Just call her by her name?!

[FF7RGEEK]

I have 4 DD, my youngest is 1 next month.
My MIL won't use her name, just calls her baby she says it is impossible to pronounce (it isn't) in the beginning she would try to say her name and call her something not even remotely similar to her name.
She now has other family members doing the same and they won't use her name either, even though they did to begin with.
DH, tells her all the time that she is being silly and to just use her name, she will then just fall out with us.
I know her name is unusual but it is beautiful (in our opinion) am I being unreasonable to tell her she has to use her name?

YANBU and it is a gorgeous name. I too could pronounce it before I saw your second post.

My in laws refused to use our DS's shortened name (think Robert but we call him Bob for example), they insisted on using 'Robert' but they soon realised how stupid they were when they tried to address him as 'Robert' and he ignored them because he didn't realise that they were talking to him!

@FF7RGEEK

I have 4 DD, my youngest is 1 next month. My MIL won't use her name, just calls her baby she says it is impossible to pronounce (it isn't) in the beginning she would try to say her name and call her something not even remotely similar to her name. She now has other family members doing the same and they won't use her name either, even though they did to begin with. DH, tells her all the time that she is being silly and to just use her name, she will then just fall out with us. I know her name is unusual but it is beautiful (in our opinion) am I being unreasonable to tell her she has to use her name?

suggest gently that she sees her gp as dysarthria can have serious causes. or buy her and her family vouchers for adult education literacy classes. ..... that is not a hard name to pronounce!

I really couldn't be bothered getting worked up over this, and can't understand why it's such an issue. She's hardly going to call her baby forever.

It’s a beautiful name OP.

Aw you’ve taken me back to teenage years when I was obsessed with ff7!

Beautiful name. If she won't use it then I would limit contact with her. Your Dh needs to have a serious word with her about it. Maybe you could tell her that her name is awful and stop using it too.

That's a lovely name, and straightforward to pronounce. I think calling her Old Woman from now on is a perfectly reasonable response to her insistence on calling her Baby.

"She now has other family members doing the same and they won't use her name either, even though they did to begin with."
Well aren't they the little sheep. They'd be getting the rough side of my tongue for such nonsense! I'd be doing the 'Her name is Aerith. AIR-ITH. Don't call her Baby again, you know her name." Every. Damned. Time.

@Mandalay246

I really couldn't be bothered getting worked up over this, and can't understand why it's such an issue. She's hardly going to call her baby forever.

Not seen Dirty Dancing then?

Also - with her gran and other relatives calling her Baby, it become a nickname . And the Airith goes to school, her classmates become aware of it and she gets teased for it. Best to put a stop to it now, no?

It’s a beautiful name.
Agree call her old lady in front of Aerith every single time

It's really not that difficult to pronounce. I think she just doesn't like the name and is being stubborn about it.

I don't think it would matter what the name actually was. You can learn to pronounce any name if you put the effort in.

I agree with the others to ask 'who is baby' every single time and look blankly at her

I like the name it's easy to say. I knew how to pronounce it before you said. She's been very rude not saying her name

I find Aer-ith hard to pronounce.
Sincerely. For me it's a bit of tongue twister.
A lot of words are.
Yeah yeah, I'll get my coat.

I don't think that's hard to pronounce, especially once someone's been told how to pronounce it, if they need to be told.

It sounds like your MIL is being deliberately mocking.

Could she have some dementia or something, or has she always been annoying?

08ARealTrip
Dh was very blunt about it and said that I shouldn't take her to see dm if she wouldn't say her name.

I still don't know why she hated it, never asked. I think the OP should say, her name is Aerith, that is how it is pronounced, why won't you use her name? Put her on the spot and see what she says.

@Ellpellwood

Going by your username, is it Aerith?

Oh you win, good guess.

Aerith from ff7, used to go by Aeris. However its not unpronounceable AT ALL. She's just being silly, probably because you picked it from a game. It's not like you. Called her Daenerys or freeking Khaleesi!!

@JennyBoardEraser

Beautiful name. If she won't use it then I would limit contact with her. Your Dh needs to have a serious word with her about it. Maybe you could tell her that her name is awful and stop using it too.

What?

What a mental response.

@AndAllOurYesterdays

This reminds me of Catastrophe where no one can pronounce the baby's unusual Irish name, not even the American father, and the mum gets very irate about it.

Off topic but it's not an unusual Irish name. It's Muireann which while not used loads it's a very usual & known Irish name.

(And to another poster it also not pronounced 'Mwirrin' 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Her name is Aerith. Which comes from the word earth in Japanese, but is also a name of a character in a video game (mine and DH's all time favourite)

Unless you have connections to Japanese culture through heritage, I think it’s a bit odd to take a Japanese name from a favourite video game! I’m not surprised people are unsure of the pronunciation (Air-ith/Ear-ith)?

I think people are more tolerant when a name has a special connection or meaning, eg someone picks an unusual name from Shakespeare or classic literature... but a video game character is a bit like naming a child after a character in Game of Thrones IMO.

What will she say when people ask her where her name is from, once she’s older?

Can you give her a nickname if family struggle to say Aerith? I guess she may get called Airy for short at school.

Unless your MIL has problems with the 'r' or 'th' sound (and would therefore have equal problems with 'Ruth' or 'Martha'), the name is not hard to pronounce. It's pronounced as spelled. I would just ignore her for the moment. Soon enough, your child will probably solve the problem herself by only answering to her actual name, and you can encourage her in this!

@Badabingbadabum

Are you my mate, K??

I'm not a gamer at all but what a beautiful name. I love it and might just add it to my own list. Anyway, was she hoping you'd call the child a certain name - hers, or another family name?

On another note, I had always wanted to call my potential daughter "Sança" after a Spanish princess who lived a thousand years ago (I live in Spain) but after a certain show became massively popular I've had to cut that one off the list

@leli

Who names a child after a video game? Maybe that's what MIL is not so subtly trying to express.

of course she is. the snobbery about naming a child after any character not sufficiently highbrow is clear. video games matter to some people - same as novels matter to others. what is wrong with that? I named one of my dd's after a character in a Trollope novel - bet people wouldn't be saying "who names a child after a character in a 19th century novel" Dh would have loved to have used the name Eowyn from Tolkien (he didn't tell me this until our last child was well launched)

It is a very pretty name, OP.

I think people are more tolerant when a name has a special connection or meaning, eg someone picks an unusual name from Shakespeare or classic literature... but a video game character is a bit like naming a child after a character in Game of Thrones IMO.

What will she say when people ask her where her name is from, once she’s older?

here we go again. Shakespeare or "classics" ok anything else bad (or "common" no doubt)

If the child is asked where her name is from (and I have a dd with an unusual Irish name who is NEVER asked this) she'll say "it was in a video game my mum loved" By that stage people probably won't be as stuffy about video games - we can but hope.

As PP have pointed out - Aerith has no connection to any of the Japanese words meaning Earth. There are multiple (chikyuu, do, tsuchi...) and anyone who speaks even basic Japanese will point this out Aerith is not one of them; as three of us have just proven.

What Aerith is is a Japanese-ish pronunciation of the English word Earth. So yeah, I wouldn’t mention that going forward.

To the actual question - YANBU. Aerith sounds quite pretty and your MIL should be calling your daughter by her name.