AIBU to feel hurt by my partner's sibling's comment about our baby?

[Alawishus39]

I feel really hurt by a comment made by my partners sibling at a recent family gathering. I’ve recently had a baby, less than 6 months ago and partners sibling has just had theirs, they are both our first babies. We met to meet the baby. They said the baby’s full name and one of the names i hadn’t ever heard so I asked “what does that name mean” and the sibling replied “better than your baby” but saying my baby’s name so for example “better than Charlie”. Not the name, as in the name meaning means their child is better than our child, or that’s how I’ve taken it. I was a little stunned and there was an awkward silence. I was expecting my partner to say something to the sibling but they didn’t. I made a half laugh and the conversation moved on. I just feel quite upset now and like there will be an instant rivalry between the two babies who are cousins growing up. Maybe it’s hormones, so I need to know if I am being unreasonable or what I can do to stop this from becoming a thing or if I’ve taken the comment wrongly and they did mean the name is better than our babies name.

You are being over sensitive to what was obviously a joke. Calm down and enjoy your baby. Cousins aren't automatically best friends anyway, so stop worrying about things that haven't happened yet.
Oh and please don't ever mention their 'gender disappointment' to the parents because that would be such a horrible thing to do.

There’s no way this is a common conversation:

person 1: meet my new baby Charlotte Jane.
person 2: what does that mean?

It means my new baby is called Charlotte Jane. Does Charlotte Jane have some origins / totally unconnected or made up meaning - probably… but it’s just an insulting question.

“Better than Elthelbert Prudence” is a pretty normal defensive response - as in “it’s a better name than you chose, so back in your box”.

What does that mean comes across as a weird and intrusive question where you can’t think of anything nicer to say. And it might be a bit embarrassing to say you don’t know, like the insinuation is you’ve not been diligent enough in naming your child if you don’t know the meaning of the name.

Storm in a teacup, I feel. I hope that in a few years you will be able to tell the BIL and wife how hurt you were at the time, and laugh about it as an overreaction. (Yes, probably because you are hormonal, but also parents are OF COURSE fiercely protective of their baby and programmed to overreact to any perceived insult. Not your fault!)

It was the OP's partner's brother who made the comment.

Ignore!

Probably a joke but not very funny.
My youngest has an unusual name, which isn’t English and people have asked where it is from
and the meaning. I have always thought they were just interested and been happy to ask.
If it was a joke then it obviously didn’t go down well, which I am sure they were aware of.
I would forget it for now but if they make any other comments in future just have a word about it

It’s more likely he meant “my baby’s name is better than your baby’s name” rather than my baby is better than your baby.
but either way it was a comment between brothers who are both exhausted new parents. You should not make it about you or get involved or even give it any thought. Even if the four of yoy are close, brothers have their own relationship which might involve in-jokes or spikyness or even genuine competition but it doesn’t need to bleed out to you and sil and the children.

Cross posted with OP.
Apologies 🤭
He couldn't suppress his inner bitch 🙄
Better?

Your hormones are all over the place and so are hers, try to forget about it, I really don't think it meant anything. You reacted in the right way at the time.

It may not be a typical question but it's well within normal parameters in any English culture that is interested in language and there are a few of us left. It doesn't usually carry the implications you have attributed.
However the ' normal defensive' retort of " it's better than the name you chose so back ' in your box' is very out there whether literally or in sentiment. No one comes at new mothers like that and I feel sad that you think this is normalised.

I’ve heard people ask this as a way to suggest the name is made up. Maybe she thought you were trying to be rude.

Jokes are meant to be funny.

She thought you were mocking that original name and felt threatened, so she said something snarky. She's probably stressed and sleep deprived so she's overreacted. You're both hurt in this situation and miscommunicated completely, but it's also a bit of a teenager squabble.

I'd tell her that I really like the name, I just wanted to know if it has some special meaning. You've escalated this completely out of proportion thinking there will be years of rivalry now

Sounds like a badly judged joke to me, don’t overthink

Also just saying being asked what a name means because it’s not an English name gets really tired - do you know the meaning of all English names?

Well it is a bit pretentious (I would think mildly passive aggressive!) to ask the meaning of a name. Not everyone has to have a deep and meaningful reason to use a name. Sometimes they just like the sound of it. If they want to share that information freely then fine, but I don’t think I would ever ask. Makes you sound like a bit of a smart ass. So I’m not surprised you got an irritated response.

As I previously said my partner already asked the origin of the name and was met with a normal answer so to carry the conversation on I asked what it meant. I’ve also explained that in their family they have a strong and well known tradition that all the children have a parent or grandparents name as a middle name so it was even more of a thing they’d done something different. Myself and sister in law had spent years joking about future children having to be named after relatives on that side and who picks what.
His brother also asked why we chose “Charlie” when he came to meet our baby so it wasn’t seen as a big deal or unusual conversation.

Why would you ask what Emily or John means lol

It comes across on your post as if you're negatively questioning why they chose the name. So I can only imaging that in real life it probably sounded like you were judging them

read Your comment about the family tradition about naming after grandparents. Is “Charlie” a grandparents name? If so I think she was carrying on your joke about their name is better than yours because it’s not one of the grandparents.. if not it was pretty mean.

”Charlie” isn’t grandparents name but middle names are Grandparents name. So we had for example “Charlie John William” and John and William are dad and grandad. Brother in law asked “why Charlie” when visiting and we said just a name we liked. They have their baby and say here’s “Joey Tafari” to which partner says oh tafari what’s the origin of that and I follow with what does that name mean, responding with “better than Charlie”. So it’s middle name not even first names

It was probably a jokey way of letting you know thats not an appropriate question. I do think "what's the meaning of that name" is actually quite offensive for some people, because lots of names don't have meanings or the meaning isn't relevant. A name like Charlie or Thomas you'd never say "what does that mean?" People choose names they like the sound of, and asking the meaning implies there must be another reason to choose it.

My friend has a baby and her partner is from another culture so the baby has a middle name from that culture, she is CONSTANTLY asked "where's it from/what's the meaning" she just likes it, picked it because it sounded nice, it doesn't have a proper meaning really (neither does the baby's first name, which is an english old fashioned name, but guess what - nobody asks about the meaning of that name). She finds it exhausting and has actually been quite taken aback as she's white British and has never experienced this subtle day-day type of being treated differently.
I wonder if your SiL/BiL is tired of being asked or found it offensive or annoying. Next time you should just say "that's nice" or "I've not heard that before, it's lovely". Some people pick names for meanings but lots don't and implying they should makes it sound like you don't think the name is nice by itself, or it must require some kind of background info. Even "does it have a meaning" is better than "what does it mean"

I think what happened is that it probably came across as a bit offensive you asking. But that’s not a big deal. What is underlying is that she wishes for your gender of baby, and that’s the real reason for her sniping.

I think they probably thought you were expressing surprise or dislike to the name so when you asked they were meaning the name Jayden is better than the name Charlie for example. It is a bit of an odd question

So what has your partner said about all this given he was there and actually started asking about the name?

Yeah that's really no excuse for being so rude! 🙄 it's only a joke if everyone is laughing.

OP unless your face was screwed up in distaste as you asked them, then I don't see why they'd be offended by your question.

They are probably in the depths of sleep deprivation ATM. But it was a still a very unpleasant comment and I would probably have replied something like "well that's a horrible thing to say."