naming babies after family members

[lavenderfraggle]

What do you think about giving your ds/dd a name after a family member or friend? have you and why?

Both of my girls have family member's middles names. Jessica has HELEN as a middle name after my aunty and my SIL, and Rebecca has ALISON after my mum who died in 2004 2 weeks after Jess was born.

my DS has a name unrelated to anything, just one we loved, but his middle name is the same as my brother's middle name, which in itself was chosen due to my dad's obsession with a certain classical composer....not Wolfgang or Ludwig, more English!!!!1

dd2's second middle name is a female version of my late dad's name. Everyone who has heard it says its a beautiful name.

Ds has two middle names - one is my dad's first name, and the other is dh's and his dad's middle name.

If our next baby is a girl she will be named after dh's granny (dead, of course ) and her middle name will be my middle name. If it is a boy I would like to use a middle name from my family. This middle name is my brother's, dad's, granny's, and even further back. Dh says no, but I don't think it is too bad as a middle name....it's Dignam

My DS1 has the same name as my Dad, as I liked the name & knew it would please my Dad.

With DDs, only their 2nd names come from people in my family. DD1, middle name is the middle name of a special Aunt who lives in Australia (Aunts 1st name is my middle name). DD2, her middle name is my Mum's name.
Baby no.3- toying with these names. If it's a boy- Joshua or Aaron David (David- after my brother) and if it's a girl- perhaps Emily Rose (Rose is my cousin's middle name and she was my bridesmaid. Think it's kind of appropriate seeing as it's our 10th Wedding Anniversary this year).

Would never have any names from DHs side, don't like my ILs at all and don't need any more reminding of them!

My ds1 is named after my brother who dies when he was 11 days old. My mom was really pleased that we called him after her son although my dad was mightly pissed off and didnt talk to me for almost 2 years. His middle name is my fils name which is just awful but it kept dh happy.

Ds2 has a name that we just liked and is named after no one.

Mil was saying that if we had another baby and it was a girl could we name it after her... umm no!

Ds named after my grandad, who died when I was 2, and our best man (they both have the same first name, so convenient) we liked the name anyway too. DS middle name has been middle name of DH family for at least 5 generations, don't think it would have horrified PIL's if we hadn't used it, but as we both like the name was an easy decision to make. DS really likes the fact that he has a family name. DD on the other hand has names that have no family connection at all.

But we're absolutely never ever going to put pressure on our own ds/dds, and ESPECIALLY our DILs, are we, to call them after us?

What happened to the poor woman who was being emotionally blackmailed by her MIL to call her baby 'Gerard' because it was a family tradition? Are you still here on MN?

I could never inflict a horrible name on my child just to keep some adult who should have their ego under control happy!

But my Mum had the pleasure of going through life with a horrible and ridiculous middle name, based on a great aunts surnme. Great aunt was known to have left a Whacking Great Diamond to my gm to leave to those who inherited her name. When my gm died, the WGD was left to my sister who, unbeknownst to my Mum, had the g-aunts (very nice) first name! Poor Mum!

Dh's family have a tradition of giving the 1st born son a handed down middle name which is actually a surname. Personally I didn't like it and i think he was more worried about offending his dad than anything else.

I eventually compromised that he could have the name if we had 2 middle names for ds, the other one being solely my choice. Dh didn't want him to have 2 middle names but i told him that was the deal. Eventually he decided to drop the family name (can't have been too bothered) and his dad didn't like the name we chose anyway but i don't think it had anything to do with dropping the family name.

Personally i don't think its fair to saddle a child with a name that is naff or unsuitable just because its tradition and someone might be offended. If it is nice/suitable i think it's a lovely idea, unfortunately there weren't any in either of our families.

Ds1 got his middle name from my husbands dead grandad. It was a compromise after wanting to call him Harry after his cousin who died the day ds1 was conceived and what would have been Harry's birthday became ds1's. All a bit scary and so's the child!

DD sort of has my mum's middle name (my mum's is the english spelling, dd's the irish). If we'd had a boy he would have had my late FIL's middle name. We decided if we had a girl the middle name would be from my family and if a boy from dh's family.

When/if there's a number 2 the middle name will come from dh's family whether boy or girl (hopefully boy only because I think we will struggle to find a girl's name on his side that is nice !!!). Although we were talking the other night about it (as you do ?!) and decided we would use the boy's middle name for a first name and then the middle name would be a name that is in both families !! MInd you, given we're not even ttc we may well have changed our minds by the time that happens !!

meggmoo, I sympathise and if it had been me I'd have got the name changed.

I refused to consider the name of anyone who'd committed suicide for our babies. As my family has a bad history this ruled out rather a lot of names, including some which would otherwise have been right at the top of our favourites. I just didn't want the association, however slight it would have been. I also excluded our favourite girl's name because friends of mine had a child of that name who died at three.

So dd was called after my mother, which pleased everyone. It's a nice name and also happens to be the name of one of my oldest and best friends and of a favourite cousin on each side of the family.

You see, the names we could have been pressurised to use include:
Terrence, Brenda, Ewart, Rita....

LadySherlock, he only told me after we'd registered him so the deed was done. He has a huge family (abroad) and told me about fond memories of his uncles and aunties and mentioned that one had died (the one we named ds after) he and in fact the family never spoke about how he died, it brought shame onto their family for years. I don't know how it came up in convo but I am pretty sure that I asked him how did he die (as I assumed he was still young when he passed away) that's when I got my answer.

We have always called a babies middle name after the last person in our family who has passed away.
It's a sort of family tradition, might be morbid but I think it's a nice reminder of someone wonderful.

Both my sons have middle names that I have 'borrowed' from other people.

DS1 has two middle names, both pinched from grandads on both sides of the family. It was an old family tradition on his dads side but we had decided to use just my grandads name as i was very close to him and he had passed away 6months before i gave birth, unfortunatly it rhymed with the first name we had chosen and it sounded silly so we had to insert another name between them hence the use of grandad no.2

DS2 has the middle name of a very close friend of mine. He was very special and had helped me when things got tough. Unfortunatley we lost touch several years ago but i have never forgotten what he did for me and it was my way of showing how much he had meant to me. DS1 also had the chance of choosing a middle name and chose the same as me so it has double significance.

I think it is nice to name children after people close to you. I had a cousin named after me several years ago and its quite nice knowing that you were important enough to someone that they would give their child your name, personally i hated my name when i was growing up and just hope she doesnt feel the same

MY ds has his maternal grandmothers name in its masculine form and with gaelic spelling, it was also the name of his paternal grandad who died when I was pregnant with ds.
Patricia, Patrick and Padraig
If we were to have another dd we would likely call her Nora a name I adore but also is the name of dp's paternal grandmother.
I like it but only if it "fits"

yes. DD has my middle name, which was my paternal grandmother's name. Means she has a bit of a first name - middle name mouthful, but it was important to me. She has a random first name, her father's surname and I wanted her to have something not only from my side but also from that other culture. It's not a name she's ever going to use much, but it's a link to her heritage.

Yes, although it hasn't worked out like that (in answer to OP).

Ds1 was stillborn (apologies if it seems I am always talking about this). Dh didn't want him to have a middle name so we didn't choose one. Ds2 born 9m later, but I refused to give him a middle name, as wanted both boys to be the same. With hindsight REALLY REALLY wish had given ds1 dh's name as middle, and ds2 would then have got ds1's as middle. Strangely dd does have middle name, as felt differently about it then.

Dh has a cousin with the same name as him, and another whose middle name is same as dh's first, which I just find weird. Another cousin's wife had a baby before xmas, when I asked about names when she was pg, he said "X (ds's name) for a boy, or Y (dd's name) for a girl"!! Luckily they called him something else. Weirdos.

Also know of a man with 4 sons, all with middle name of James. Youngest is my godson, and his mum found out he had called his teddy James as a middle name, as he thought it was compulsory! PMSL

Ds2 has the middle name ITALO which is just awful but was DH's grandad's name and DH thought that his rich aunty might give us some money!! She didnt and now poor ds is saddled with this frightful name!

I think it's allright.

DD2 is named after DH's gran, God rest her soul.