What it boils down to is there is a couple expecting their first child later this year…gender unknown. If the child is a boy, the mom wants to name him [name_u]Michael[/name_u], after her father. The dad is extremely pushy for Spyridon, after his own father. Apparently his side of the family is Greek, and they live in a Greek neighborhood (not in Greece though). He argues that it’s tradition for the firstborn son to be named after the grandfather…they’ve really fought about this. And he started an online petition, which if he gets 10,000 signs, they will name it Spyridon.
I was pretty surprised to see this. We discuss this stuff all the time on here, but to see it on a different medium was weird. I honestly side with the mother on this one. Spyridon is hard to pronounce and the baby doesn’t live in Greece. I don’t know Greek naming traditions, but the mom has a dad she can honor too…it isn’t just the dad’s dad that exists. I think that creating an online petition and getting into blows about a name is pretty juvenile, because he doesn’t want to compromise. When people post on here with “his choice, her choice”, they get opinions and usually reach a compromise of sorts, but this just seem ridiculous.
While I would never let my partner bully me into a name I didn’t love, I also would never bully my partner into a name they didn’t love. There’s a very obvious compromise here: Name the baby [name_u]Michael[/name_u] Spyridon. That way, both fathers are honored and the baby can go by either name, with the more common name in the front slot to fall back on. Sorry, but Spyridon sounds like a comic book villain and I wouldn’t want this as my child’s name, either.
You need to be able to reach a compromise with your partner and if either side is bullying the other into a name that they don’t love, it really isn’t right. I can’t imagine forcing my FI to choose a name he truly doesn’t love. We have been tossing names around and I constantly bring up [name_u]Marlowe[/name_u]–I’m just so smitten with this name, but for several reasons we opted not to go with it for the first name slot. FI really doesn’t care for this name for no reason in particular, just doesn’t like it. However, I love it so much, he has agreed to use it in the middle name slot. Currently, we’ve settled on [name_f]Olive[/name_f] [name_u]Marlowe[/name_u] as long as our second daughter can be [name_f]Daphne[/name_f] [name_f]Kate[/name_f].
I think the fact they have an online petition is beyond ridiculous.
However, knowing the extreme naming traditions in Greece, and various other cultures, if I were the mother I’d step down here. Not naming the baby Spyridian would be extremely offensive to the father’s family - which is ok if you’re on board together as a couple - but seems unfair of the mother. I can say she almost 100% knew this was expected of her marrying into the family, so this seems like the kind of thing that should have been resolved before the pregnancy, it’s not that they just can’t agree on the name, it’s that the mother seems willing to disregard what is seen by many as an important cultural and family tradition and the father isn’t.
I wouldn’t want to be there for their fights about religious upbringing, Greek education, etc.
If this were me, I would be really excited about baby Spyridon - nickname [name_m]Spyro[/name_m]! Hello, that’s awesome!
Also, it seems like the wife is Russian - and her hard-to-pronounce name is an Eastern European variation of a Greek name - so I am shocked that she doesn’t want to use the name and that she’s pushing against it. I actually think it’s pretty easy to pronounce, especially compared to some Greek names, it has a cool nickname, and it has family ties. He points out that if they use [name_u]Michael[/name_u] (her father’s name) then she will call him [name_u]Mischa[/name_u] (a Russian diminutive for [name_u]Michael[/name_u]) which, in the US, is mostly a girls’ name.
Honestly, I think the husband should be the winner here; Spyridon [name_u]Michael[/name_u] if it’s a boy, so his father’s name gets to come first and they can still call the kid [name_u]Michael[/name_u] if he hates his own first name, and [name_f]Elena[/name_f] for a girl, after the wife’s mother. He actually states in his petition that he is willing to give up his own name as a middle name tradition (in the case the child be a boy) as long as he can use Spyridon on his first born son. He also gives up naming rights to other children, concedes to let the wife choose the middle name and all future children’s names. I signed his petition.
Haha I’m not sure they should be having children if they can’t reach some sort of compromise or understanding without airing their argument on the internet. Now I know that many members here have conflict with their partners over their children’s names - that’s normal, and it’s also normal and can be helpful to try and get some unbiased input from strangers on the internet. But ultimately, while it’s nice to get some help, you’ve got to work it out yourselves.
It sounds like which ever of them ‘loses’ this is going to hate their child’s name and have some serious resentment towards the other parent. [name_m]How[/name_m] are they going to be an effective parenting team if they’ve fallen out so massively before the baby is even born? If this was such a massive issue to both of them they should probably have dicussed it before even getting pregnant.
So many thoughts! I really hope these people only ever have girls so this decision never has to be made.
I can’t believe that the mother-to-be said on the record that the name Spyridon is “archaic, base, bereft of elegance and unsuitable for a child living in 21st century [name_u]America[/name_u]”. Apart from the fact that that is really rude and I think plainly incorrect, YOU LIVE IN A COUNTRY THAT REGULARLY FEATURES A CHILD CALLED [name_u]NORTH[/name_u] [name_u]WEST[/name_u] IN ITS NEWS CYCLE, if you want to talk about names that are “bereft of elegance”.
Further, the mother-to-be’s name is Kseniya and she says she “can’t even pronounce” Spyridon, which for one thing makes me wonder what she’s been calling her father-in-law, but also: I am about 95% sure I know how to say Spyridon and like… about 35% sure I know how to say Kseniya.
I think the father-to-be is right that [name_u]Michael[/name_u] is a very common name - I was born in the '80s and to me [name_u]Michael[/name_u] is pretty dull. And if I’d been gearing up to name my child Spyridon for my whole life, I’d be pretty unhappy if my spouse told me that no, we’re naming him [name_u]Michael[/name_u]. And if they both feel so strongly about this, it does seem weird that it apparently never came up before now. And I do think [name_m]Spyro[/name_m] is a perfectly usable nickname - in [name_u]North[/name_u] [name_u]America[/name_u] I think its pronunciation is pretty clear (I could see people getting stuck on whether it’s SPEE-ro or SPY-ro, but that’s about it), and it’s distinctive but not insane or made-up.
HOWEVER, I question his rationale of naming the baby after his father no matter what, especially since his wife seems to loathe the name. A person might think he’d compromise and pick another family name, or another traditionally Greek name, or a Greek variation of [name_u]Michael[/name_u], or use Spyridon as the middle name, or something. And calling his petition “Godly Right to Name First-[name_m]Born[/name_m] [name_m]Son[/name_m] Spyridon” feels way too intense for me. IT’S NOT YOUR GODLY RIGHT, SIR. [name_m]CALM[/name_m] DOWN.
So I guess I’ve sort of talked myself onto the father’s side, though I won’t sign his petition because a) I think it’s ridiculous of both of them to make such a public spectacle of their fight, and b) I could imagine someone so unwilling to compromise being otherwise awful in some general way (which I’m not saying he is, just that it isn’t a far leap to imagine it) so I don’t want to support him. I hope for their family’s sake that this is the only thing they’re so strongly disagreeing about and unable to compromise on.