Sebastian...

[Mrsfullhouse]

Do you think we could use Sandy as a nickname for Sebastian?

I'm close to giving up on this poor baby's name, I just can't seem to settle on one I love. In fact I'm going crazy and I'm running out of time.

MIL hates everything except Roderick, they are super posh and have a lot of influence (financial and emotional blackmail) over my lovely but wet Dh.

Here are the few I've come up with... please help me fall in love eith a name so that I don't have to call my son Roderick...

Jonathan (Jonty)
Sebastian (Sandy)
Lysander (Sandy)
Jeremy (Jem)

Help!!!!

I know you've posted this in baby names, so I'm not going to bang on too much.... but, what the hell is going on with your Mil and DH.
But she somehow gets her own way on everything, no, no, no! She gets her own way because everyone allows her to. This is your and DH's child. Hard as it may be, you both, as a united front, need to keep repeating calmly and firmly that you haven't decided on a name yet. Ignore any emotional blackmail and work on DH growing some cojones As a compromise, how about Roddy as a middle name? All the Sebastians I have known are Seb, Sebby or Bassy. Don't be bullied into giving your child a name you don't want. Good luck!

btw i'm on my 4th baby and while my situation re names is NOTHING like yours my mum does have a tendency to pull stupid faces or turn her nose up at anything she doesn't like.
it annoyed me so much last time that this time we just said we aren't telling anyone any of our name choices as we'd like it to be a surprise when he is born as we already know the sex etc, so wanted some surprise element.

it's made it MUCH easier. well, once everyone finally accepted that we really, really weren't going to share our name ideas

I love Lysander and considered it for ds, but worried that kids would shorten it to "lice"

Sebastián is his middle name though (no accent, my iPad just adds it for some reason!)

Your mil sounds awful.

I do like Roderick though, but wouldn't give in to her!

I worry about the Lice thing

Lice
Licey...

There's not a lot to say about Mil except that she ruined our wedding by throwing tantrums, ds1's christening by throwing tantrums, got her own way with my ds1's name by throwing tantrums and now it has started on ds2.

I hate her.

It's as simple as that, but you can never win against her. The emotional blackmail is ferocious and if I fight too hard I'm scared she'll make Dh choose between us and no doubt, there would be a rather 'convenient' cancer scare/ heart attack to sway the decision... she has form on this, but Dh is oblivious.

She's also awful about any name I mention.

I was in mothercare with a very loved friend and her gorgeous boy Freddie, when we bumped into her.
Again she brings up the baby name and the dreaded Roderick. Again I said we were undecided and it was a shame that Freddie was taken as it was so lovely (she knows the gorgeous baby in the pram is freddie) and she says....

"Good god, I hope you mean Frederick! Freddie is a god awful name for paupers and republicans" and huffed off....

I don't even know what that means, but it made my friend cry in the toy section.

Evil woman.

How about Leander? Quite similar to Lysander but without the lice

Or just Xander. Still posh enough to please MIL but not the name of soft-cock!

It sounds awful but you MUST NOT GIVE IN!!!! She does sound terrible but you and your DH keep giving in and so because you have done that she keeps trying it on. She will do it again with your new baby's christening and again if you have another baby. I think you need to have a big chat with DH and say it stops now and give your child the name you want. Tell him your fears. So what if she pulls a cancer scare trick...?. Get DH to go with her to the doctors appointment, like any caring son would and then it will soon be discovered as untrue.
I did in my earlier post suggest Roderick as a middle name but I'll retract that. I think avoid at all costs because I can see that if you use Roderick for the middle she will just call the baby by his middle name.

What a horrendous woman! If I'd managed to get as far along the relationship as you (all the way to a second child with her son and still on speaking terms - well done!!) this would push me over the edge and it would be out-and-out war. Not saying you should do that, sinking to her level is of course the worst way to deal with her, but I expect that's what I'd end up doing!

Resist Roderick (Wesist Woderick?) to the last! MN is united behind you!

Sander
Sanders
Santana

Please not Roderick!

Sanford

Lysander is lovely! And you can use Sandy as an obvious nickname. Also think Jeremy is a nice underused name.

Really don't like the nicknames for Sebastian at all - Seb (sebacious = oily), Basty (bastard)..

No, naming the baby after his dead uncle is a horrible idea! even if the name wasn't horrible already

Lysander is lovely. Sebastian is also lovely, was my favourite, but like you, I hate both Seb and Baz/Basty.

Raphael?

If your surname is House, I would worry that Lysander would end up sounding like "lice and a house", so I wouldn't use it for that reason.

Could Sandy not be a diminutive of Alasdair, perhaps?

I knew a Sandy short for Alexander once. I thought it was a nice name. I've learned that it doesn't much matter what their full name is, (except if they want to change to it when they are older), as you will call them by the shortened name if that is what you want to do, and it'll stick. My son's full name is Zachary but I've called him that about twice in his life, eg at passport control, the rest of the time it is Zac, and sometimes I will call him Zacky myself but to everyone else he's always just Zac

Sebastian is lovely by the way - it's the name we have picked for DC2 if it turns out to be a boy. Not sure how to shorten it but I think I'm more likely to go for Bas rather than Seb.

Have you considered Gregory?

well - your MIL sounds ghastly but she will carry on being so unless your DH puts his foot down. I hope you know that if she tried it on with making him choose that he would choose you? If not, then this goes way beyond baby names.

Roddy is nice, though Roderick not so much.

Hate Sandy, sorry, it sounds so drippy. Why does there have to be a nickname? If you like Lysander, why can't that be his name? Or Sebastian?

Wefuse woderwick!

There's always a nickname in our family, it's kind of a tradition, and one I'd like to keep if possible.

I have visions of myself standing over the roast beef shouting...
"I WEFUSE WODERWICK, WEGINALD AND WANDY FOR THAT MATTER"
and then bursting into tears and curling up in a bsll on the floor as she rings her private doctor and tries to have me sectioned...

You're right, this goes a lot farther than baby names.

I should pick a name and stick to my guns as suggested, but the thing is... I can't decide what that name is. I like a few, but they all come with issues, and I love none of them...
And while Mil from hell senses a chink in my armour, she'll carry on with this idiotic nonsense.

Also... just to add to the back story, Dh and I live in thd house that I bought before we met and it really gets to her that Dh doesn't own it for some reason... so, she's been trying to convince him to 'order' me to givd up our lovely house and move into one of the cottages on their estate...

Can you imagine!?
Has anyone ever seen 'the little house'
It sent chills down my spine.

Dhis just so laid back and hates it if I say anything against his mother, so I'm starting yo find little tiny ways to upset her and not look guilty... fun, but mentally exhausting at this stage of pregnancy!

Oh god I think I've seen that. Is it where she pushes he'd MIL down the stairs in the end? Bloody hell op, sounds horrendous!

Montgomery-monty
Samford
Llewellyn

Sebastian is a fantastic name. Sandy, to me, sounds pretty lacklustre. Sorry. I was on your other thread and still think that Hugo House sounds amazing!

By the way, your MIL sounds insane. If I were you, I would start calling your DH Roderick in front of her and when she questions it, go ballistic screaming "Why didn't you call him RODERICK when you had the bloody chance??!!"

Love Sebastian! Fwiw, I think you can definitely use whatever nickname you like with any name - that's the beauty of nicknames, anything goes and if you have called him Sandy throughout your pregnancy and you love it, why stop using it when he's born!

Sebastian and Lysander are both lovely. Roderick just makes me think of Spode in the Jeeves books - MiL needs to fuck off.

How about Julian/Fabian? Bit tricky for diminutives maybe. Tristan I presume would be deemed a bit common?

Or call him something totally else like Tom and say, "Yes, but his nickname will be Roderick," and let MiL tell all her friends, and say no more about it, ever, so DS grows up thinking Granny is a total loon.

Or surely Augustus (Gus/Gussie)? Or Arthur (Art)? Either would work with Roderick as MN.

This may have been said before, if so, I apologise, but what about Alasdair nickname Sandy.Would your husband mid thant? Alasdair is the Gaelic version of Alexander, so the nickname is perfectly appropriate.

Am not too keen on Sebastian. Lysander OK (though makes me think of Oxbridge rowing). I once met an adult Jonathan nicknamed Jan. Plain and simple (and a 'proper' male name in parts of Europe). I also really like John. Classic, dignified yet unpretentious. You can choose any number of nicknames for that.

Similar-sounding to Roderick (which I don't like, either) is Welsh Rhodri (which I rather do). Would you feel happier using that as a middle name, instead?)

Many sympathies with your MIL problem. She may not be the sort of person you can bargain with, but, if she is, could you perhaps say something like, 'OK, we'll use Roddy/Roderick/Rhodri as an extra middle name...' (because no-one really cares about or uses those) 'BUT we'd only feel happy about doing so if you also did something to commemorate your loss, such as endowing/raising money for special equipment for neonatal intensive care etc'. Organising that might divert her energies away from you for a few moments and help meet her need for sympathy (she sounds very emotionally needy): she could enjoy being thanked and feeling charitably self-important while actually doing something useful.