Walking into a surname disaster?

[Minimoon123]

Ok, so I'm a FTM, 40 weeks pregnant today and don't know if I'm having a boy or a girl. Looking for thoughts on whether I'm heading into a world of surname pain or not because...

DP and I not married. He's Irish, I'm English. He has no family - both parents passed away, no siblings, basically no one to carry on his name whereas there are bazillions with my surname. So months ago I said baby should take his name. He said he didn't mind. But now seems to mind!

Didn't discover until a couple of days ago that he considers that the baby will take the correct Irish version of his name depending on their gender. So if a girl, instead of his surname: O' XXX, would be Nic XXX. (O' means 'son of' and Nic means 'daughter of' apparently). To complicate matters further Nic is pronounced Nee. And to complicate matters even further, the first name and surname of our potential daughter also involves a lot of Nee Noo and Naa type sounds. Basically she would sound like an ambulance siren.

(Slight side note, I already caved on the first name as he played the 'the only name I like is my dead mother's name' card. So we're in fully Irish territory here with first and surname despite the fact I'm English and we live in England.)

So: I held firm (not easy as DP is super stubborn) and have refused to agree to Nic XXX but instead have managed to agree a compromise on just dropping the O' so it's as close to DP's surname as possible while still making sense to him (and she has to have Nic as a middle name). But what that effectively means is:

DP will be O' XXX
DD would be XXX
DS (if/when) would be O' XXX
And I would be YYY

So the poor child would have a slightly different surname from anyone else. Is this going to cause problems? Travel? etc? I thought it would be ok but I can tell my mother is worried which has worried me!

Obviously it might all be moot if it's a boy but then there's always a chance of a girl in the future so I guess good to know!

What do you think? (Sorry post got looong!) I don't want to reopen the argument with DP but equally I don't want to wander into a mess with my eyes closed.

Compromise on DD being O' as well.

I say this from an Irish background with an Irish husband and children with Irish names!l also living in England!

Due to the Arabic naming tradition our dc have a different variation of their fathers surname and I have kept my maiden name.
It has never caused any problems. They are now 14 and 11 and we have only been asked once whilst travelling and we travel fairly regularly. Once we explained the immigration officer was fine.

I would go with the Nic XXX! I think that's nice, and more 'correct'. Maybe you might get married at some point anyway?

Perhaps, given you’re in England and the child would be English and not Irish, passports and having the same name as at least one of the parents could be an argument?!

Do you intend to marry at some point? (otherwise, definitely give baby your surname)

Problem is that, for you OH, this is totally the norm, and it isn’t for you or for englishfolk in general (that I’m aware of, maybe other countries with Gaelic heritages...??). I think, given you aren’t married, and given that in 2018 it is absolutely no longer the norm for babies to have their father’s surname as standard if parents are unmarried, it would be fair to demand that ALL children of the relationship have ONE, same surname...and OHs surname is in fact a compromise....you could very legitimately insist that they all have yours?

Then there’s the double-barrel argument as well....

Where are you in all this? I understand youre trying to make him happy, but the only girls name he likes is his dead mothers name? Sure it is

You should have some input into naming your child after, you know, growing and birthing them. Mind you, I’d say the same thing to a father.

I think the baby should have your surname until you are married.

Why can't your DD just be called O' XXX. I understand that traditionally it means "son of" but for me, my children would either have to have my surname OR partners

And I agree with Tammy.

You grew the baby and will give birth to it, and if your DP buggers off you will end up raising it as a single parent, but you don't get to pick the first name, the middle name or the surname?

Fuck that.

Wot loveintokyo said.

Unless he's a full time native Irish speaker, I'd say he's being way too fussy and even a bit hypocritical.

Yes, in Irish, that's the way it works (though depending on the surname it can be Ní, instead of Nic). But that vast, vast majority of Irish people are full time English speakers and use the O' form of their surname for everyone - so all the men, women, boys and girls in my family are O'XXXXXXX.

IF he was a full time Irish speaker and planned to bring the kids up as such, then it would be justifiable, because it would be consistent with how he approached the language and culture.

But otherwise, this just feels like he's making a point. Is he by any chance a bit political, a bit Republican?

ALSO - if he was being consistent in using Irish forms of the surname, (and actually knew the language), he and any sons would be Ó XXXXXX (with a fada on the capital O, and no apostrophe). But if he's not, then he's not actually using the Irish form for his own surname, so why would be insist on it for a daughter??

(Etymology fans: Ní is a contraction of 'iníon', which means daughter. So 'daughter of XXXXX'. Ó means 'from' so from XXXX).

Does any of that help with your argument?

I completely agree DD should be O' XXX. That's what I thought I was agreeing to! But DP adamant it's not an option.

Double barrelling our names would sound horrendous unfortunately!

Agreed I'm not quite sure where I come into this! DP has a stronger will than I do though dammit!

We had this problem!

DH has a Irish surname- think Ó Súilleabháin.

I have a short surname, double barrelled on marriage and became eg Boyd-Uí Shúilleabháin. Day to day though, I go by Boyd-Sullivan.

I insisted on double barrelling DD’s name, and dh also refused to use the anglicisation of his surname, so the poor mite is Boyd-Ní Shúilleabháin.

It is a bollocks to be honest- we live in NI and we still get a lot of very confused looks. I’m glad DD’s heritage is reflected in her name, but it is a very unusual naming convention outside of the 26 counties.

Oh, bollocks to the Celtic Twilight.

Give them your name. If you like his grey haired old mother's name then use it- otherwise have it as a second name. If you insist on letting him use his last name then use it. No Os or Nics-Irish people who actually live in Ireland don't do this much any more.

DP has a stronger will than I do though dammit!

Bollocks OP.

You're not married, so if you go and register your child without him, he won't even be on the birth certificate, you can name your child whatever the hell you like, and he'll have no rights at all.

Minimoon have you read my post? Just to reinforce the point, if he's not doing it for his own surname, then he's actually plain wrong. Don't back down on this!

Rainatnight - tbf to him he does do all the correct stuff with fadas etc - I just didn't represent it correctly here :) His dead father (died before DP was born - you can see how it's hard for me to argue with a lot of this!) was an Irish language teacher so I guess it mattered to him a lot. But no, DP is not an Irish speaker beyond having school Irish.

BUT I don't want to saddle my half English daughter with having to explain every single aspect of her name to people!!

Why does it matter that his surname 'dies' out? Married name-changing women seem to cope, why can't men?

@ Dinosaurkisses -- that made me laugh. Def less complicated a name than that.

I may have to wait and use the ultimate - I gave birth to her, i get to choose card. I heard that's quite a strong one :)

"BUT I don't want to saddle my half English daughter with having to explain every single aspect of her name to people!!"
Then don't. You can register her by yourself if he's going to be an arse.

What PP said - if he is an Irish speaker (with an ó surname as opposed to O’) then yea maybe I see his point. But if he isn’t then no way. It’s not at all the norm for English speakers here with O’ surnames.

Sorry, but he sounds incredibly selfish. He wants to choose the first name, middle name and last name. what do you get to pick? Please don’t let him walk all over you. If you give in on this, any subsequent children will all ‘have’ to have his surname as the first one has and you need to all have the same (oh, except you, the one who actually carried them!).

I would say that unless he married me (I wanted to marry first) the child would have the same surname as me and that’s that.

Is his surname common over here? Are there a bazillion of us Irish with that name? (Speaking as an O’Riordan😂)

DP has a stronger will than I do though dammit!

Man up!

Even your compromises, which he won’t agree to-are basically him still getting what he wants. He isn’t compromising at all-he is bullying you into this by telling you that he’s more stubborn than you.

Does he have the Ó name, op?

Or is he doing that thing that a lot of us Irish people do that as soon as you leave these shores, you become 10000% more Irish, and he feels he needs to reflect that?

I’m speaking from experience- it is a complete pain in the arse using the whole Ó/Uí/Ní thing. I only agreed to it because DH uses that convention and he is a gaelgoir who doesn’t use the anglicisation himself.