My DH has changed my baby’s name….

[Lilysienna1]

… or at least, he’s TOLD everyone a different name. I’m pretty sure I am not being unreasonable. This is more of what would be a reasonable response. Because right now I’m ready to LTB.

I have recently given birth to our 3rd and final baby. I had a difficult birth, and have just got home from hospital after a 10 day stay.
As we did with previous births, we’ve not allowed any visitors and as I’ve been so unwell, I’ve actually only bothered with my
phone to snap a few photos, in between sleeping and feeding etc. Not announced the birth on social media, and only spoke with my mum and sisters.

I arrive home today and started opening cards and presents that family and friends (from DH side) have dropped round. All with congratulations on the birth of ‘Georgina.’

This would be lovely, if her name was Georgina. However, it isn’t or at least it wasn’t. We had agreed on Emmeline. Georgina was a top contender, but I just didn’t love it as much as Emmeline. DH had not expressed how much he loved the name Georgina - he was very much ‘I like all the names on the shortlist. You can choose.’ Which I did. Emmeline.

so of course, I confront him on it. We didn’t share any names with friends and family, so I knew they hadn’t just taken a wild guess. He looked a bit sheepish and said ‘I was going to tell you. I just don’t think I can imagine calling her Emmeline. Georgina is a better fit.’
Oh and ‘Everyone agrees’ he said. (his mum then basically)

‘I was going to tell you’ doesn’t really cut it here does it? I will admit neither of us were really using her name in the hospital, we were calling her ‘little bean’ which was a silly but sentimental name we had for her when she was just a bump. But of course I’ve said Emmeline a few times and I’m sure he has as well.

He said he was really sorry, but ‘everyone’ was asking for a name and he felt he had to make a decision (that we had already made) and so he ‘went with Georgina.’
He says he can understand why I am upset but as we both like Georgina, why can’t we use it. Seeing as she doesn’t ‘feel like an Emmeline.’

if this had been discussed, then sure, we both have to feel comfortable with the end name, but that decision can’t be with one parent alone, behind the other ones back. He says I was too unwell to really decide. Yes, I was unwell. But perfectly capable of a conversation.

oh and his mum has already ordered ‘Georgina’ a personalised baby blanket 🥴

Yeah, I’d be miffed. When I was a baby (in the early 1970’s) my Mum wanted to call me Barbara. She was too unwell to take me to be registered so my Dad took me by himself on the last day allowed. He registered me as Julia, because at three months old he hated the name Barbara too much to allow it, and he was Ukrainian so it was very like Yulia, a name from his home.

Having known him I can’t imagine him doing that but Julia it stayed and the Barbara story went down in family legend so I reckon its true. I don’t know how big a deal it was at the time, they were and stayed happily married for the next 20 years though, until his death. I don’t think Mum really cared about names after four of us tbh.

I think both Emmeline and Georgina are lovely but later on I’d rather have ‘Em’ than ‘George’ as a daughter’s nickname.

No, he tells people he completely fucked it up.

I can't believe you've never heard of this ? There are millions of stories out there of men going to register births .
Usually caused by bad spelling of men , I do know someone who's name was meant to be one but because of his incompetence it was registered as two names .

Why are people making horrible comments about MIL? It's a horrible thing OP's husband has done, but why the fuck does MIL deserve too be vilified here? All she's done is assumed - as any normal person would - that the name she's been told is the right one

YANBU @Lilysienna1 I'd be fuming. I think the best thing to do is to choose something completely different - but have Emmeline as a middle name.

And go and get her registered on your own.

Imagine agreeing a name honouring a feminist legend and then a bloody man changing it without discussion! This wont do, show that little baby what it means to be female and do not accept this nonsense.

I'd go for a neutral new name now.

I have. Many years ago a family friend went to register his daughter Helen as decided with his wife.
He came back waving a birth certificate with the name Elaine. Apparently he preferred the French version.
His wife was furious but the baby remained Elaine.

I think extended family and friends get excited about welcoming a new baby, and are keen to know the name.
We had shortlisted a few possibilities, and hadn’t decided ( in my mind) between two of them.
However my DP was obviously in charge of PR while I was recovering in hospital, which is why my over half of my DS’s gifts and cards were addressed to George, which we didn’t name him.
The relatives were temporarily confused, but seem to have recovered.

I'm very biased as I have an Emmeline. I adore the name. You can't be railroaded into Georgina now. It's quite a different vibe to Henrietta too; it's quite 90s in comparison. Georgiana would be a better fit but you don't really want a George name at all.

Funnily enough Henrietta was on our shortlist! Others on our list were Cassandra, Josephine, Rosalind, Genevieve, Guinevere.

Read him the riot act 😬

Not the point of the post but one of my DD's is Henrietta - it's nice to hear another one!

Send a group message telling everyone that he name isn’t Georgina and that you will update them in the name asap….before anyone else orders anything personalised…maybe MIL can cancel the blanket if it’s sooner rather than later 😬

This.

I love the name Emmeline, a child at my primary school was named that.

My dad is known by his entire family as X when his name is Y because Grandad registered the birth as YX when Gran had wanted XY. So she just called him X regardless. It was only when he left home that he got called his registered name. I think the same thing happened with one of his sisters and I only realised when we were doing the family tree!

For some weird and unknown reason- I was 2 months early via C section- my 16 year old brother took me to be christened so the story goes..he decided I wasn't going to be Jeanette but another name which is infinitely better IMO. Whether they thought I was on my last legs and needed to be christened into the catholic church before passing I don't know. I never was told what the parents reaction was.

You need a completely new name that you both agree on. Georgina is somewhat tainted and clearly he doesn’t want it to be Emmeline. If she can’t be Georgina, then she can’t be Emmeline either. You are both going to have to have a conversation and agree on a different name.

While the way he went about it is appalling and to me does mean don't use Georgina. I would also listen to the fact he doesn't feel like Emmeline fits.

If he isn't usually a knob then I would write this one off and work on a name you can both agree on and love.

Doesn't matter what people here think. You will get people who like Emmeline more than Georgina and visa versa. What matters is what the 2 of you feel.

Now obviously if this is a pattern. shove him a watermelon somewhere the sun doesn't shine and stick with Emmeline. On the chance, he is usually decent Communicate.

I suppose it's better than Colina, Nigella and Alana.

Your husband has to correct this. He needs to retell everyone, today, that you have not, as yet, decided on the name.

Tell his Mum first so that she can cancel the baby blanket.

You and your husband start again and choose a name that you both like. Obviously not Emmeline nor Georgina, but a name that you both like.

Put all of the cards in a box ready to add the changed name.
It will be a funny story one day.

Anyway there is plenty time to register a baby , what is it six weeks ?

This happened to a family member and the Dad got his way. It happened many years ago and honestly I think caused hurt feelings long term.

I would listen to the fact he doesn't feel like Emmeline is it, but I would not just go for Georgina because he made a unilateral decision. If you really can't agree on Emmeline, then I think it needs to be a new name. Otherwise, he manipulated the situation and won.

Oh I would be more than livid. If he really thought you weren't up for a conversation or he was trying to summon the balls to tell you he just wasn't ok with Emmeline then he should have told family that the two of you hadn't finalized the name yet... "we're still getting to know her and [wife] is recovering. We're just calling her little bean in the meantime and we'll announce a name soon."

But he didn't do that because he wanted to railroad you into going with his name. So instead he told both families and let his mom order a blanket the name was Georgina with the hopes that you would feel too embarrassed and tired to argue about it. That is a truly shite thing for a partner to do, and I would make that brutally clear to him.

I wouldn't accept Georgina. Even if you were ok with it before, now it will always remind you of this awfulness. If he really isn't ok with Emmeline, go back to the short list and pick one you're both ok with. Then you can decide whether family are told that the two of you just changed your minds after getting to know little bean (it happens!) or tell people what really he did.

If I were you, OP, wild horses couldn’t drag the name Georgina from my mouth. He doesn’t think the baby seems like an Emmeline? Well, too bad. He lost the right to input when he purposely deceived people about your daughter’s name.

Register the name as Emmeline. Come back and tell him you’ve named her Radcliffe or Waltrude or something and it’s registered. See how he likes it. Then when you tell him it’s Emmeline he’ll be relieved.

I think you both need to sit down and write another short list. He obviously isn’t keen on Emmeline, just like you’re not happy with Georgina either.

I can’t believe the number of posters recommending that you go and register her name alone. If you had come on here and posted that your DH had done it, there would hundreds of posts saying LTB.

Just send a WhatsApp, saying her name is yet to be decided and your DH was just trying it out.

Don’t let a personalised blanket decide your daughters name.

Congratulations on the arrival of little bean

Here's how it likely went down:

MIL: What's her name?
DH: Emmeline
MIL: Emmeline? grimaces What other name choices were there?
DH: Georgina, which I prefer.
MIL: Ok, I'll get the personalised blanket ordered with Georgina then. then calls around the relatives telling them she's Georgina

I'd be fuming too OP. Georgina is tainted now, and I agree that it doesn't go with Henrietta due to them being boy names if shortened. I also don't like that they both end in "a". I do like your choice of Emmeline, and as you said, he'd let you decide on the final name and that is what you chose, so I think you should absolutely register her as Emmeline. I do not think Georgina should be a middle name as his family will just continue to call her Georgina.

Your husband is an ass. Glad to hear he's not controlling, just sounds like he's a wimp.

I feel for you, but after all this shit, you deserve to give her the name you originally chose. Hope your recovery goes well x