Giving up your favourite name... how?

[WhereHaveTheyGone12]

My absolute all time favourite boys name is Otis. I love it.

It’s a real name, it’s uncommon and I just think it sounds lovely and dare I say, cool.

DH does not like it at all. So we’ve agreed some other boy names such as Alistair/Alexander.

But I keep coming back to Otis, I’m just sad to let it go.

I’ve been suggesting it to my sister who isn’t even pregnant and doesn’t intend to have children

We'd settled on a name which dh promptly told his family. They kicked off, war broke out and I wasn't allowed to use it. DD is 9 months old and I love her name. Its definitely her but I still feel a pang about our original choice sometimes.

I had a name all picked out for DD in my head but DH hated it, he also hated my whole top 5 girls names. He ended up selecting the girls name whilst I selected the boys name (we had a right to veto) turns out she was a girl and now I couldn’t imagine her being called anything else (I also secretly hope I get the call on the next name whatever the gender 😂)

I was also going to mention the aardvark @vinegarqueen - I am in that age bracket and it was definitely the first think that came to mind!

I don’t like the name at all and much prefer Alastair but do sympathise as it is hard when you get something in your head like that.

I desperately wanted to call my DD Kitty. I would have accepted ANY name where Kitty was an acceptable nickname, but DH was absolutely adamant that it wasn't on the table. I had a terrible labour with her and when she was eventually born, I asked if we could name her Kitty. His response? "Nice try!"

We never really agreed on a girls name- the one we chose was something like number 75 on his list and way over 100 on mine.... But it was the first cross over and then we argued over how to spell it.

I was really upset for a very long time that I hadn't got to use 'my' name, not helped by the fact that she really did look like a Kitty. We also screwed up her actual name by assuming she'd be called one nickname (and therefore spelling that part of her name 'correctly') when she naturally became known as the other (incorrectly IMO) spelled part. Think Emmalea and we thought she'd be Emma but she's Lea- which she always has to spell. (NOT the name, just a bad example)

Anyway, she is nearly in her teens now and aside from an occasional pang, I'm just about over it. We did get DS's name absolutely right though- learned from our mistakes!

My advice would be not to settle. If you don't love the replacement name, keep looking until you find one you DO love. Unfortunately you can't force your DH to accept it, any more than he can force you. But this is a massive decision and you both need to be happy with it. Don't name the baby until after he/she arrives if necessary. I wish this is what we'd done. Just waited a while until the trauma of the birth had faded rather than rushing into a decision.

I had a name I loved (Fritha). Dp hated it. We found other names that we liked, I felt a bit sad, but I didn't want our baby to have a name her dad hated. At the end of the pregnancy dp surprised me by suggesting we use it as a middle name which we did (and I still love it).

For a good 10 years I always imagined that I would have a daughter and I would name her Claudia. I thought that right up to the minute when I found out at 20 weeks that both the twins I was carrying were boys. Neither of them have anything like the names I imagined they would have but their names just came to us and we couldn't have chosen better names to suit them. There's thousands of names out there. You'll find one that suits your baby

Currently having the same thing OP - pregnant with our first DD and I am in love with the name Flora but DH hates it. So instead of saying "the bump" i'm calling it Flora till she's born so I get to use it at least a little bit :(

It didn’t do Otis Redding any harm..

It’s tricky when you don’t agree my third has a name that we just plucked out the air in the delivery room
Spent 9 months disagreeing
But he totally fits the name now

Me & DP both came up with a girls we we absolutely adores within days of finding out we were pregnant. We could not settle on a boys name though! The two names we both loved were names of close friends sons and it didn't feel right using them, and any other names either of us liked, the other hated. We're both teachers and have had a number of 'difficult' boys in our classes, which didn't help! Fortunately DD absolutely suits her much loved name 😁

I didn't realise what my favourite name was until I met DP....it's his sisters name so no way we could ever use it. Absolutely gutted :(

@Fairyfantastic Why can't you use your SIL's name? Is she mean? I would be thrilled if my niece was named after me.

@marinamarinara I know! I try not to but it is almost a pavlovian thing now. DH does not help as he also thinks ”aardvark” and has to whisper it after they have left. I have the same issue with ”Florence” and the magic roundabout even though I am not in the age bracket.

Much prefer Alex/Alexander to Alistair!! Is it pronounced Alice-stair or Alice-ter?
Otis I like... Was the dog in Garfield called Otis? My husband didn't like any of my suggestions but didn't come up with any of his own for our ds but we eventually agreed on one we both liked :)

@vinegarqueen DP has younger twin sisters who are incredibly close, so it would be a little unfair and to be honest I'm not sure if she would be best pleased! Admittedly I like his other sisters name too though, so who knows...

@MrsNjie... Garfield’s dog was called Odie! 😊

OP, hope you find a good name for both parents

Having the same problem. Got my absolute favs and DH HATES all of them 😢

It’s so frustrating but I would never force him to use a name he didn’t like.

It’s nice to hear all your different stories though and it does help!

Except the ones trying to put me off the name Otis - DH tried all of them and it just made me love it more. I’m stubborn.

Looks like it might be a moot point though as just had a nub tech report and they say 85% girl. And we both love our girl name so yay!

Interestingly DS is Alastair after I had to give up my favourite (Emrys). Now I can't imagine him having any other name and I get so many compliments on Alastair :)