To think I can live with a name I hate because it means a lot to dh?

[lovingthespring]

We're expecting a boy, dh has lost his brother and his dad in recent years and wants to call our son his dads name and brothers name as first and middle, I get why this means so much to him but the names are old fashioned and I really don't know if I could learn to like them.
Do I just try and accept the names that I'll never like or just understand and respect why he wants to choose them.
I have suggested he use the names as double middle names but he doesn't want to.
There are so many gorgeous modern names that I want to choose but I also know this means a lot to do for his dad and brother.

Yeah, I knew an Edwina. She was thin and shy and already got bullied, but that name was the icing on the cake.

No way. The baby will be his own person, not someone else’s wannabe copy of their deceased relative. That means their own identity. Their own name, not someone else’s name.

are you planning to have more children and would one name be ok for a boy or a girl as a middle name? Could you suggest having them as middle names, saving one for the next child?

I would suggest that you have them as two middle names and choose a different first name.

This really. He deserves his own name.

Agree with everyone else that this is a no-go, for all the reasons mentioned above. Life is for the living.

Nah. I couldn't go along with this. Your son's story doesn't begin and end with his father and his father's family.

Bit dramatic. In my culture we name children 'for' someone. All three of mine have family names. Two are dead (the relatives, not the children) and it gives them a sense of belonging to something bigger than them. They love to hear all about who they were named for. This thing of names not being fashionable is a whole other discussion.

Tastes vary! I’d be much more likely to choose Harold or Arthur than I would David or Peter!

No YANBU, you have to both agree. I wanted to name my dc after my grandfather but DP didn’t do it’s now his middle name. We picked a different first name which is much more modern - so glad we did now.

I had a school friend whose middle name was Edwina. That was bad enough.

If the names are like Reginald and Bertrand than I understand, but if they are Tom and James, can you compromise on variants? Tommy, Jimmy...? Extremely crap examples of the point I am trying to make.

Me and DH chose an "L" name for our first DD as both our mother's had names starting with "L" we didn't realise this until afterwards that we were constantly led by that letter - any compromise with letters/initials?

I lost a wonderful Aunty and wanted to call my DD after her .However , I settled on it as a middle name in the end .Apart from anything else I felt it would be upsetting calling her name if she was running off or whatever

Yes you can. I let my dh choose our first daughters name. It's a name I hated. But it's fine. She's a teen now and it never crosses my mind.

My own son has my dad’s name as his middle name.
A close friend of mine tragically lost her younger brother when we were teenagers. She named her son his first name, and later said she struggled daily with it for the first year as was very hard emotionally to be calling his name to someone else.

I think it depends on the names. If the names were traditional names like James, Edward, John, I’d be fine with it. Reggie or Roy not so much.

If you want “modern” names like Kai, Tate, Ethan I wouldn’t be happy with that.

How bloody selfish of your husband that he thinks he essentially gets to pick first, middle and surname for your child with zero input from you. I’d be telling him the baby can have those two as middle names, my surname, and a first name we both agree on, thank you very much.

Two middle names as my family do

It’s weirder that you think this is weird. You mightn’t agree, but I’d bet that it’s the majority view.

This. My mother, my sister, my aunt are in memoriams who absolutely hate their names. I was spared of being one as my dad made the point that was also the name of the bartender at their local.

Choose a name he can live with. You are carrying your child for 9 months and literally bringing them up for decades so you bloody have the right to have a say on how they are named.

My friends MIL died in an accident while she was pregnant with first grandchild, which was a girl. So baby dully named after dead grandma, who unfortunately had a name very much of her generation…eventually her DH turned out to be an absolute arse so she’s now divorced with her eldest given a name she dislikes.
Use them as middle names, and find a first name you both like.

Agree. Quite a lot of posters have made a very similar point so it is obviously not a minority view.

It is the same in my culture, I would say however that most are a bit resentful of being saddled with a name they hate to honour someone they never met… unless the name has remained in fashion.

I didn't want to use the name DH wanted to for our firstborn. It is his (living) brother's name and an uncle's and great uncle's too - much more common where he is from, not used much here and defs an old man name. But it meant so much to DH, he had always dreamed of having a son and calling him this so in the end I said yes and gave a middle name after one of my brothers.

Before the kid is born the name is so important because you peg so many imaginings of your child to it but once the real child is in front of you the name becomes secondary to who actually they are, especially as they grow.

I still don't love it for itself but it's my son's name so I do. Incidentally we moved to Scotland where it is far more common, though still not used for kids. (I've never met another his age.)

That's not to say you SHOULD agree to this, but just that you won't necessarily regret or resent it if you do.

I chose DS2's name and listened to DH's opinions but with the understanding it was ultimately up to me.

I like "naming after." I don't think it makes a child a memorial or robs them of identity, honestly I think that's very silly.

@lovingthespring One of the most special parts of having a baby is coming up with a name you both love. If you go along with the names your husband wants, you don’t get to experience that.

I can’t help but come back to the fact that it’s already the mother doing all of the hard work of pregnancy and childbirth, perhaps making sacrifices in your career, and to breastfeed if you should choose to. And to then not get a say in babes name either?

Also, as therapist, I would be very wary of the impact on a child, intentional or otherwise, of bearing the burden of a dead relatives name and perhaps living in their shadow. Your child won’t know these relatives, and therefore the names won’t have the significance they hold for other family members. Maybe your husband could add these names to his own by deed poll?