DH really wants to use his late mum's name...

[rosielea]

Hello, I'm pregnant with DC3 at the moment, don't know if it's a boy or girl, we have 2 DDs already. My Dh's mum passed away 6 years ago, she was a lovely woman who he was very close with, I only knew her for a short time but I liked her very much.
He didn't suggest her name for our 2 DDs I think because he was still very sad about her death but this time he would really like to use her name. Her name was Maisie, well Mary but known only as Maisie. I think it's fine as a name, not ever what I would choose myself but I don't hate it.
I feel a bit sad that if I agree then all the fun of name choosing is over! And that I wouldn't get to use any of my preferred names but I can't decide if I'm just being petty and should agree as it means alot to him? What would you do?x

It's a no-brainer for me too.

Unless I absolutely loved the name there's no way I'd agree to it.

When I was expecting DD2, DH's sister passed away. MIL really wanted me to use her name but I didn't for several reasons.
One, it was too close to the death two, and SIL hated her name and would never have forgiven me for lumbering DD with it, but I could hardly tell MIL that. I used her middle name for DD's middle name instead. :)

Maisie is a lovely name though. You could use it for a middle name or have fun coming p with middle names instead. Maisie Rose?

Maisie is so awful too. I could possibly be persuaded to choose something like Marianne in tribute but never, ever Maisie.

Well you can weigh up him honouring his dead beloved mother or you having the fun of choosing a name. Which youve done twice before.
Tough one.

It's a lovely name.

I would be freaked out using Maisie as her everyday name - hearing it everyday would just make me think about mil too much and would feel like we had put expectations onto the child. It would also mean that she never had her own name -it would always be mil's name and so she'd end up being little Maisie or similar.

Having Maisie as a middle name to honour her gran is completely different though - it's a nice touchpoint that you think of occasionally rather than having something there and big upfront in your face all the time.

I swore I wouldn't used any family or friend's names when I was naming the dc. However we ended up with my late dad's name as a middle name for ds1 as it went really well with his first name. And dh was the first to suggest it, I had to be persuaded but love it now. I would have found it very difficult to have used the name as a first name though - complete non-starter.

My gran was bullied by her big sis into giving my dad her bil's name as a middle name as he'd passed away just before dad died. When my dad was in his late 50s and my gran in her 80s, once her big sis had died, she decided that she was going to change dad's name back to what she wanted it to be... . She didn't get that she had left it too late and dad didn't want to start changing his name! But it just shows how much importance she placed on it and how much it had rankled over the years. Her big did was an old fashioned school teacher with a look to kill and bullied everyone into falling into line with her wishes which is why nan had capitulated to her demands!

Use it as a mn. Sorted.

Not keen on Maisie. I agree with PP's, suggest Maisie/Mary is used as a middle name.

I would use either Maisie or Mary as her first name. It will become DD's name with an extra layer on from her grandmother. It will be part of her own story and you will love it as your DD's name.

If it means so much to your DH, then I think you should call her Maisie.. its a lovely name, and as everyone has said, you can choose the middle name.

Then come on here an moan to use about the names you would have chosen, while doing the right thing at home

You can still have fun choosing a boys name, if you have DS

My DD has a middle name Joy, after my DM who is Joyce. DD loves the fact that they have the connection.( DM is still with us by the way )

Maisie is fine but it is all over the place now. Über popular.

I dare you to name her Maisie Daisy. Go on.

Thanks for all your replies! You've pretty much covered all the pro's and con's that I've thought of. It's just a tricky one, DH certainly isn't forcing the issue,I just know he'd really like to. My other daughter's names are a lot less 'cute', not that cute is bad, just not what we have gone for. Names I've been thinking of for this DC have been Frances, Alice, Robyn. Maybe Alice Maisie would be good.

'doing the right thing'.

I don't see it like that.

I wouldn't tbh because I think names belong to the person who has/had them IYSWIM. But middle names in memory or after someone important are nice and certainly not an afterthought. Both our DC have middle names that mean a lot and we took as much care choosing them as we did their first names.

Frances Mary
Alice Maisy
Maisie Robyn

Lovely names!

I think I would use Mary to avoid associating her completely with your MIL, but pick a middle name and you can call her by her middle name too if you like- some people use both interchangably, some people end up being called their middle name, my granny wasn't aware that she had been called by her middle name all of her life until she got married and saw her birth certificate!

You don't know what gender DC3 is yet.

You could say he can have Maisie and you're picking the middle name but if it's a boy this time you will have first pick of his name and he can choose the middle name. So you get some fun.

PS I'd go for Maisie Robyn.

If Maisie is too cute to fit in to your other girls names it could cause resentment among the other girls later that they have 'straighter' names and then there's little Maisie.

I think GP and family names are better as middle names and new names should be chosen for new individuals.

There can be a lot of relict feeling that is tough to load on a child if their name reminds family members of people who are dead.

Also as its cute amid more adult sounding family names, it could infantilise your youngest, and that would be bad for her as she grows up.

I like Frances. Have fun picking your new babes name and use Maisie as a middle name.

Why not use Mary?

It still honours his mum (since it was her 'real' name) and is certainly more classic than cutesy.

Alice Maisie sounds perfect to me.

As much as I love DH I would never have agreed to use a name as a 1st name unless I loved it too.. Middle name ok happy to compromise but definitely not 1st name.....

Frances Maisie is lovely.
Alice Maisie nice too.
Not fond of Robyn, but love Robin for a boy.