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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you've ever had a bad reaction on announcing your new baby's name?

432 replies

YouDoTheMath · 21/08/2011 20:31

Also posted in Baby Names, but I guess a lot if the ladies there don't have DCs yet.

So - did anyone ever have the gumption to tell you outright that they think the name you chose for your child is awful?

OP posts:
GossipWitch · 25/08/2011 12:34

My ex dh, d= disasterous lol, wanted to call ds1 zebbidy or rasterfarian, needless to say I chose his very nice name!.

HardCheese · 25/08/2011 13:23

Sadbh is a name I love (OH and I are Irish) but after some of the reactions on here, I'm wondering whether it will be too much of a PITA to keep explaining to English people. We're not yet sure where our baby-to-be will grow up for the most part. If it's to be be in Ireland, that would be fine, but in the UK...?

Whoever was asking about the pronunciation of 'Aoife' it's plain 'EE-fa'. I wouldn't rely on the pronunciations on any of those 'Irish baby name' sites that are hosted anywhere outside Ireland - the American sites especially are absolutely riddled with errors of meaning and pronunciation, and contain names no Irish baby would ever be called, but which would probably be considered ordinary in the US (like Brogan or Riley as a first name - Americans seem to love the surname as first name thing).

Plus there's also the weird thing of Irish names having been picked up by Irish-Americans and pronounced entirely differently (whether deliberately or in error), which then, bizarrely, end up being used in Ireland and the Uk with the US pronunciation. 'Caitlín' is one - it's pronounced 'Kathleen', but in the US, they began pronouncing it as it looks 'as 'Kate-Lyn', and now you are starting to get Irish Caitlíns who pronounce it as Kate-Lyn, which can cause endless confusion.

However, the reason you get different pronunications for names in different parts of Ireland is down to how strongly regional Irish is. 'Caoimhe' is 'KWEE-va' in my bit of Ireland, but 'KEE-va' in other areas. And I've heard 'Sadbh' (pronounced 'Syve' to rhyme with 'drive' in my area) pronounced 'Sow' elsewhere, which is not so obviously pretty!

NacMacFeegle · 25/08/2011 14:48

DD is Áine, which caused problems for her in England (e.g. a childminder who insisted on spelling it A'ine!)

MoominsAreScary · 25/08/2011 14:49

I would have said Aoife is ee fa, never heard it pronounced Awfee before, but then I'm not Scottish

PrincessScrumpy · 25/08/2011 15:47

DH loves Niamh (and I have Irish roots so wouldn't be too unusual) but I simply cannot be bothered to keep spelling it all the time and correcting pronounciation, no matter how much I like it.

BumWiper · 25/08/2011 15:56

If we ever have another one then its going to be Daithi (dthaw-hee) for a boy and Aoibheann (ay-veen) for a girl.

We couldnt have a non irish name lol.DH has a very british name,he kind of stands out.Funnily enough he has dark hair,I have red hair and all the kids are blonde.

HardCheese · 25/08/2011 16:07

Bumwiper (adoring your name), Aoibheann is normally pronounced 'Even' in my part of Ireland. I like Daithí a lot.

hardcolin · 25/08/2011 17:06

MIL (at the foot of my hospital bed) asked if we could change the name we had choosen, or failing that change the spelling.
She didn't take dh aside, she said it in front of me, and it was more of a you must more than a suggestion.
I think she didn't want her gdc to have the same initial as I have, not that it was planned that way. DD was just a few hours old. I was pissed off, not that she didn't like ithe name (I couldn't have cared less) but the way she said it.
Now when MIL tries to shorten it, dd corrects her without any prompting from me whatsoever (I love that she does this) Grin.

I wouldn't say a name was lovely if I didn't think it was. It's none of my business but I think if someone asks for an opinion for a baby name, then they should expect some sort of honest answer in reply.

hagridthehamster · 25/08/2011 17:08

Still trying to get over my DM telling me that I couldn't call DD1 her names as they were the names of my favourite aunt and xH Mum who had passed away. Where's my name she said Hmm She then said they were too similar, but by that time we had already been to the register office Grin

CheerfulYank · 25/08/2011 17:26

Most Americans don't care about where names are from. :) You could get a Rhys and an Alejandro in the same family! (That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.)

Since I started mumsnetting I'm constantly amused that the "Irish name" thing here, too. People talk about Irish names "you know, like McKayla!" I usually suggest Aoife. :o

I love, love, love Deaglan for a boy though. Or Declan. But Declan is going to take off like a shot here in the US, now that Aidan, and Liam have overused. Sigh...

Glitterknickaz · 25/08/2011 17:35

If I'd had another girl she'd have been Caoimhe or Aoife.

juneau · 25/08/2011 17:55

The girl name we had for DS1 my mother admitted she hated after he was born. We were going to give her my maternal grandma's name as a middle name and my mother hated that idea too as my grandma hadn't liked her name - but I did - and I wanted to honour her as she'd only died the year before.

Then when I was pregnant with DS2 I mentioned a couple of names we were thinking of to her and she said 'Oh God, those are awful'. When we announced DS2's name my family were all happy as it's very traditional (unlike DS1's name, which we get quite mixed reactions to), but my MIL squawked 'Why did you call him that?'. Silly cow.

perplexedpirate · 25/08/2011 17:57

Had my DS been a DD she would have been Ivy. My Nan told me in no uncertain terms that she hated it and gave us a list of pre-approved girls' names!
Fortunately we avoided conflict (cos I still love Ivy) and had a boy, who's name she loved.
"Now that's a man's name" she told me, all happy :)

CheerfulYank · 25/08/2011 18:16

I am all atwitter to know these names that people aren't sharing! Arrrgh! :)

Erebus · 25/08/2011 19:20

I am thinking the post after post on here 'discussing' how exactly to pronounce the, in these cases, Irish names given non-Irish or with a 'teensy, tiny claim to Irishness' DCs probably rests my case about 'trying too hard'.

Why give your DC a name no local person can pronounce ?

juneau · 25/08/2011 19:38

Our girl name was Carys Lilian, which I think is pretty, but my mother hated it.

craigslittleangel · 25/08/2011 19:54

When I lived in the states a friend of mines's siter was called (apologise for the spelling, I'm spelling it how they pronounced it,) Acelyn. It was only when talkin to her embarised mother that I discovered that it was an Irish name pronounced similar but differently. I've always loved it, but having had to spell my name to people I really didn't feel I could do that to LO (oh yes I get the irony now.)

Another friends mum and dad gave her and her four siblings names with the same initial. Not for me but the inital was C. She is Cellest, which I thought was lovely.

I have a few friends called Erin, which I always thought I would name my LO but OH was not keen. However he now likes Eden, a name he originaly hated!

MuckyBogStain · 25/08/2011 20:01

Slithery.

hardcolin · 25/08/2011 20:13

jellybeans - 'Oh and MIL called DD1 'baby' for the first year as she didn't like name!'

Yes, my MIL did the very same! Called dd 'baby' or 'twinkletoes', anything but the actual name. Even writting her name seemed to be an issue.

I don't know why she kicked up a fuss in the first place, yet somehow we have survived such censure... Grin

MoominsAreScary · 25/08/2011 21:01

Erebus if you bothered to read the posts properly you would see that the Irish names we were talking about were given to Irish children living in Ireland

IamtheSnorkMaiden · 25/08/2011 21:38

Mum's reaction to my first born son's name: You can't call him THAT! That's what the rag and bone man was called!' (This was when I was still pg so it was just a name on a list at this point.)

FiL's reaction to my first born daughter's name: Oh my GOD, you're JOKING?!

This was as he was walking with my husband down the hospital corridor as my premature daughter was being wheeled in her incubator to SCBU. My husband understandably bit his dad's head off. It's not like our DD has a weird name - it's an inoffensive, popular (actually common as muck now) name that I'd loved for years before we got the chance to use it.

IamtheSnorkMaiden · 25/08/2011 21:39

Loving your username MoominsAreScary

dementedma · 25/08/2011 21:52

Aiofe is ee-fa.
Declan is very common in this part of Scotland - DS knows 4 Declans.
Other very popular names here are Kirsty/Kirsten,Erin,Kayleigh,Stuart,Scott,Keiran. Can't say I like any of them much.
DS knows two brothers called Victor and Ian, which are quite unusual.
He also knows another set of brothers called Marlon and Excellence!!!

MoominsAreScary · 25/08/2011 22:44

Thanks iamthesnorkmaiden I realy do think moomins are scary! I'd forgotten about the snorks and snork maiden

rhondajean · 25/08/2011 23:45

We did. I named DD1 with a name I had for ages. Its quite unusual and like an earlier poster it took ages before everyone realised it was a girl. Apparently its commonly used for boys in Canada and the Canadian branch of the family took a long time to click on. I named her after several strong female characters on tv at the time.

DD2 was DHs turn to name. He picked a lovely name. She was preemie. GMIL told him he couldnt possibly call her that as it didnt go with our surname. He refused to call her it. I was fizzing; I did think of one other name I liked; he did to; and to stir, the original name is now her middle name.

They are both quite unusual names and people often ask them to be repeated, but nothing like the spelling issues of the Irish Gaelic or Scottish Gaelic.