Since children tend to take their father’s last name (a tie to his family), do you think it’s okay to only use names from the mom’s side of the family for first and/or middle names?
This stems from a conversation with my husband regarding using names I’m in love with from my side of the family for our future kids. He thinks if we use a name from my side, then we also need to use a name from his side to be fair (for example, first name from my side middle name from his). I disagree for the reason I stated above- the kids will have his last name.
Am I being unreasonable? My husband and I have very different taste in names and I’m just trying to find some way to reach common ground so that when we are actually pregnant, we’re not pulling our hair out trying to find a compromise. Or, as he would say, maybe I’m just trying to justify getting my way :).
I’m curious to know how other couples with drastically different taste in names made decisions. I’ve read other posts where people say that one parent names the first kid, the other names the second. While this is certainly a good suggestion, I just can’t ever see myself doing that (we’d end up with something along the lines of Child 1 being named [name]Taylor[/name] [name]Madison[/name] and Child 2 being [name]Dorothy[/name] [name]Frances[/name]…very different styles!).
So what do you think? Is having his last name enough of a tie to his family? Or, do if we use a name from my family, do we then need to use one from his family too?
I never even thought of it that way. Personally I would use a family name of his as a middle name, because it just seems fair to me. For me the surname is just expected to be my husbands and we compromise on names we both like, from either side. Using names from only your side of the family may make your husband resentful in the long run, so personally I would recommend a compromise on using a name from his side as well. There has to be a name from someone in his side that you would like. You can go further back in the family, even great grandparents if you have to.
Your husband letting you use a first name from your side is really nice of him, but you denying him the opportunity to use a middle name from his side is not as nice. This is just my opinion though.
Well, his surname is only a tie to your husband’s paternal side of the family. What if he wanted to use his mother’s maiden name, or a name from his mom’s side of the family.
In my opinion, naming a child only from your side of the family, is a wee bit selfish. The surname is more like a business relationship. The given name a child recieves is much more personal of a tie. But that’s just my opinion.
Honestly, no, I don’t think the last name should count as having a name from the father’s side of the family. Your husband’s surname isn’t just his last name, it’s possibly your last name (if you changed your name upon marriage) and it’s your children’s last name. I think only wanting to use family names from one side of the family is selfish really. If one parent doesn’t care, then that’s one thing but if both parents want their family names used, then some kind of compromise should be reached.
As for using family names, you can do that several ways. I know some people who used names from the mother’s side for girls and names from the father’s side for boys. I’ve known people who did first name from one side of the family and middle name from another. You just have to decide what works best for you.
I honestly don’t really see the point in using “family names” to begin with, so I might not be the best person to answer this. I mean if my very beloved grandmother died months before the birth of my child and she had a beautiful name, I MIGHT consider using it, maybe as a middle.
The idea that every child’s name, especially first and middle, should have some direct link to some family member, is all a bit bizarre to me. Give your kid their own name.
And it seems to me that planting the seeds for arguments regarding issues that don’t even exist yet, is a bit foolish. Jump that hurdle when you get to it. Marriage is about compromise, not about who has the most support for their arguments.
What if you have a girl (or all girls?) sure for the first 21 yrs or so of her life she will have your husbands last name, but then she will get married and the tie to his side of the family is gone.
This is something I’ve thought about as well. I love a lot of family names on my side, but not really into the names on his. I know part of that stems from the fact that I [name]LOVE[/name] those people (and have for years, as opposed to his side who I do care for but just don’t know as well). Something I am trying to take into account is the naming “style” of our families, how they differ, and what sort of naming “ethic” we want to build for our new family.
I can see how advocating using the mother’s family names because the kids take the father’s surname could be considered “trying to justify getting your way.” Personally, I would try to justify a good name some other way just to avoid that argument! Names are names…and yes, they have history but they also have to sound good, and have good associations. Forcing a name from one side of the family or another just because we have to make it even is not a very good reason to choose a name. Now if the names you love (and the reasons behind them, aka dearly beloved grandmother or whatever) happens to be a family name, then cool, but I don’t see the point of choosing a name simply to “even the score.” The kid is the one who will be saddled with the name, after all.
So maybe a better alternative is to find WHY you love the names that you do, why you don’t love the names from his family, and if there is some other way to honor his family? Perhaps feminizing a masculine, or naming after a city his family is from? And going back to family “name styles,” remember that you are a brand new family! that has history, yes, from your respective sides, but that is also creating something new and valid, something that will one day be someone else’s side of the family! (does that make sense? it does in my head…) So what is it that you as a couple want to honor and perpetuate, together? This, to me, is a much more fulfilling and exciting way of choosing names than trying to balance some score (that will never really be balanced, or it will be perfectly balanced but with names that nobody is really too thrilled about).
Children don’t have to take their father’s name. They can have whatever last name you want to give them. A friend of mine kept her maiden name upon marriage because of her established profession, and when the kids were born she and her husband combined their respective last names to make a hybrid last name for the kids. If you choose for your children to have their father’s last name, then that’s a joint decision between you as parents and it shouldn’t factor into the first and middle names the kids get. What if your husband insisted the kids get your last name? Then would you be alright with giving the kids first and middle names from his side?
If you can’t agree on family names from either side, then scrap family names completely and agree to choose names not on either of your respective family trees. That way there’s no ‘favoritism’ for either side.
I think that argument has some but not absolute weight. Also, my husband tricked me by offering that if that’s how I felt, we could use a different last name for the kids…which I guess is his way of pointing out that our using his last name for our whole family is as much my preference as it his.
If you wanted to get really technical about it, if you’re going to have two kids with a first, middle, and last name each the names could be evenly divided between your side and his side by letting him “have” the two last names and then one first or middle name (probably for the first kid since how else will he know you won’t change your mind later?), and then you get one first name and two middle names or two first names and one middle name. If that’s not enough naming rights for each of you, you’ll just have to either have more kids or give them each a ridiculously long string of names. [name]How[/name] about [name]Dorothy[/name] [name]Taylor[/name] [name]Madison[/name] [name]Frances[/name]?
Your being unfair and unreasonable. It sounds like the real reason, is because you dont want him to have a say what the child is named because your naming styles are different.
My DH picked a name he liked and it happened to be the name of both my grandfathers. I wasn’t planning on naming my baby after anyone, but my family is happy about it. So, DH & family are both happy. I decided I should choose baby’s middle name -which is just a name I like. Plus, baby will have to have a Chinese name -so the in-laws are happy and then DH’s family name. It’s a long handle for a wee baby, but we also came up with a cool nn, so I think it will work.
[name]One[/name] other “trick” in naming was that we are pre-planning names for future children so if baby boy #1 is named after people in my family, we talked about naming baby boy #2 after someone in his family (we have baby boy #2’s named picked out already, even though #1 isn’t born yet). DH is happy with this idea since I am open to using names from his family in the future. Nothing is written in stone though, so by the time baby #2 comes around, we may find a different name we love.
Next “trick” was to find a name that honoured more than one person ex. starts with letter of one person’s name but rhymes with 2nd person’s name but is, in itself, unique. Or, 2 names smooshed together (this works better if the smoosh = another name that is an actual name, not a made up name) i.e. Name your daughter [name]Anabelle[/name] after aunt [name]Anna[/name] & grandma [name]Isabelle[/name]. Or, honor one family’s heritage by modifying a name from one family to the ethnicity of the other (i.e. if the in-laws are Irish, choose a name from your side but change it to an Irish spelling or pronunciation).
Another idea we had for a baby girl: my [name]MIL[/name] had 2 boys but had a favourite girl name picked out just in case. We thought we might use that name (probably as a middle). But, as it turns out, baby #1 is a boy. Maybe next time.
What I’m trying to say is, there is more than one way to honour a family or person than by giving their name to your child. The important thing is that you and your DH like the name and want to bestow it on your child -who will use it for the next 80 or so years.
apparently I’m as selfish, unfair and unreasonable as you are! and you know what? I don’t care. We are doing exactly what you described with our children. My daughters honorary middle name is [name]Dunbar[/name] after my grandfather and our next child (boy or girl) will have brooks after my grandmother. I agree that they will have my husbands last name and that’s his tie in. If my daughter grew up and it bothered her or my husband that she’d change her name she could always not change it, or hyphen it. And by the way, you don’t LOSE your maiden name, it’s always yours, and it remains a legal name.
Yeah, I’ve had this conversation and feel the same way as you do. I kind of feel like, even though I know they’re my kids and they’ll have a part of me, nothing in their identity indicates that they are mine or from my side of the family, because straight off the bat it’s his surname, the ethnicity associated with his surname (especially when you think of all the paper stuff, like school enrolment forms, healthcare forms, the birth registration certificate, the list goes on and on). I’m carrying the baby and pushing it out, and I feel like I should get something for that (he gets to have fun making baby, after all, and then us women have the pain of labour - which I’m not saying isn’t worth it, but the process is kind of biased against is, as an aside). And people can call me selfish, I don’t care. He is involved in the baby name decisions, but at the end of the day, because I’m carrying the baby, I get the final call, and yes, I am biased towards names from my side of the family, not his.
I don’t think there’s any more validity to your surname argument than there is to the “I’m the one who was pregnant so I’m naming the baby whatever I want.” argument (which I HATE)
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree.
Saying the compromise is you getting the choice in the name and him getting the surname by default is really not a compromise.
I also don’t think that using a name from one side of the family automatically means that you have to use one from the other side of the family. More than being ‘fair’ (ie: the same with both, which, in my opinion, is not necessarily the best definition of 'fair), I think you both need to love the names and work together to get to the final product. You both very well may not get your first choice, but that’s part of making decisions together and respecting your differences.
I def see your side of it. My DH and I actually have similar name taste, so that’s a big help. And we gave our son dh’s fn as sons mn. So when our dd was on the way, I said I wanted to put my maiden name as her mn. We ended up doing a double mn with my maiden and my gma’s fn too. I told him, your fam gets the ln, so I want some of my fam’s names in there too! He just kind of laughed at me, but it was no biggie, prob esp since we did give our son his name in the middle. If we have another child tho I feel like we are gonna have to include another name from his side of the fam, maybe his mom’s fam, to be fair, or he may get offended.
No, I don’t think that argument is valid. If you’re planning to use family names, using them from only your side of the family seems a bit selfish. As another poster pointed out, what if you have girls, and they take their husband’s surname after marriage? Then the surname that connects them to their father’s side of the family will be gone, and their names will only connect them to your side. And perhaps your child might like to have a middle name from their father’s side of things.
And seriously, marriage is about compromise and that extends to choosing a name. A name is a gift from both parents and should reflect that.
Thank you for taking the time to give your feedback. Many of you made some insightful comments and gave some great suggestions that we’ll look into.
I should have been more thoughtful in how I worded my post; I didn’t mean to come off as inflexible or imply that I’m not open to using a name from his family. This is just one of the many factors I’m thinking about in relation to names. I’m just trying to test the waters of naming politics, especially if we decide to use family names. I really appreciate the variety of opinions; it helps me get a better understanding of how name choices can be interpreted.
Has anyone ever reached a stand-still when it came to naming? Obviously, every child eventually needs a name and a decision must be made, but I’m curious to know more about specific ways couples went about finding common ground.
This is completely ridiculous to me. You and your husband are partners, not competitors. You have to think about how this is going to affect your children. Their last name is their family name, not a tie to just one side. It’s part of who defines them, yes. But it defines all of them. I am very proud of my family and I feel a strong connection to my maiden name. But I did not hesitate to take my husband’s name when we got married because the love I had for my family was ingrained in me by my family, not my surname. Also, my maiden name (which was my father’s) did not diminish the feelings of closeness or belonging to the other side. Teach your children to be proud of their family, that will mean more than what name you give them.
My advice: forget about the surname. If you want to use family names, use from both sides. All of the names we use are either actual names of family, or are derived from or inspired by family (both sides). We even have some names we were considering that are family names on both sides (or they are variations of the same name). That may be a way to use from both sides, but also give a little more breathing room for names that suit your style.
My parents did a swip-swap. First child Mom picked the first name and Dad picked the middle name. Second child Dad picked the first name and Mom picked the middle name. I think that was a great way to do it. Doesn’t matter where the name came from, if that’s the one they picked, that’s the one they picked. The first name was picked first and the second name was chosen with the first in mind, so they didn’t clash.
Luckily my husband and I have settled quickly and relatively easily on names. We weren’t planning on using any “honor” names. But, he basically picked the middle names for our expected twins. I happened to love the names he suggested, so there was no problem. The only issue was that he unknowingly picked my mother’s mn for our expected daughter. So, she’s the only one who’s got a name after anyone in either family. Though, I didn’t think it was fair that my mother was the only one included (even though he chose it all on his own) and not his mother too. So we ended up using both of our mother’s mn’s, put together as one, with ME being the one advocating to use a name from His side too.
We had our own reasons for putting to two different names together to make [name]One[/name] name. But, lots of people do double-barrel middle names. I personally think double middle names are beautiful. All of ours would have had them, if I had thought about it with our first one. And, I think that’s a way a lot of people compromise. Most people I know who have done it use the first name as a “new” name and then one middle name from each side of the family. I’m under the same opinion as most seem to be…that his last name is just something that’s a given and legal, he had no real choice in that one. I think it’s wonderful that you have a husband that wants to play an active role in naming decisions, instead of just saying “whatever” to anything you pick out on your own.
