Traditional family names

[monande2011]

How did you decide on your babys name. My partner and me have very different views. He is very traditonal, and he would like baby to have his grandads name being ....WILFRED. I am very against this, did anyone have similar situations ?? x

I think middle names were invented for just this situation...

I like Wilfred. Could be Wilf or Freddie for short - both really nice. But yes, middle name is the answer if you're really against it.

I could never love a Wilf.... You can't give your baby a name you hate, either of you. Somebody on another thread suggested the namingtogether.co.uk website as a way of finding the names that you might possible agree on, or just making long lists separately and vetoing the ones you hate and seeing if anything survives the cut.

We went with an old family name, but its not Wilfred. Agree with Fred. Like it.

Stick with it as a middle name.

Our older 2 have fairly traditional family names but they're a little less traditional than Wilfred. I did have to put my foot down on a couple of DH's suggestions he took from his side of the family, Donald for a start, I really do not like that one, the other is the name of an old horse of theirs. Just No.
Wilfred isn't too bad, It can be shortened to Will as well, and Freddie is such a great name!

I would have said Wilfred was probably rather smart again these days, with the revival of Archie, Bertie et al.

However, I hate the tradition of naming a baby after anyone - it almost invariably involves a name that means a lot to one parent and not to the other, so on those grounds alone I don't think it's usually a good idea. Your husband, every time he says the name, may get a warming glowy thought of his grandfather, but you just get a name you don't like.

Bin it and slog through until you find a name you both like.

We did as middle names. However John and Theodore are fine.

Can you compromise and use as middle name or another form of it ie:

Freddie
Frederick
Wilf
Will
Alfred

Etc

Oh the politics of naming your child after someone! Why his grandfather amd not yours? And why that one instead of the other one he (most likely) has?

Yes DH has a family name of about five generations. It is awful. We have DS 1 and 2 and never used it although we both agreed.

Our part of town is pretty hipster-dense and we have two little
Wilfreds, there are quite a few others on here recently, it's quite cool. I als think Wilf is cute for a boy, or he can be Will or Freddie if you prefer something more top-10.

But in any case, if you hate it you shouldn't have to call your son that. Can you both make some short lists and see any crossover?

Why is it always the father who wants to pass on his name or his relative's name? Tell him you'll give the child his surname. Isn't that enough?

My DH wanted to give our DS his father's name as his MN. I refused. Couldn't handle my son being X pls FIL's first name plus FIL's surname. So basically his whole name within my son's name.

Grrrr. Funny how women are rarely so concerned with passing on their name.

I'm with the other ladies who say having DH's surname is enough. Both my DC will have middle names from my family and their own first names. I told him that if he strongly wanted them to have a family name from his side, they could have my surname instead!

My DC all have two middle names, one from my family, one from DH's. Mildly peculiar middle names from the family have always seemed an acceptable tradition. I could never use a name I hated as the main first name though.