I don’t want DD to change her name.

[LemonBeachTowel]

DD is 13. She had recently been saying she wants to change her first name as it is “old fashioned” and says that with our surname it sounds like an old ladies name. I’m heartbroken as it is a name we picked for her because we loved it. We can’t really shorten her name and we’ve never used the associated nickname. I just can’t my head around calling her something else. AIBU to keep calling her by her name?

@grincheux

But now I'm older I love it, gutted to have to be changing it when I get married next year!

So don't change it then! You don't have to you know.

Thanks for all the comments.
My Rose is a girly girl. She’s never really mentioned disliking it before as far as I can remember. I don’t think it’s anything to do with my DIL as DD adores her and really looks up to her.
Me and DH have agreed to call her Evie for the time being and have said for her to tell her friends and her brothers call her that. I’ve said if she still feels the same way in the new year we will tell the wider family to call her that as we don’t see them often. Thanks again for the opinions.

I had a proper old lady name that made adults literally say "Really?" When I was a teenager. I despised it since I could speak.

I really get how you can't bear to hear it see your name. I feel for her.

Changed it at 19 and now in my late thirties, in last few years, I wish I hadn't.

What I loved as a teenager is too unusual, unclear how to pronounce and doesn't work with my surname.

Reading this thread has made me realise I should have experimented with a nickname derived from my middle name. I'm pissed off with teenage me!

OP, I think you have taken the right tack.

I would respect her wishes for the meantime but suggest that she remains "officially" Rose until 18, so that she has a chance to think about this a bit more before changing any paperwork. The thing is, I think there is a very high chance she will change her mind and prefer to go back to Rose at some point. Evie and Ava (while perfectly "nice" names) are very "everywhere" names in the 2010slike being called Jennifer if you were born in the 1970s or Sarah if you were born in the 1980sand I suspect she is doing the teenage thing of being desperate to fit in with her friends. As she matures I bet she will prefer Rose, which is a lovely sophisticated name and slightly more unusual without being "weird."

I would have called my dd Rose but it clashes with her surname.Shewent through similar at 13 and said she would have preferred Rose.She went through all sorts of nicknames for herself but seems to be settling back into her name.Teens!

I think you've handled it well, Lemon.

I was given an old lady name by my parents in the 70s. I'm named after my grandmother, who was born at the turn of last century.

Apparently my parents really deliberated over it, and rationalised to each other that I could always opt for my middle name if I really hated it.

Then, just after I was born, a load of them turned up in the obituaries, and they were really worried they'd made a terrible mistake.

Long story (slightly) short(ish), I hated my name from about aged 10 to early 20s. Not a soul my age had it, I couldn't get any plastic tat with it on, and everyone of my parents' generation trotted out the 'necessary on a bike line' at me, like they were some kind of original comedian and which I don't even get until I was well into my teens.

I love my name now. I won't say I can't believe I used to hate it, because I remember what it's like to be a teen and just wanting a name from the era I was born in.

Rose is an elegant, timeless, classic name and guaranteed she will grow to really like it once she gets passed these awkward years.

Humour her, and she will get past it much more quickly than if you refuse to indulge her.

@LemonBeachTowel, based on her name (pretty neutral name which is still in the top 100) and new name choices (very popular names considered cute) I would try to talk to her to see if there's something else behind this - does she have any social problems at school? Feeling uncool and thinking having a popular name would make her popular too? Etc.
Also remind her that she might hate her cute name when she grows up and becomes a lawyer or doctor or PM.

If she's sure it's just about the name - fine, let her use the the chosen name but not allow changing it legally until she's an adult.

If she thinks Rose is an old lady name sit down with her and watch titanic...the main character (and one half of the love story) is called rose (played by Kate winslet)

What is her middle name op?

Is this new?..could she being bullied?..I remember I didn't hate my name as a kid until.school.bullies...took me until being an adult to "reclaim' my name and realise yes it is a nice name and that it's ok for me to like it...maybe she is being bullied about it...

To be fair, if I were to watch Titanic for the first time as a young teen, it would only confirm Rose as an ancient very 'old lady' name in my mind. When it's not.

You don’t have to call her another name though. She can go by whatever name she wants, but you don’t have to use it. My mum changed her name at 15, but all her family called her by her old name her whole life. It did not cause any problems at all. My cousin and my best friend also changed their names at a young age and always accepted that different people knew them by different names. It’s hardly confusing.

OP your dd is at the classic age when everyone decides they hate their name . I absolutely love your dd’s name and the evidence is it’s our eldest dd’s middle name (she is 18)! It’s a classic name that is used by royalty (the queen’s sister was Margaret Rose) and there are plenty of modern uses such as Rose McGowan, Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones) Rose McIver, Rose Bertram - the model and Rose Maniego who is an 18 yr old gorgeous Instagram fav.

Also let’s not forget Rosa Parks the American civil rights activist.

Rose is a beautiful name.

I would show her this thread.

I would let her choose another name for now but not legally change it until she is an adult because we change so much don't we? Hard to understand when you're a teenager.

Hope she loves her birth name in time.

As I say so often on name threads it doesn't matter what the giver of the name thinks- the important person is the one whose name it is.

Which is why "If you love it, use it" and "Be brave!" "and "You will only have to explain it/spell it once" Is such bollocks advice

@mm8884448838 this is my advice also.

I do know someone who changed his name at 18 after using a nickname through childhood and changing his name to that nickname. But he still has to sometimes say previously I was and inserts name.

My Dd opted for a shortening of her name that I really didn’t like. But quickly , because of its association with her ,I love it like I love her.

I’d let her change it if she wants it, as a PP said, before there are GCSE certificates. She can have a few years to decide what name she would like.

Rose is a lovely name, but it is very feminine. I have a very feminine middle name which I began leaving off forms etc. at that age because it just didn’t feel comfortable on me. There was nothing wrong with it, but I think I felt it conveyed all the ways that my parents had wanted me to be someone I was not.

She will begin to know by now what kinds of things she might want to do when she is older, and what kind of person she might turn out to be. If she thinks people will meet her, and then later say, “You know, you’re not at all what I expected...” then maybe it makes sense to change.

Ah, just read your update. Nice solution.

Thank you everyone.
I don’t think she is being bullied. She’s pretty popular at school but from speaking to her this morning their does seem to be some slight ribbing from the girls about the old lady from titanic?
I say slight ribbing, when you're 13 it probably doesn’t feel like slight ribbing.
Her middle name is Katherine. I have suggest Kate or Katie or Kate but she’s insistent on Evie so that’s what I’ll call her for the time being.

I know you don’t like Evie but I think it’s a fairly neutral normal name.

It’s not out there, the spelling is fairly obvious, it’s easy to pronounce etc etc. Also I don’t see it as cutesy at all. If she does keep it it’s a perfectly acceptable ‘middle class profession’ name.

She may be rebelling against her name but she’s picked a sensible replacement you won’t be embarrassed calling out in a car park, so it could be much worse!!

I hate my name.
Always have. I wish I'd had the wit at 13 to think I might change it. Bravo your daughter is what I say!

Shame that she can't find anything from Katherine that she likes.

But then that & it's variants maybe seem like quite old names to her also?

@LemonBeachTowel

Well done op, I know it might sting you a bit but if her name was making her unhappy changing it is the right thing to do. I reckon there's a 50/50 chance she'll go back to Rose anyway. For what it's worth (nothing!) I think Rose is a lovely name.

I actually had a similar story to her, I don't like my name, it's the shortened version of a longer name, I wish I'd just changed it at her age or that my parents had given me the longer version so I had options. Worse still, my dad always called me by a completely different name, something that's not even a name, I really, really hated that, told him so, begged him not to call me that but it made no difference, that's what he always called me.

That's what we did lemon, my eldest dd told her friends to call her by new name we did too, I went to school to have it made her known as nane so it was on things like her school books and oat peg etc to make it easier.

I hoped it would be phase and she'd go back to her original name because we loved it otherwise obviously we wouldn't have chosen it in the first place. But dd feelings were more important, she was the one who had to live every day with a name she didnt like.

The more people who told her her name was lovely the more determined she got. It almost angered her that people thought she should keep it because they liked it.

We've changed it by deed poll now.

I started hating my name at about the same age. I changed it unofficially and ever since then my friends and those I introduce myself to use the "other" name.
Im known by "the other name" at work also. I spoke to my dad a few years ago to discuss changing it by deed poll and received the usual guilt trip and woe.
Im 40. I absolutely resent that I feel as if I cant change my name without causing a row with my last remaining family member, particularly since its the name ive used for LONGER than my given name.
Ive been discussing it more recently and im close to just changing it and letting the father consequences be damned.
I suppose my point is that if she hates it and continues to hate it, when she comes to an age when she can legally change, I wouldn't stand in the way even though it may be sore because I understand the resentment from the other side.