Strange to give baby same name as old dog?

[purplejungle]

We love the name Benjamin and I prefer it unshortened, although am realistic that it will likely be shortened over time and would prefer the nickname Benjy than Ben although know he could end up as a Ben.

My parents had a dog for 18 years called Ben who died 25+years ago and I don't really remember him. As far as I know was a much loved dog at the time but they don't talk about him anymore, no photos of him around etc.

Do you think it would be strange to name a child the same name as an old dog?

We want the name to be a surprise when the baby is born so can't sound my parents out in advance.

Well you're parents will probably mention it, but if you're not bothered then I can't see that it's a problem.

I don't think that is strange. I have a Benjamin! Weirdly it's my husbands best friend m's name and I also have a good friend called Ben - we hesitated because he wasn't named after them per se (was also my husbands grandfather!) so we just went for it. It's a bit confusing sometimes but we both liked it and now don't even think about it as the name belongs to them all.

I really like Matthew for if we had a second but my sister had a boyfriend called Matthew for about 5 years during school and uni (it was 17 years ago and she's now happily married to someone else) but I think I would hesitate on that unfortunately

Thanks!

My sister is named after my Mum's car (it's proper name not Fiesta or such like!)

A friend is named after a yacht.

People do it!

Not weird and lovely name. Congratulations.

No not weird, would be if the dog was yours and had just died but ur parents dog that died 25+ years ago isn’t weird at all. Your parents will likely mention it but not overly, probably only “aww lovely name, u might not remember but our dog was called ben” if they’re normal human beings x

Benjamin/Ben is absolutely fine. Nice name.

If you'd been thinking of calling him Fido my response would've been quite different.

I done the same with the same name. Maybe it's just a super common dog name.

Tbh don't even think about it anymore, it's just a funny story about how DS got his name.

No. Fine. Nice name.

My DGD is actually named after our dear old family cat who died years before she was born. (2nd of 3 given names). It’s a perfectly ok girl’s name so there is no shame in it.

I have a ds with the same name as our childhood cat, my dsis has a ds with the same name as our childhood dog!!

Its as if neither of us had any imagination! 🤣

🤣🤣 funnily enough was just going to post that My old family dog was named Ben and so is my DS!! It’s a great name!! X (and he was a great dog!🐶🐾💕)

You're being weird for thinking this is weird. Of course you can use the name.

When my DD was born I phoned my grandmother to tell her the good news and told her what we'd named her.

"Ahh, how lovely, you've always loved that name" she replied "don't you remember naming the dog we had?"

And then it clicked... she had a beautiful black dog called the same as what we'd just named DD! I had completely forgotten. It made me laugh and she was right anyway, I HAD always loved the name!