When cultures Clash..I refuse to give my father-in-laws name to my son.

[orangebee1]

Ladies, last week i delivered twins, one boy and one girl. My husband is Greek and tradition here dictates that the grandson must be named after the grandfather.
I am English and it's unthinkable to me that i can't choose my son's name. I am happy to have the grandfather's name (Yiorgos) as a middle name, but certainly not the first one and am insisting that my huband and i find a name we BOTH want.

I delivered by c-section and after two days (when i was still in the hospital recovering!) what should have been a joyous occasion turned into tears and arguments over the name choices - i wrote the names my husband and i had agreed on on facebook and his family saw and all hell broke lose.

My husband was so taken upset by his family's reaction, he was crying and distressed and finally changed his mind about the names.

As yet the babies are unamed and referred to as "the boy" and "the girl".
His sister says to me "you have three children now, what is it to name one of them after the grandfather - he has only one life and waited all of it until this day for his name to be passed on".

Am i being unreasonable??? Would you name your child a name you really do not like at all to keep the peace???

YANBU, absolutely not and your DH is being amazingly spineless but I would call your DS Yiorgos. If you had been living in the UK I would say stick to your guns, especially as this was all agreed before you were even married, but I think that there is going to be a lot of hurt on both sides now whatever name you choose and it will heal faster if his name is the culturally accepted one. :( for you.

They would only use it everyday until the DS was old enough to talk and understand, and then he would think them silly and they would drop it. If it was me I would accept that I had married into a different culture, give him the traditional name and my 2names. Have him known by his second name, never acknowledge they were calling him the first one- totally ignore and keep to your choice yourselves and anyone else you meet. The DS will know his real name and they will drop calling him by the wrong name as it gets sillier.

As soon as I saw the thread title I went "got to be Greek! " to myself. I lived there for a while and there were generations of families called alternately Maria, Alexia, Maria, Alexia etc etc as names were passed on. Cousins sharing the same name too. Ditto with boys names Iannis, Yiorgos, Iannis etc.

anyway, you can't spend your life hating and resenting your son's name. These things fester. I agree with Yiorgos [given name] ideas and make sure he's always known by his second name. Lots of people do this. Your husband believes strongly in tradition and wants to follow that, so compromise has to be the order of the day. Having said that, after giving birth to twins in this scorching heat, I wouldn't want to compromise on anything!

But surely the husband has married into a different culture too, and his previous agreement not to use the FIL's name should stand.

Unless he agreed in the hope to change the OP's mind after the event, in which case she has a whole other set of problems on her hands.

Your husband believes strongly in tradition and wants to follow that

If that were the case he wouldn't have chosen a different name with the OP (in line with a very long-standing agreement) and only backtracked when his family interfered.

Presumably the OP's dh knew that she was English when he married her.

And yes we discussed it before - actually it was a condition i gave to my husband before we married- 'i will marry but you know i won't name any son we have after your father'.

He also agreed not to follow tradition, wrt naming any children, before they got married.

I am Greek also. While quite a few families stick to this tradition, many do not, e.g. my DD is not named after my mother as I didn't like the name.

I think you should leave this for now. In Greece there is no legal hurry to name children (unless you need passports for them to travel), so leave it for now and wait for things to calm down. It might be easier to have a more rational discussion with your DH when you are settled at home with your babies.

The two of you need to decide on your strategy towards family demands as there will be a lot of them, e.g. you may get quite a few particular demands over the baptism, the choice of god father, etc. before you even get to child raising methods and ideas. I think the two of you need to present a united front and decide which requests you grant and where you put your foot down, but do so as a unit.

Good luck and congratulation on the babies!

orange, congratulations!!
(I'm a twin, twins are lovely! )

I was in exactly your situation 12 years ago, even down to the name!

Only we didn't live in Greece but in the same country as pil.

My dh is Greek, our son was the first grandson. My pil had always said "do what you want" concerning names, we already had a daughter whose name was fine (middle name Greek).
We didn't disclose it was a boy during pregnancy and called them 4 hours after he was born.
When pil heard about ds's name (first name our choice, second name Yiorgos) they were shocked. And didn't talk to us for 4 weeks.

They were really deeply offended. They always assumed we would call him Yiorgos, no doubt about it.

To be entirely honest, after 12 years I think we should have called him Yiorgos, he would be known as George here in the UK. Or given him "our" name as second name and called him by that name.
The atmosphere at the time was awful, we stuck to our name and they had to accept it.
Half a year later my fil got cancer and was dead when my ds was 1.5 yo.

My sil and dh's brother had a son shortly after and it was no problem to name him what they wanted. It was our son, the first gc that was supposed to be called after fil and we "messed it up".

No one here can pronounce the name the Greek way anyway so we would have better called him George straight away.

I really feel for you. The situation is awful.
Please show your husband this thread. He is behaving like an idiot.
He should be supporting you. In our case it was my dh who said that pil told us they were not bothered about the name so we chose our own (had it for 5 years to be used for a son).

If you can wait, then wait with the naming. The kids are called "baby" until the christening anyway.

sorry first grandson, not gc.

Congratulations on the babies. How sad that your dh's family and your ruddy dh are causing a fuss and bullying you when you've just given birth - that really is a despicable way to behave.

Just wanted to add, please call your son a name you love. My husband named our daughter something i wasn't mad about and I regret not standing up for the name I wanted, which would have suited her better.

Thanks for the responses. The fact is i have thought about putting Yiorgos as the first name but then never using it and instead using the second name (as many people have suggested on this thread). BUT the problem is that i know because we live in Greece everyone here will just end up calling him Yiorgos, and certainly on forms and school register etc they do not have option of "preferred name to use" etc. So i'd end up being the only person to call him by my chosen name and have to hear "yiorgos" the remainder of the time which would be like sticking lit matches in my ears.

How has your DH been these past couple of days OP?

So don't give in to the pressure then. Call him by his chosen name and start making it known - when you speak to him , or talk about him , or discuss on fb.

I take it your SIL doesn't have kids then, or not a boy at any rate?

I would be saying to dh that "I would loose a lot of respect for him if he went back on the promise he made before the wedding" Sorry but that is so rude. And very manipulative on his part.

I do think that you need to stick to your guns on this or the family will be walking over you at every turn.

Good luck and congratulations

I hadn't clocked that you live in Greece. I feel for you and you husband and your daughter too. Your husband is probably already dealing with a whole load of family and community ribbing/ teasing/ resentments/ suspicions etc for marrying a non Greek. He possibly shares all of this with you .. It's likely he will shield you from the worst. Your son will be more Greek than he is British ( if you are brit) and will share the cultural and familial bonds with his Greek family ( unless you're planning on upping town and moving back). I doubt if he's going to mind being called after his grand dad. He will be like most of the other boys in his peer group. Are you naming your daughter. She is EQUALLY as important and if the family are expecting you to give your daughter MILs name too you have got a job on your hands. And I think this would definitely become a yanbu.
Im loathe to say yabu but I think you are a little... this will set the tone for the rest of the time you live in your adopted community. If you're planning on staying for the school years ... That's a lifetime of festering resentment and having to explain why etc etc . Who wants that really ? If you have a strong cultural ( and I mean that in a genuine tradition/ religious sense) reason for wanting to name the baby x then put your case and I am sure your ILs will accept your decision even if it takes a little time. If not ... Well I'd think about everything else I've mentioned. You need the support and trust of the people you have chosen to live amongst and to raise your children as ... Greek.

You discussed this before you were married so call your son what you want, give him the family name as middle name and tell your DH family they are welcome to call him by his middle name. Fwiw we are Jewish and lots of Jewish children have a Hebrew name as well as the names of their birth certificates. For some kids it's the name name with different pronunciation eg Sarah would be Sara or Jacob would be Yaakov etc but for others kids its a totally different name if the parents prefer a non biblical name as the child's given name. The kids know they have their regular name and their Jewish name - in the same way your son can have his given name and his Greek name and you can explain to him when he is older that some of his Greek family members like to use the Greek name.

I forgot to mention that although we gave DD her maternal great-grandmother's names and didn't give family names to DS, we do call him by his middle name! DH and his family just wanted a name from their culture at least for his first name. It's also a common Western name so no probes really but I always wanted to call my son Zach so that is his middle name and what we call him too. FiL calls him by his first name.

I meant problems, not probes!

"my husband said to me that if i insisted on sticking to a different first name he would agree BUT he would "lose some respect" for me."
I would kick his arse into next week for that . How fucking dare he try to bully manipulate you, when you both agreed, before you even married, that this was not going to happen. And how much respect must you have lost for a man who would go back on his word to you ?

"I feel that if i give in to the first name demands it will cause a permanent rift between myself and his family, i will ALWAYS resent them for it and i can't see how they'd have a fruitful relationship with my children afterwards."
Absolutely.

I don't think I would even be willing to have Yiorgis as a middle name now.

I'd do what someone else said - pack up the kids and come back to the UK, tell your DH you have lost all respect for him. Let him come grovelling when he realises what a twat he is being.

He agreed that you would choose names you both liked before you were married.

He agreed the names with you.

He is now the one caving into what his Mummy & Daddy want...??

and disgustingly telling you that he will lose respect for you and allowing his family to bully you just after you have had a c-s with twins??? What an utter twunt. HE should be looking after you, protecting you from his family and supporting you. Not acting like a complete and utter arse.

I wouldn't be having it even as a middle name now. No way.

What ChippingInHopHopHop said.

Or tell them you are putting 'the boy' up for adoption as it will stop all the arguing.

You and your husband made an agreement, he obviously didn't tell his parents that.

He has his own family, you and the three children, and he has his old family and he needs to choose which to support.

And if he is not prepared to stick up for his son at 1 week old when will he?

Why can't you call them both names? Grandad and all Greeks can call him yogios and you can call him English name. That's what we've done with our children. One culture calls them one name and the other the other. It's fine.

both dh and i each have a brother knownby their middle name.it is so common it really doesn't cause any problems