My boyfriend isn’t into names. At all. He hates [name_f]Antigone[/name_f], and the thought of never being able to use that name actually has brought me to tears before. He either doesn’t like the name I mention, or he just has no opinion on it. With [name_f]Antigone[/name_f] being an exception.
He’s said I can use [name_f]Antigone[/name_f] as a middle name, but that’s not good enough for me haha. I honestly don’t know how we’re going to compromise when we actually have a little one to name.
From my current list, he doesn’t mind [name_f]Guinevere[/name_f], [name_f]Sibyl[/name_f], [name_m]Henry[/name_m], and [name_m]Felix[/name_m], so I guess that’s something.
My husband and I have 10 children over nearly 2 decades. I’ve been a name nerd since I was a kid (I remember being under the dining room table on my belly asking how to spell names so I could make a list). I am also a “hunter-gatherer,” and I love to hash out details and make detailed plans. I have lots of rules and guidelines about what I do and do not like. I feel about names the way I feel about art and poetry and music. I like unique names, but not too edgy. My husband does none of those things. He wants to pick just one name. He does not enjoy going over long lists of possibilities. He doesn’t do hypotheticals. He doesn’t see the point of sibsets. He likes classic names, and names that were popular when we were kids.
In the early years, I thought I was compromising when what I was actually doing was capitulating. I let him tease and joke, and didn’t tell him how important the process itself was to me, and not just the end result. I would make lists, poring over books and eventually websites, looking for good or fresh or beautiful names. I spent hours going through the SS lists, grouping all the different spellings so I could see which names were really the most popular and seeing how the trends fell out state by state. At first, I tried to get him involved early in the pregnancy. I’d ask him for suggestions or go through my lists and try to get input. He never had good suggestions, only jokes like naming a girl Hammer, and would go through my list and veto things. I could not get a good feel for what he actually liked. Eventually, I delayed trying to get him involved for as long as I could hold off, until the middle or end of the 2nd trimester. Still, no serious suggestions and only vetoes. Meanwhile, I was feeling like all my work and effort were ignored, culminating in him suggesting a name that made me cringe and shudder while he held one of our babies for the first time in the delivery room, a name he’d never suggested and which was certainly not on my list. For whatever reason, he absolutely would not budge. We named her his suggestion because legally we had to have a name in a certain number of days, and it made me wince and cringe and cry. [name_f]Every[/name_f] day. [name_f]Every[/name_f] time I said it. For 6 months. I debated trying to change it, but never suggested it, as we were living in a foreign country at the time and it would’ve been a massive headache involving bureaucracy from two countries. It was 18 months before I was able to think about her name without pain every time, before I could say it out loud without mentally wincing. (Full disclosure: a death in the family plus culture shock compounded the trauma of that year and made dealing with this harder.)
Of course I grew to love that baby, and her name is no longer horrible to me (she is 9). But the trauma of that experience taught me to stand up and speak up more. It also taught me that compromise takes work. It took a lot of discussion to even get him to understand that the process of naming was as important to me as the name itself. I am not good at self-analysis and not good at seeing the big picture without all the little details, so it took me several years and a lot of thinking and talking before I could understand completely what I wanted and how to get it, and how to express myself to him about it. For our last baby, he tried to do things differently. He had a very hard time coming up with suggestions of his own; it’s just not the way his brain operates in this arena: he can’t pick a hypothetical name that he hypothetically likes for a hypothetical child. But he tried. And he was respectful of my process instead of dismissive, and didn’t just veto all and sundry.
So. I have advice.
Talk. Speak up about what’s important to you. Be clear. Be honest.
Listen. Find out what’s important to the other person. Respect each other’s opinions and processes.
Understand that life is messy and imperfect, and your perfect list and and perfect plan and perfect name and perfect sibset may not be used, and/or will change. That’s good. That’s growth.
Take a step back. I think to name nerds, names can be like art: they evoke feelings, aspirations, memories, beauty, hope, rhythm, color; they stimulate our senses and our hearts and our minds. We treat creating a name or a sibset like creating an artistic expression. And, like other nerds, we get lost in the weeds sometimes. So, step back. Pick your head up and look around. Take a breath. Take a break. Pause. This baby’s name is not about you. You get to pick it, but in partnership. Learn to appreciate your partner’s art, or their science, or just their opinion, as you teach them about your own. Learn to see the beauty in other genres, other media. One way or another, there will be compromise - interdependence instead of independence. And that’s good. That’s beautiful, too, and better and stronger. That is the essence of family.
This. You’re going to be parenting this child together with your partner ideally, so why should that make any individual’s opinion more meaningful or valid than the other? If you’ve got a problem with how procreation works, feel free to curse biology, but not your partner.
I’d definitely be heartbroken if my partner flat out rejected all of my names, especially since I’ve had several of my combos and names on my lists for years, so they’re pretty dear to me. I’ve come to accept that I might have to sacrifice a name or two along the way to appease a future partner, but to have every single on rejected would be miserable. I guess it all depends on my partner’s attitude about the matter when the time comes. You can’t bully someone into liking the same things you do, and your partner probably has their own reasons and opinions about names, no matter how much of a namenerd they’re not. If they’re not open to talking about names at all… that seems childish to reject every option presented to you and then offer no suggestions of your own. Bottom line: open, mature conversation. If you can’t have that with you partner or feel the need to resort to revoking their rights to opinion, then that seems like a bleak precedent for future co-parenting decisions. (I’m aware no one seriously suggested pulling the I’m-making-the-baby card btw, but even as a joke it seems pretty demeaning)
Eye roll. It was a joke! Sheesh, if my husband and I were so serious all the time I’d hate it. “The adult thing to do” Oh please! Lighten up! I hope if you’re having a baby that you are on a personal enough level with your partner that you can joke and pick fun at things without someone being offended. Goodness gracious. And FYI, NOT all things in a relationship are equal! Sometimes one of you has more say than the other when it comes to decisions. That’s how it works, give and take, and a lot of humor!
It used to be the father had all the say in naming the baby. When my ex was born, his father told his mother she had two choices … his name or his fathers name. I know many other women of that generation and older who were forced to go along with naming a son a [name_m]Jr[/name_m]. or a III or a daughter after the fathers mother. None of them were happy about years after the fact, so I expect that most fathers wouldn’t be happy about the reverse situation now.
On the other hand, I don’t think that either parent-to-be has the right to be dictatorial and to make pronouncements like “no middle name” or rejecting every suggestion of the other partner without explanation.
That’s so true. And a lot of fathers insisted their first born had to be named after themselves and gave the mothers no choice in the matter, or like you said if they were girls, after the father’s mother (even in cases where that women had no good relationships with their mothers in law). There are cases where the fathers went to register the child (while the mother was in the hospital) and gave the baby a different name they agreeded with their wives.
You start again. You may not ‘insist’ on a name and neither may your partner. Both parties get unlimited vetos and while you can try a little persuasion if you want, you simply cannot refuse to accept a veto on a name for a kid you are both parents to. If someone feels so super strongly that their child must be named X, they’d better make sure they get their partner’s stamp of approval before thinking about having children together. Once the baby’s on the way, that ship has sailed.
[name_m]Don[/name_m]'t allow yourself to be dictated to when it comes to the middle name thing - if you really want to use them and he really doesn’t you will just have to discuss the pros and cons and try to come to an agreement or a halfway thing such as first child gets a middle name, second child doesn’t. I think middle names are pretty easy to ignore if you want to so I think you have a strong case for using them - but that’s between you two.
At the same time don’t try to dictate to him. If he doesn’t like your favourite names and won’t come round to them, you have to find new favourites. I’m not one of those who has had names ‘set in stone’ ever since I was a teenager, but I’ve certainly had to drop favourites and names I thought could be ‘the one’ because my partner just didn’t like them. I got over it fine.
In my life, there are certainly a few parenting issues I am not willing to compromise on (which we discussed beforehand and agreed on), but a name is far from being one of them. I know this is a naming site and we all love names, but at the end of the day picking a name for your child is one of the most insignificant parts of being a parent. It’s not that it’s unimportant, but it’s not that important.
ETA: I should qualify that, to my mind, both parties have unlimited vetos as long as both parties are making an effort to come up with ideas. It is totally not fair to veto, veto, veto and never offer a suggestion of your own.
My fiancé luckily likes my taste in names and enjoys discussing them to a degree - I’m thrilled that he’s on board for [name_f]Sybil[/name_f], [name_f]Mirabel[/name_f], and [name_u]Auden[/name_u]. He is still a separate human with his own tastes, though, and I am still sad about his eliminating [name_m]Hart[/name_m] and [name_f]Blythe[/name_f], but I also want us both to genuinely love our kids’ name. But what is more painful is that his (our) last name is two syllables and ends in -ler, which renders our mutual favorite boy name, [name_u]Skylar[/name_u], unusable. We sometimes are like “who cares if his names rhyme!” because it’s meaningful to us on so many levels and we have a much harder time with boy names than girls, but I just don’t think we can get away with it. Worse, our other two favorites are [name_u]River[/name_u] and [name_u]Walker[/name_u], which are almost as bad!
I’m aware that you meant it as a joke, which is why I didn’t quote you. Of course one person may have more say than the other, especially if one person isn’t suggesting anything, my point is that both people should have a say. I spoke later in this thread when asked (on page4, copied below) that my quote was directed towards the instances were people do say those things in seriousness:
[quote=“ottertails,post:18,topic:282604”]
Not yet, but I have seen it said before both here and many other sites in all seriousness. I’ve also heard women irl proudly state that they used that excuse to get the name they want. Generally it’s said in a way that the mother should get whatever name she wants and the father of the child should accept it because of what the mother is going through to bring the child into the world.
[name_m]Just[/name_m] because it was done in the past to women doesn’t mean the pendulum should swing the other way and have it done to the men. Both of those situations are wrong because parents should have the opportunity to discuss and veto, not go behind each other’s backs. OP’s partner needs to compromise on the middle name, while OP can compromise about her favorites.