Husband won’t call grandchild by his name

[Blyther]

our grandchild (5 months) has an unusual name. It’s a made up name which is a bit ‘out there’- think along the lines of ‘starry-Skye’ or ‘misty-bridge’. Our daughter in law is a bit whacky.

It’s of course entirely up to the parents to choose the name of their child but my husband won’t even say his name as it makes him cringe so much. He refers to the baby as ‘the little one’ or will call him by his middle name.

It’s now become apparent to the parents how he refuses to use his name and it’s causing an atmosphere. I just don’t know what to say to them as I completely understand his point and feel very sorry about the potential bullying he (the baby) is likely to encounter further down the road.

Advice on moving forward please.

If my father or FIL was acting like this I wouldn’t be making much of an effort with contact and visiting them. He sounds like a twat.

if he keeps this attitude and behaviour up be prepared to be slowly pushed out of your grandchild’s life.

my mum didn’t really like my eldest name when we announced it, she made one comment similar to you can’t call him that. She has since apologised and has came back t9 me saying the name has grown on her and it really suits him.

my name is precious"

im sorry i cant say that"-phoebe buffay

How does this work with the foreign workers who don't have some of our sounds in their native language, and struggle with our names? Is that only one way?

I think Peace is a better name than Genghis Khan, unless of course, the name is Peace Off, but then you could shorten it to Pea, and call the baby sweet pea.

Call the child a shortened version of her/his name, for example, Starry Night becomes Star, River Tree becomes Riv, Rainbow Mountain becomes Rain. It might still annoy the parents but it’s defensible as in the ballpark of the actual name.

We need to know what it is OP.

Prickly Pear?

Saying “little one” etc is fine.

Using the middle name is just obnoxious- he can’t decide to rename someone’s child.

Usually I would say he needs to get over it and use the name, but as he is apparently physically incapable, what about initials? Little RJ or whatever?

To be honest, I’m not convinced this is OPs problem to solve. She isn’t responsible for her husband’s relationship with his son/DIL.

Personally I’d continue to use the shit name, and if SIL or DS raised it with me that DH was not using the name, I would tell them to speak to him about it directly. She’s not the boss of him and if he wants to cause a problem, he can deal with the aftermath.

@usernamealreadytaken

Misnaming someone and being unable to properly pronounce their name are two different things. For example, insisting on calling a Muslim colleague Abdul even though their real name is just as easy to pronounce would be a deliberately racist and demeaning act. Misprounouncing a colleague's name because you don't have the cultural vocabulary (and you are quite clearly not intending to insult them) would not be considered harrassment.

Can he use the bêbé’s initial? So P, rather than Piss or Peace, etc.?

I had a stupid first name which I dropped when I came back to the UK to live with my grandparents at the age of 14 and changed it completely when I was legally able to.

He needs to realise that both parents picked and use this name. All this guff about the wacky DIL and her being a bully is just a distraction.

If manages not to burst out laughing when he bumps into someone called Dick (as an example), he can manage this if he wants to.

I am so confused as to what double barrelled name could be rude if shortened? I know @Blyther can’t tell us but I am so annoyed by it!

So here are my guesses

Shiitake Mushroom
Country Walk
Piston Rod

Haha Shiitake Mushroom is a brilliant one. Along the same lines, Button Mushroom I suppose...

Surely learning to properly pronounce a name goes both ways - I find it difficult to properly pronounce some Polish and Asian names, and my foreign colleagues find it difficult to pronounce some British names - we have different cultural vocab but it only seems an issue if British people can't/won't learn the foreign vocab. Sometimes it's unfamiliarity - I remember some time ago a viral post on SM from a Muslim woman deriding somebody for saying "aloo akbar" instead of the correct pronunciation - apparently that was okay...

I have a surname which is a common first name, and often get called by my surname, usually by foreign colleagues who are less used to surname/firstname - after the second or third time are they being disrespectful or cultural?

Poor baby Country-Air 😂

Pooh Bear?

Disrespectful! Once they have been corrected three times, then what is the excuse? If they work with you every day, and hear other people saying your first name, then what’s the excuse? And I say that as a non-white person, from a different cultural heritage, although born in the West, I spoke our native languages for the first 4 years of my life. So yes, that’s not acceptable and I would find it hard to bite my tongue if they did this to you in front of me. When you want to come to the western world, for whatever reason, you have to assimilate and I personally think that half the problems with the world right now is because there is too much divide. I’ve read newspaper articles where people say they can’t move to this area or that area because they are full of asians/blacks/sky-blue-pink people.

In my family, you had your “at home” languages, that were spoken, well, at home and outside, you only spoke English, even to each other out of respect for people who didn’t understand the language. We wore normal school uniform and skirts with long socks or tights to cover our legs. We didn’t wear hijabs, ask for prayer rooms, or take time out of lessons to pray.

A possibly outing little story, but I was invited to my first birthday party by a school friend. Bear in mind, this was a lovely white person, with a lovely family. My takeaway? I went home and told my family members that white people were weird because they ate bread stuck together with other food. It was a sandwich 😂. We didn’t eat sandwiches, I’d never seen them. School lunches were free back then and everyone ate school lunches.

I have 3 ND people in my immediate family (caveat all ND people are different)
My 2 ND teenagers would know that laughing as you 'literally can't pronounce' someone's silly name is bloody rude. If they genuinely struggled to pronounce it they'd at least try, & respectfully too. Names (& dignity) matter to their owners.
My NH exH would also know this but be 'unable to help himself'.
He's not, he's just an arse.
Perhaps this child's Grandfather is also an arse?

I agree. If my grandson was called Sturdy Tree or Thundery Sky or something ridiculous like that I would definitely be calling him 'the baby' for as long as possible.

I think the more you hear a name the more you accept it. I use to work in a children's nursery, I was surprised by a few of the names of new children and felt odd saying them the first few times but after a week or so it just became automatic and instead of thinking, why name a baby after an American state, that word just became that child in my mind. I suggest you use the name regularly when talking with your husband at home so that he associates it with the baby rather than a picture of a starry sky, or whatever, popping into his mind when he hears it.

Everyone here sounds unreasonable.

OP for her feelings/complaints about the baby’s mum which are irrelevant.

The husband for being juvenile.

The parents for thinking OP has any control of her DH.

If I was in these parents’ shoes, I would ignore OP’s husband, not acknowledge him every time he did it or made a point to. It is not a hardship to say a name regardless of your feelings on it.

What struck me - and which is why I believe that this is an issue of him not wanting to be respectful and not being he genuinely incapable - is this update by the OP:

Oh yes, he’d very much like to tell them the name is laughable!

he clearly wants to inform them about his opinion and seems to believe that his opinion is relevant.

there is no indication of him being contrite or realising that he may need to work on his attitude (if he truly can’t control the reaction).

the OP “completely understanding” his point and being worried about future bullying - but not recognising that her husband’s behaviour is or will be bullying - further demonstrates that she (and presumably her husband) don’t think there’s anything wrong with him not using the child’s actual name.

this seems quite malicious and childish. And not like a case of being genuinely unable to help himself.

I feel quite sorry for the child and her parents.

Same. I can only assume a lot of people on here have kid with ridiculous unique names.

I’m going to guess Fox. Shortened would sound like “fuck” 🤣😳