you.