To change my child's name at 18 months

[LovelyDIL]

I know the answer is yes but I honestly hate it. I've always been unsure about it and the feeling won't go away. There's another name I prefer.
What would you do?

No, she won’t. I promise. You provide it once when you get your first passport and drivers licence etc. Your passport and drivers license then become your form of ID and you’d never be asked for evidence of name change from then on. When you start jobs and things you use your passport or other photo ID as your means of identifying yourself. There is no way it would cause constant consternation. My sibling changed their first name 25 years ago and she has never (apart from changing her documentation straight after doing it) ever been asked to show evidence of name change since.

I definitely wouldn't change it personally but it's a shame for you to feel that way

There is no objectively “best” name to give her. I think you might benefit from changing your perspective on this as it may come up again. Will you be tempted to change schools, move house, revisit medical decisions? There are plenty of grey areas in parenting and you need to be able to take a decision and move on, projecting confidence to the child to make her feel secure.
What if you later realise that changing her name was how you let her down?

Exactly Nark absolutely spot on. It feels like indulging your whims at your child’s expense. You had your chance to name her you did so. Move on.

Maybe to change within the first 6 months before the child is cognisant and you made a mistake in a post birth haze but it’s too late now.

It's not a puppy or a cuddly toy
What happens in another 18 months when you realise you've gone off the latest name
Poor kid

This isn't about the name. Its about your feelings and response to it. You are fixating on it. I would suggest getting some counselling to help you process what's going on tbh

I had a name change as a child and have never had to show any documentation to prove it.

As you've said, you are massively overthinking this. Of course you haven't let your child down with her name.

Gently, you are coming across as selfish- you are so concerned with your feelings about her name, you seem to have given very little thought to the impact on your daughter of changing the name she has been hearing and associating with herself for the last 18 months. If you have older children, it would also be very confusing for them.

I'd do it. Unless there is some scientific evidence that it will be detrimental to your child's development.

Because you've said:

1. There's nothing actually wrong with her current name - it's a nice name, and it suits her
2. You are an extremely indecisive person about even unimportant things
3. You may be experiencing some 'last child' feelings about never using the other name
4. Your daughter will be confused by the change now, and possibly inconvenienced by it when older
5. Her other parent does not want to change the name, even if he does go along with it to satisfy you

• I say, don't change the name. Allow yourself to come to peace with her perfectly nice current name. I think if you change it in the heat of the moment you will come to regret it, for all the above reasons

What you need to ask is: for whose benefit is this name change?
Your child is happy so it's not for her.
DH is happy so ditto.
Other kids presumably happy so ditto again.

Do you really want to put her through this confusion just for you? You'll be changing what has become an intrinsic part of her, to satisfy your own feelings and for your benefit alone.

I think you need to look at the why here because I don’t think the name or changing it will help bexause they you will worry about that

people are called things they don’t like - before you would find a nickname or shorten version you like now the trend v much in high school is to change it to a completely different name if that is what you want

but it is her name now - not yours

hiw many others do you have

I'd probably not have called my 4 what they were named if I had children now (they're all very grown up) as your tastes change but they're never called by their names, always shortened / nick / pet names. 18 months seems a bit late

I am sure my son chose his name. I was thinking of the name, I was ready for a girl, not for a boy... And then one day just shook me... And I knew it will be perfect for him. And it is. But I figured it out prior his birth, so he had it from his first day.

Yeah, because giving a child a name, and then changing it on a whim 18 months later is so interesting and fun! If it is to you then you seriously don't understand the meaning of the words.

Grow up.

YABU. A child of 18 months recognises their own name by now even if they cannot say it. It’s not about you anymore so stick with it (and I say that as someone who was definitely neutral about the name of the second and final child…2 years on, I still don’t love it but it’s absolutely his name and not mine and so not my place to change it).

Add a new middle name, and start calling your child by it.

Such a weird discussion. What parent can make the decision to change the name of a child they named, causing no end of confusion for the poor kid. And what iate these names anyway? Perhaps you should have a swingometer and a vote on it, as if we’re not discussing a living little human being.

Just because they won’t remember the experience later in life, doesn’t mean they won’t be distressed and confused by it right now. Infants who suffer abuse etc can still be affected by trauma in later life even if they don’t have experiential memories of the events.

How did you arrive at the name in the first place?

You’re very aggressive aren’t you. I’d get some help with that, it’s plain weird.

A former coworker's mother changed her name to her middle name at I think a similar age - the original first name had been named after some relative on her dad's side, but then her parents split up when she was quite young and her mother didn't want her to have a name from her father's side any more so she just dropped the first name and only called her by her middle.

My grandparents did something similar with my uncle except he was a lot younger (a newborn) - Mum couldn't pronounce his first name and Grandad didn't want the mispronunciation to stick so changed it to the middle name. Because he was such a young baby it was easy enough at the time. However, a cartoon character shares the middle name and he kept getting jokes about said cartoon character. He went back to his first name in high school, although the family still used the middle one. (The subject came up at his grandson's first birthday party and he had no memory of the story of why the family use his middle name.)

I disagree with most of the posters here, at 18 months she's not going to remember when she's older what she was originally called. If you really don't like the name you have given her I would go ahead and change it. I'm sure it could be done somehow. Just tell her that mummy has thought of a nice new name that is much nicer. Or do what another poster suggested and make it a double barrelled name to start with and then drop the name you don't like. It might be a little confusing for her at first but she's far too young to think too deeply about it.