anyone having touble agreeing on names with their partners

[Rachael17]

i have a whole list of names that i love but my b/f doesnt like them
the only ones we've agreed on are charlotte abby and harmony
but we cant decided on boys names
also having probs with my family over surname for baby
i want my b/fs surname (as does he) but my family are heavily objecting
any tips on keeping the peace

[SoupDragon]

I know a few people who have used one of the surnames as the last middle name or even gone double barrelled (only works with certain surname combinations!

DH and I did not really agree on boys names for DS1. My parting shot as I left them for some, ahem, Repair Work was "you can call him what you want. He decided to call him by the name I'd chosen

Have you tried each separately writing a list of, say, 10 names each for boys and girls and seeing if they agree anywhere?

[ForestFly]

Stick with your gut feeling, i let my man choose, and still look at my boy thinking he could have been called my choice!!!!!

[Linnet]

Rachael, if you want the baby to have your boyfriends surname then just do it, if it's what you want don't listen to what everyone else is saying. I really wish that I had stuck to my guns when I was pregnant. I wanted the baby to have my partners surname and my family all said no you shouldn't do it, you'll have a different name from the baby, blah, blah, blah my mum especially came up with a truck load of reasons.

So the baby got my name and when my partner and I subsequently married last year we had to go through the hassle of reregistering our dd's birth (we live in Scotland don't know if it's maybe different in England if that's where you live) so that she could take her dads surname. If I'd done what I'd wanted to do in the first place it would have saved a lot of paperwork.

In the end it's your baby and you can give it whatever surname you want. If the surnames are compatible you could do the double barreled name, wouldn't have worked for us though.

And for a first name I agree with soupdragon try writing down a list and see if you both come up with any names the same.

[Rachael17]

thank u
ive made up my mind its havin my b/fs surname
i did think of double barred but willets-watson or watson-willets dont sound right
as for the first names im at my dads at the mo (a little holiday with lots of pampering) so i sed to my b/f think of names b4 i get back so we can agree on one we like other wise the poor baby will have no name

[WideWebWitch]

linnet, I don't know if it's the same in Scotland but in England if you marry the father of your child you have to re-register the birth regardless of whether the child's name has changed or not. We were told that it was to register the child as 'a child of the marriage' even though our ds's name didn't change - we got married when he was 3 months old (maybe you don't have to re-register them if the child is older? I don't know). It might be different in Scotland though. Rachael, I agree, ignore your family and do what YOU want to do.

[eefs]

Both dp and I are far too stubborn and had to give ds a double barreled surname as neither of us would back down. ds now has a surname consisting of 17 letters (not including the hyphen), poor child!

[motherinferior]

I got all opposed to double barrelling last time round for some stupid reason, and poor old dd has similar 15 letter surname of two, quite separately unspellable, Bengali/Swedish surnames.

I am a Bad Person.

[WideWebWitch]

Just on the whole double barrelling thing, which we think we're going to do with this one so he has some of my surname too (different partner - ds has same surname as my ex dh & my surname as his middle name since it's a boy's name), what are our double barrelled kids supposed to do when they have kids? They won't be able to quadruple barrell 2 x double barrells will they? Still, that's their problem I spose. I am a bad person too then motherinferior.

[motherinferior]

That's what I sort of thought. Not absolutely sure I did the right thing, but I feel hyphenating next one's surname would really make things complicated. More complicated. And then, of course, the debates on whose name goes first...!

[janh]

That explorer bloke is called something like Ranulph Twistleton-Wyckham-Fiennes I think. But he just calls himself Fiennes, doesn't he? So you can probably have as many hyphens as you want on the birth cert but only use one bit of it later.

Or you could make up a new name - I know a couple who combined bits of both their surnames to make another one for their daughter (a bit like those houses called Alfreen or Daveila) (or the one we know called Renal - for Renee and Alan - they honestly didn't know it meant something!!!) and all 3 of them had different surnames. I don't know if they were married then or got married later or never got married at all but in any case the daughter insisted on having her dad's surname when she got to about 11.

Does this help at all, Rachael?

[WideWebWitch]

at Renal and yuk at those houses called Regella or whatever! Rachel, this probably isn't helping at all but it's made me laugh!

[Rachael17]

i think the house names r silly too
i used to live next to sum1 whos house was called brylyn or sumthing like that.
wiltson or watletts sounds v.silly indeed so my b/fs name it is!!

[wiltshirelass]

better than that, janh, he actually only ever refers to himself as Ran!
friend of my mothers. mad as a hatter.
and his name is about 600 years old so he didn't have any part in stringing it together.

[lucy123]

Rachael - willets watson sounds fine to me! (better than our combination anyway)

Anyway, my deal with dp was that dd could have his surname, but I would get to choose both first names. I'll do the same with the next one I think. As it goes, I would have argued over my surname too, but his is very very rare and mine quite common. I wouldn't have given her a name he absolutely hated, but I did the choosing.

Its just as well really as he was/is dead set on the name "Yoda" (for a boy or a girl).

[tallulah]

We double-barrelled our surnames because I couldn't bear to lose my name & the in Laws made an almighty fuss when DH told them he was taking my name.

As it turns out, he now uses ONLY my surname, at work & elsewhere; DD hates his name so only uses mine & DS1 uses his name & not mine!

When they all marry/reproduce it's up to them to decide which names to use. I just hope at least 1 of them keeps mine, after all the arguing.

As for first names, I wanted to call my last DS Warwick. DH said no way, but wouldn't come up with an alternative (except Roger ...) After a week to 10 days of the children calling him The New Baby & the family ringing up every day saying "hasn't that child got a name yet?" we just picked the first thing that neither of us said yuk to. After we'd registered & christened him we thought of loads of lovely names we could have picked. Grrr.

[janh]

tallulah, we had the same kind of trouble with ours - I liked A, he liked B and we ended up with C (for compromise). (Not surnames - just first names. And none of ours has a middle name because it was hard enough finding one, let alone two.)

I would call them all something different now - apart from anything else we have major rhyming problems, whoever you shout for at least 2 people answer - but most of them like their names, just because they're used to them I suppose. (I wanted to call DS2 Nicholas but was overruled - he has maintained for several years he would rather be called Michael - no idea why. He's actually called Sam!)

[Lollypop]

Good job DD was a girl as DH & I could not agree on a boy's name. A friend said I should wait until I'd given birth then play the guilt card,DH would probably agree with my choice given what I'd gone through.

[Linnet]

That's interesting www about having to reregister the birth if you marry the father and the name doesn't change. I don't know if you have to that here, don't know of anyone who has been in that situation apart from us. Most of our friends don't have children yet and the few that do were already married when they did have them.

[Rachael17]

lucy i had the same prob a few weeks ago
my b/f suggested vivianne or summit for either boy/girl (he's a mad fan of the young ones) i heavily rejected and thankgod he's changed his mind
still cant agree on names

[bunnyrabbit]

OK So I am married, but didn't change my name. My bundle of joy will have my husbands surname (my choice) do you think this will cause any problems?? Several paople have said we should double barrel.. but not sure if I like it...

[motherinferior]

I should add that having solved the surname problem, dp is no further on OKing names for the baby I am due to produce in 5 weeks' time. He is still just about OK with the boy's name we chose last time (although I've gone off it a bit, and he doesn't like my alternative suggestion)and came up with a girl's name I quite liked (although it's Welsh and the one thing neither of us can produce in our conglomerate ancestry is Welsh) but then went off it. He says, in hunted way, that there is still 'lots of time'. I leave it to your imaginations what I say in response.

Mind you I'm now relieved he ruled out Delilah last time...

[WideWebWitch]

bunnyrabbit, ds has ex dh's surname and I've always kept my name, didn't change it when I married and won't change it if I marry again either. It hasn't caused any problems, although I do have to introduce myself the first time we go somewhere as Ms X Y, child Z's mum, since people don't automatically connect us. Once they've got used to it it's fine though. Ds's middle name is my surname so we may start double barrelling it once this one's born (different father), but only if ds wants to. He was given my surname as a middle name as it was always the idea that we could double barrell it later if necessary.

[WideWebWitch]

motherinferior, we have weeks and weeks and I'd really like to find a name we both like, so I can imagine your response to "there's lots of time"! We're toying with the idea of Milo (know it's a boy) but think maybe it's too mean given the Tweenies.

[bunnyrabbit]

mmm good idea but my surname is not one that could easily be a middle name. Thanks for the reassurance about having a different surname from my baby bunny.

[Wills]

OK, have to join in. DH wants the name Lazlow if its a boy! Ugh ugh ugh. I thought he was joking, but no he's serious and I'm seriously refusing so we are at an impass.