Are you telling your families the name ahead of the birth...?

[vickyy]

My dh's and my family are driving us nuts asking us about names, and giving us their (very strong) opinions on any name we say we're thinking about. I am getting really fed up with it.

We haven't been able to decide on a name yet, but I am worried that when we do choose one, if we tell them ahead of the birth they may put pressure on us to change it if they don't like it.

What are others doing? And are your famililes as difficult as ours... (in our case, it's made more complicated by us being a mixed race couple, so trying to find a "compromise" name - how I hate that idea...)

[RosaLuxOnTheBrightSideOfLife]

We didn't tell. The PILs clearly hate all our daughters names (you give your children such lovely MIDDLE names was one of MILs choicer comments) so I am glad we kept it to ourselves beforehand. It does amaze me that anyone thinks they have the right to comment.

[SpringSunshine]

My dd was called Milly Molly before she was born as our surname fitted nicely with the fictional character

Dh's family who he rarely sees really thought that was her name for a while

[micegg]

Only annoying thing about not naming baby or knowing what sex it is is that my mum has taken to call it bob-along. She phones and says "hows bob-along". For some reason it really irritates me. How come she can't just call it the baby.

[JingleyJen]

we told everyone first time at 20 weeks and it felt right ..

2nd time I told Mum and she started stroking my tummy and saying the name so I told her we had changed our minds about the name but couldn't think of a new one.. We hadn't changed our minds but I couldn't cope with her talking to my bump that way

[micegg]

I told my mum what we were going to call DD and she announced it to all and sundry at a wedding when I was 8 months pregnant. I was [angry) so swore that this time I would keep quiet. Helps that I dont actually have an idea myself though and only 5 weeks to decide

[Trolleydolly71]

Message withdrawn

[stanleysmother]

I told my own family the names I was choosing before both DS1 and DS2 were born but not DP's family. Mainly because I could merrily tell my sister and parents to sod off if they didn't like the names but I could NEVER do this with DP's family (nor could he for that matter, they just don't have that kind of relationship). I just knew that DP's mother would have an opinion and that would have sent me over the edge when heavily pg, so we gave it to them as a fait accompli and guess what... the first thing she said the day after he was born was "Well we weren't sure about X as a name at first but it's growing on us" AAAAAARRRGGHHH. She has subsequently said "At least you didn't go with the dreaded H.H." (ie first and surnames beginning with same letter) .... which is EXACTLY what we are going to do if we were to have another boy in the future. Thoughtless, idiotic and bloody annoying. Some people are so damn rude you can't win either way!

[luminarphrases]

my dd was consistently called bucket in the womb, so much so that i actually said 'pass me bucket' whilst in the hospital

[TwoFirTreesToday]

We told everyone we were either having Agamemnon or Hermione to keep them off track a bit, but second time around they were wise to our tactics!

[collision]

actually Decoy is quite nice!

Decoy Maynard
Decoy Foster
Decoy Clooney

Has a certain charm. LOL.

[Alishanty]

I wouldn't tell anyone. I remember last time we told close family but not friends the name we had in mind. MIL was sworn to secrecy but then went onto tell loads of her mates! Luckily we didn't get any bad comments (apart from my step-dad),I won't go into that but I won't ever tell people again. It's harder for people to say something hurtful if the child is already named.

[Flibbertyjibbet]

We didn't know what we were having either time (2 ds's) and told anyone who asked that the name would be announced along with the sex and weight. Most people were quite happy with this.
SIL was pg at the same time as me first time, everyone knew from 20 weeks that she was having a girl and calling it Ellie. House full of pink stuff etc.
MIL said later that with hindsight the phone call from dp announcing ds's arrival was MUCH more exciting!
And once you've actually given the baby the name, they can't really comment can they?

[pollywobbledoodle]

haven't had chance to read the whole thread but i'm glad we didn't tell anyone as we changed our minds when dd arrived, she just didn't look like either of the names we had chosen...

[greyskythinker]

Oh, and a cautionary tale. My second DC was supposed to be a girl. Consultant told us at the scan - absolute definite. Once born, turned out to be a boy! Had we confided names in advance he would have been teased all his life and called Julia

[greyskythinker]

Haven't read thread, but I think if you tell someone your potential name beforehand, there are so many people who feel obliged to give you their opinion, point out what it could potentially rhyme with, or tell you that they knew someone called xyz and they absolutely hated them. They are more likely to be more sensitive once the baby has arrived and then you announce names.

I never had a problem talling anyone (close family included) we are not telling, it's a secret.

[nooka]

We had a Six Dinner Sid too - it's such a lovely book and so descriptive . We are calling our next cats Amos and Mr Wilkes . I don't thin you should tell anyone your names either. I can't remember whether we did or not with ds (I don't think anyone would have objected anyway) but we definately didn't with dd, because I remember my mother getting quite upset about it (she's named after dh's mum and my mother's mum). She thought that we should have used my other grandmother's name, which although quite a nice name (Nicolette) would have totally defeated the object as I didn't like that grandmother at all! My middle sister also didn't tell her names, which is lucky as they took a while to settle with everyone (esp as my parents initially thought is was a different name). Once there is a baby and that's what it is called everyone soon settles down.

[PortAndLemon]

We don't tell -- tend to distract questions by going off at a tangent on "names we can't use because they sound so unfortunate with DH's surname". Generally people love to come up with worse and worse names and soon forget that we've dodged their original question...

[3andnomore]

Hm, we always have told family and friends and everyone else about the names we considered at the times...and whilst I was put of some names, I do believe it has saved me some bother afterwards...things like finding out tyhat people would automatically call a little boy called Frederic, Freddy or fred....put me off the name, but I rather knew ahead of time, cause I hate it when proper names given are shortened, lol, unless a shortening devellopes over time...by what a child /sibling calls them, etc....!
We loved the name Melina when I was pg with ms, and thought it was a good use of name, considering dh's mum (who died when he was a young Boy) was called Marleen, his stepmum, who adores him, is Kathleen, my own mum is Eveline, and my maternal grandmas favourite sister was Lina...
but well, after being enlightened of the likening to some icky blood thing in medical terms...well.. that put me off big time...not that I ever got to use a girlsname, seeing that I have 3 boys, lol...

[BarbaraWoodlouse]

"six dinner sid" = "a bit of a porker"?

I've never heard that before.

RIP Ghengis

[VictorianSqualor]

Ugh humans suck.

[BarbaraWoodlouse]

Geoff is a cracking name for a cat

See Vickyy, this is why you don't share potential names. By suggesting Geoff somehow we may also be slightly tarnishing Elvis, Dave & Sanjay (also cool names BTW) for Hunkermunker