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another name change saga . tell me i'm being daft . i know i am .

74 replies

freesias · 07/04/2011 21:56

ok long rambling story but here goes

dd has just turned one too late to change her name etc

when she was born dp insisted there was only one name he liked , unfortunately i loathed it but dp refused to discuss names and vetoed every name i suggested . he believed his name for her would grow on me because i loved her . after a difficult birth c section, i gave in and accepted his choice in tears in the registry office on the last day we could register her and called her name a , name b. i felt that as i had a section dp didn't feel i had a right to name her

when she was 6 months old she had been baptised by then , dp realised i still loathed it and could hardly bring myself to use it,even though all our friends and family in rl loved it , and he aggreed reluctantly to use her name b, a name we both liked but had discounted because it didn't feel right (too try hard posh) and dp had been quite negative about it during the pregnacy as he was with every name suggested .name b was in my top ten names but towards the bottom of that list but had been dps second choice

6 months on although i like the name we are using for her i don't love it , and if i hear anyone say anything negative about it , i wonder have we made the right decision . in reality name b was the lesser of 2 evils . i still don't feel it suits her .i also dislike it's most obvious nn . i feel guilty because i love her dearly and hate the fact that she will always know her name has been changed , caused so much heartache etc, she will have trouble with form filling etc and that although i like her name i don't love it especially as she is not our first dc and i love her siblings names and wouldn't care what others thought of them .

  on top of this many people who know we changed her name still call her by the name a and even those who use her new name say things such oh her name  a was such a lovely name implying her  name b is not .

    although i know we have to keep using her new name because it would be completely unfair  to change it again now , i keep wondering if we should have  carried on using name a , as it would have caused less heartache for dd . i feel angry with dp as we could have avoided all this if he'd just listened in the first place and angry with myself for not refusing to name her until dp discussed it properly  . 
   i am not normally this indecisive athe other dcs sorted either prebirth or within an hour of being born , so i really don't know what went wrong this time . (more guilty feelings)
 i think in reality i feel like this because i feel i not only did i not get the birth i hoped for , i also feel i was  left out of naming her iyswim
   if you've experienced this when did you get over the names you didn't use and learn to love the name you did .
   if not how do i move from liking to loving her name and not being constantly knocked by others opinions .
      tell me to get a grip but please be gentle (i feel genuinely upset about this ) , tell me i'll love her name because i love her and i'll get over this  becuse i  know this is stupid , i know  i need to move on but how .
OP posts:
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oohlaalaa · 11/04/2011 17:29

Freesia's, if you have had a year to think about it, and still don't like the name - may be worth changing.

TheSecondComing · 11/04/2011 17:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SoupDragon · 11/04/2011 17:36

Glad that adding a name doesn't seem to be an issue from a legal POV for you - my dad is known by a name his aunt (!?!) snuck in when he was baptised. It is not on his birth certificate and is thus even more difficult to explain than my middle name scenario :)

I think with Augusta and Winnifred on the table you got off lightly TBH Wink Although DS2 went to nursery with a Winnifred... she was lovely and the name sounded fine.

(as an aside, I must quiz him about how he ended up with an extra name as it really makes no sense!)

freesias · 11/04/2011 18:23

although the option to change it is their really don't want to do anything drastic until i understand exactly why it still upsetting me so much . no way will dp allow another name change , so really the only option available is to swap the names around ie put arabella first and possibly add a third name but as someone said not sure whether adding a third name ,a name she'll probably never use will help in any way and may just add to the confusion .

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ChocolatewithRosie · 11/04/2011 18:45

well, if it makes you feel any better I have added Felicity, Arabella and Augusta to my extensive girls names list.

freesias · 11/04/2011 18:51

chocolate strangely augusta has grown on me just not sure i'd ever be brave enough to use it

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ChocolatewithRosie · 11/04/2011 22:05

I have an August DD too

PainSnail · 12/04/2011 00:37

How about shortening Arabella down slightly to Arabel? Still feminine, but less frilly.
I have to admit that I've always found Arabella fussy, but I've always LOVED Arabel, mostly because I love the Arabel and Mortimer books so much.

freesias · 12/04/2011 12:59

i love arabel dp not keen kept pointing out the farming connotations, may although i've been using it as a nn seems stronger to me than arabella

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PainSnail · 12/04/2011 17:27

Well to my mind, arabel is pronounced entirely differantly to arable, so dp can just take his farming connotations and go Wink. I would pronounce Arabel with the same ending as Isabelle.

oohlaalaa · 12/04/2011 17:41

oooh Arabel is very lovely.

I'm from a farming family, and I do not think it is anything like arable.

My DP will not let me have Freya, as he thinks Sprayer.

freesias · 12/04/2011 18:19

deep down this whole name issue is more to do with her birth and i know that . the determined mischievous ,stubborn side of her personality chimes more with my idea of an arabella /arabel. yet when i look at her she looks like a my idea of a felicity blonde blue eyed , fine featured sensitive etc and then i think dp was right all along and that in reality the only reasons i felt so uncomfortable with the name felicity was the sadness i felt and perhaps still feel about the manner of her birth not the name itself . i just keep going round in ever more confused circles .i can't see any way of resolving this confusion other than calling her both until she's old enough to decide for herself which she prefers.

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freesias · 12/04/2011 18:22

oohlaalaa your dp sounds very like my dp any name he could find something to rhyme it with , any nasty nicknames or any daft song associated with a name he would find etc . he killed many very reasonable names this way

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FanjoForTheMusic · 12/04/2011 20:52

OP, what do you think of Lissie as a nn? A couple of posters have suggested it and I think it's lovely.

I remember your posts from before, you poor thing. I changed DD's name, and was so anxious about it all.

jellybeansontoast · 12/04/2011 21:03

How about a list of NN for each of the names? They're both really versatile for nicknames. I know a few Arabellas and Felicitys and these are the ones I can remember:

Arabella:
Ellie
Ella
Bella
Arrie
Nell
Aria
Belle
Ara

Felicity:
Flic / Flick
Flix
Fliss
Flossie
Lissie
Ellie (again - maybe a middle ground between the two..?!)
Flicka
Flissa
Bliss
Fi / Fifi
Lissa

freesias · 12/04/2011 21:33

fanjo i'm not sure whether or not i'm pleased you remember my previous posts or embarrassed . it's been an epic . honestly i'm not normally this indecisive .

with regard to changing your own dd's name when did you become less anxious about it and know you'd at last picked the right name .i really love the nn fliss, lissie etc much prefer them to bella ,ella
jellybeans as regards nns the nns for arabella are less to my taste arrie and ara sound realy masculine and bella /ella are so popular .like belle though
much keener on the nns for felicity love fliss and bliss both of which would really suit her.
thanks everyone for allowing me to think this through with driving dp and everone in rl to distraction. i now have a sure fire way of getting my other dcs to bed i just bring out the name book and they disappear Sad Smile

OP posts:
FanjoForTheMusic · 13/04/2011 08:07

It was a bit different for me, in that the name she now has had been our other choice, and had felt 'special' all through the pregnancy, but somehow hadn't revealed itself so be such a front runner until we picked the other one!

I had doubts from the very start, and, like you couldn't really bring myself to use her name. It was a huge relief to change it, and we're so glad that we did.

What do you think you'll do, stick with Felicity Arabella and call her Fliss/Bliss? (Lissie please!) Am I right in thinking that if you do, there won't be any problem with forms etc, because neither of her legal names have changed?

CheerfulYank · 13/04/2011 08:22

I think Fliss is very cute, as well as Lissie. Like Lizzie but prettier IMO. :) Elle is also nice and less common than Ellie and Ella.

freesias · 13/04/2011 08:58

fanjo i think we will continue to use arabella as her name, the other dcs think of her as this and others outside the family will eventually see her as this if we stick to our guns and insist she is arabella . i've always loved the meaning of arabella (beautiful answer to prayer) and it had been a name we'd always thought of using but we both worried it might be too posh and we would be seen as "trying too hard ". we ruled it out for this reason alone .in hindsight some of the names i preffered were probably hormonally driven and not the good ideas i thought they were .

i think we will probably use fliss , lissie or arabel as nns instead of bella as she grows older . as regards changing her bc , i think we'll leave it as felicity arabella at the moment and see how she feels when she's older . my worst nightmare is we change it to arabella felicity and then in her teens she anounces i hate arabella and want to be felicity and we cannot then alter it again .

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ForkfulOfEasterEgg · 13/04/2011 11:01

OP - you could speak to these people for free about your birth experience. They offer "feflective listening".

I think you need to find peace with yout birth experience. The disempowerment you felt over the birth has, imo, transferred over into your DD's name.

ForkfulOfEasterEgg · 13/04/2011 11:02

reflective listening

freesias · 13/04/2011 18:43

thanks forkful will definitely look into that

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pootros · 13/04/2011 22:53

I know a Felicity shortened to Flic, and another shortened to Fissy x

freesias · 14/04/2011 19:09

pootroos thanks i think we're going to stick with arabella as her name but use bliss /fliss if we do use a nn . i really dislike bella, belle ,ella, ellie as nns

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