Spinoff: Families pushing for baby names

l9i

I like passing on family names but don't look at it as a requirement.  For us, we have two girl and two boys names picked out for any potential future children along with middle names.  None of the first names are family names, they are names that we love all on their own.  However, all middle names are family names.  One boy middle name would be after DH's dad and the other after my dad.  For girls one would be after my grandmother and the other is both of our grand grandmothers.

I couldn't see either 'side' pushing for family names other than my mom.  I have her middle name and if we had a girl I think she'd want me to continue, but I HATE my middle name so no.  DH loves the use of family names for middle names.  He's the one that proposed the idea and I love it, I had just never really given it thought before.

Chipmunk415

photokitty said:

When dating SH I asked him if he was into trendy baby names. 

 He straight-faced said, "I prefer family names. Like Clyde, Phylo and Lester."

I almost stopped seeing him, until I realized he was kidding. Well not about then names, they really are family names, but he has no interest in passing them on. No way I'm naming a kid Lester - can you hear the taunts on the playground already? (lester the molester)

I just about died reading this. See, there's this awesome gal in my office whose home is outside of town, more in the country. They have a variety of animals, including chickens. AND a rooster named chester. Chesters full name is "Chester the Molester" because this rooster will go after anything that looks remotely like a behind. Apparently the rooster caused some mental trauma to some puppies once, until daddy dog (a German Shepard ) chased chester up a tree.

anjemon

I like the tradition of family names. We don't really have a Jr or Sr on either side of our family, so we won't do that. But I like the idea of being a III or IV, I just think it would be cool.

My Dad's family used the middle name "Joy" for one girl in each sibling's family after my late grandmother. I might continue this tradition because I like the name. But no pressure for it yet and my sister didn't do this for her daughter.

My siblings haven't really chosen family names for their kids, so I don't think it's likely we'll get any pressure from my family. His family hasn't started pressuring yet either and based on wedding planning I don't think they will. They were both very hands off.

Chipmunk415

I'm fond of Elizabeth - my grandma's name. Dh knows I want to incorporate dad's first name -brian- in some fashion for a boy or a girl. Dh's brothers name was bryan, so we can make that work too. Dh's middle name is august like his dads....his dad had an older brother named august who died before FIL was born, hence the name. It is dh's choice to incorporate it in the future, I won't object.

Kahlyla

We didn't really get any pressure in this area. We did choose sibling names as middle names for our two boys, and we would have used his sister's name as a middle if we'd had a girl (he has one brother and one sister, I have one brother). But if we hadn't liked them we wouldn't have used them. As it happens, my brother's name is the same as DH's father's name, so our second son does have FIL's name for a middle - but it was chosen with my brother in mind because our intention was to honour all the siblings. It was a nice bonus I guess.

LadyMillil

Family names are a thing on my side, but the only one I like enough to use is my middle name. I'm going to get a lot of pressure to name a boy after my grandfathers, but I think that would be weird because my boss has the same names.

DH wants to use family names. Until his generation, all of his family members had non-English names that I have no idea how to pronounce. DH's last name is frequently pronounced wrong and I really wouldn't want to saddle a kid with a first and last that no one can say correctly.

theartistformerlyknownas

wandajune6 said:

My grandmother has demanded that I name any daughter after her. She tried that with my sister and it didn't work. I'm not naming a daughter after her while she's alive (it seems strange to me). She's older (in her mid-90's) but healthy so I hope she will be around to meet any child. Also, I don't love her name so I probably wouldn't give the child the exact same name.

Neither of my parents are particularly fond of their own names so they wouldn't want me to name kids after them. The Kid was named after DH's father so that's taken. He will not name a child after MIL.

Isn't it a big no-no in Jewish culture to name babies after living people? 

bethsmiles

I'm the third woman in my family to have my name (first and middle). I love that connection to my family. I won't be passing it on though. I don't want my own kid named the same thing as me.

I'm 100% sure if I have a son his middle name will be my dad's name. I'm very close with my dad and would love to honor him that way. SO knows this is important to me and agreed to it. Other than that I don't know if we'll end up using any family names. If we do it will just be for a middle name.

littlepep

photokitty said:

On a side note...

I am leaning towards giving any and all kids my maiden name as a middle name. I didn't change my name and I like the idea of having a name in common with them. I don't want to hyphenate their names. I think it's cool if you decide to hyphenate and think it's an individual decision. I just don't want to saddle my kid with a super long, complicated last name. Also if I have a girl and she wants to hyphenate one day, where does that leave her?

Growing up I only kew 2 kids with hyphenated last names, and neither of them liked it. The female was looking forward to getting married one day and dropping her long hyphenated name. She hasn't gotten married, but dropped her mom's last name for everyday use.

FI's mom did this so all her sons have the same middle name. I've considered using a version of it as a first name. 

mrscomposer

I like passing names down, and we'd do it if we were having kids.  I'm the third generation with Lynn as my middle name, so that would keep going.  The middle name on J's side is Marie, so any daughter of ours would likely have two middle names.  Any son would have my maiden name as a middle name.

My dad is the second generation of DWC, and our brother (stillborn) would have been the third (different first names, but same middle and last names).  My little brother's middle name is my dad's first name, so my sister is the only one without any family connection (which she whines about every once in a while).  However, her middle name is Alexandra, which is beautiful, and which I would totally steal or switch to Alexander.  I think I said in the other thread that they're thinking about Dru Marie for a girl's name, for our brother and her MIL.

FiancB

I don't think we'll have too much trouble. H's parents are really careful not to shove their opinions down our throats, and while my parents can be super overbearing about some things, they're pretty good about stuff like that. I don't think they said a thing one way or another about my sister's kids' names. 

If we had a boy and named him after H, he'd be a III. No way in hell are we doing that. Even though H goes by one nickname and his dad goes by another, it's still confusing as hell with car insurance and stuff. I think his parents even said they wished they hadn't done that. 

I wouldn't want to name my kid after anyone that was still alive. I said in the other thread that I'd use H's grandma's name for a middle name, but more than anything  it just happens to make a good middle name. At first I wanted to use my maiden name for middle names but ehhhh, my family's a bunch of nutsos anyway. 

Sidenote, one of my friends is named after a dog (Kendall) and my boss named her daughter after her favorite horse (Katie). I wonder if H would let me name our kid Shelby...

NavyBlue143

The only family names we have are middle names on my mom's side. Boy middle names are always Richard and girls are always Renee. For like, 4 generations. H's last name is Johnson so he's none too keen on Richard as a middle name. Plus all the men on my mom's side of the family are bastards anyway. We decided on Conan, H's childhood hero. 

We are set right now on Christine for our daughter's middle name, since it's kind of a combination of our mothers' names (Eileen and Crystal). Mom is pretty sad we're letting Renee die, but she likes the middle name being part of her name too. 

wandajune6

lolo883 said:

wandajune6 said:

My grandmother has demanded that I name any daughter after her. She tried that with my sister and it didn't work. I'm not naming a daughter after her while she's alive (it seems strange to me). She's older (in her mid-90's) but healthy so I hope she will be around to meet any child. Also, I don't love her name so I probably wouldn't give the child the exact same name.

Neither of my parents are particularly fond of their own names so they wouldn't want me to name kids after them. The Kid was named after DH's father so that's taken. He will not name a child after MIL.

Isn't it a big no-no in Jewish culture to name babies after living people? 

I'm pretty sure that it is. She's also the most religious Jew in our family but thinks she is an exception. She also has dementia so we humor her a bit.

afox007

This is something I have debated for a long time. My mom's middle name and my middle name are my grandma's name. It always made sense to me to pass it along to any daughter I may have, except I spent half my childhood not able to spell or pronounce it and it doesn't really "go" with any first names I like. 

I did know ever since I was younger I wanted to use my dads middle name, Edward, as my future son's middle name. Thanks to Twilight I'm a little concerned about using it, I know everyone will assume that's where the name came from. Hopefully there will be enough time between that BS and my future spawn. 

sophhabobopha

Fi's a VI so our baby will be a IV.  

I like it.

annathy03

I don't mind the idea of family names but I'd hate to feel obligated to choose one, so part of it will probably depend on if our parents push it.  We'll probably consider my late father's name for a middle name, in part because I have no brothers and my only male cousin with my maiden last name only has girls, that's likely the last generation my grandfather's last name will be carried by anyone I know.

Also I knew a guy whose middle name was Chester.  Dude understandably HATED it.

flantastic

sophhabobopha said:

Fi's a VI so our baby will be a IV.  

I like it.

Are those initials (i.e. you're transposing his names) or Roman numerals? If he's really a VI in Roman numerals (getting to 6 is impressive, BTW) then the kid with the same name would be VII.

sophhabobopha

flantastic said:

sophhabobopha said:

Fi's a VI so our baby will be a IV.  

I like it.

Are those initials (i.e. you're transposing his names) or Roman numerals? If he's really a VI in Roman numerals (getting to 6 is impressive, BTW) then the kid with the same name would be VII.

OH.

I meant four and five.

Never was completly comfortable with roman numerals!

redheadbride15

I am definitely into family names but ONLY if they are a) associated with someone I respect/admire and would want to honor, and b) names that I would have liked anyway.

Some names in our families that I'd strongly consider because they fit these criteria: Ian, Paul, Colin, Lillian, Elizabeth, Gwendolyn, Ruth

flantastic

sophhabobopha said:

flantastic said:

sophhabobopha said:

Fi's a VI so our baby will be a IV.  

I like it.

Are those initials (i.e. you're transposing his names) or Roman numerals? If he's really a VI in Roman numerals (getting to 6 is impressive, BTW) then the kid with the same name would be VII.

OH.

I meant four and five.

Never was completly comfortable with roman numerals!

Nephew as "John" V (they don't do middle names) is pretty cool. John IV is actually FIL, not BIL.

etf boxes

artbyallie

I am (was?) the last Maidenname in my family because I'm an only child and my dad's brother doesn't have any biological children (and can't give his stepson his name because kid's paternal grandparents are too resistant to him being adopted). My family still doesn't care if I pass on a family name or not. Dad's middle name would have been my first if I were a boy.

Our hypothetical baby names (don't judge but we have first and middle picked out for two children of each gender just in case) include one of my great-grandmothers and one of his as middle names for girls. The boy names have my dad's and one of my grandfather's names as middles. Some of the names in our families were just not even up for discussion though because they're not particularly great names. If there weren't any in the families we liked we wouldn't be planning to use any. I don't see the point in naming a child after someone else just for the sake of doing so.

redheadbride15

There's no arguing that name trends do change across generations. I know someone who named their twin sons after two great-grandfathers: Ronald and Alfred. One of these men was a general in WWII and the other one a highly successful businessman and family man, and they were clearly so excited to honor these two highly distinguished gentlemen. Despite this, it's still sort of strange to see two little toddlers running around with those names.

Also, speaking of being sixth in line with a family name: I had a friend in college who was a 6th - the first and only son in a highly traditional/conservative southern family descended from English aristocracy. But he's also flamingly gay and has no interest whatsoever in having kids, so the joke was always that he was born only to let the whole family down. Fortunately he's gone on to do far better and more interesting things than to pass on the family name.

CMGragain

I think family names can be a lovely idea, but they don't always work.  Daughter's married surname is Chinese in origin.  Family names on our side:  Cyrus, Amos, Jesper, Leonard, Lester....hmm.  Probably not.  Jesper Chungking?

CMGragain

afox007 said:

This is something I have debated for a long time. My mom's middle name and my middle name are my grandma's name. It always made sense to me to pass it along to any daughter I may have, except I spent half my childhood not able to spell or pronounce it and it doesn't really "go" with any first names I like. 

I did know ever since I was younger I wanted to use my dads middle name, Edward, as my future son's middle name. Thanks to Twilight I'm a little concerned about using it, I know everyone will assume that's where the name came from. Hopefully there will be enough time between that BS and my future spawn. 

Edmund is an anglo-saxon variation.

themosthappy91

I honestly didn't realize until reading this thread that some people don't use family names for middle names. That sounds dumb now that I write it out, but I've honestly never heard of choosing a middle name "just because you like the name", rather than using a family name or at the very least a name that references SOMETHING (a place, a favorite character in a book etc).

My family takes it to the extreme. I am FirstName PaternalGrandmothersName MaternalGrandmothersName EthnicNameSharedByAllCousins LastName. My brother is MaternalGrandfathersName PaternalGrandfathersName EthnicNameSharedByAllCousins LastName.

That being said, my parents surprisingly don't have strong feelings about family names- it was my father's parents who were very insistent and then my Mom was like "No freaking way are we using only YOUR family names", so that's how we got to this point. My father's parents have passed and no one really cares now.

luckya23

Nephew's middle name (22 months) is Edward and I never thought to this day anything about Twilight!

It's also my grandfather's middle name though.

I think I said before that we don't really do the "naming after people" thing, but then I remembered that my middle name is my great-great-grandmother's name, my mom's is her grandmother's name, my aunt's is the other grandmother's name.... Oops! 

My dad also has the same name his father had, but different middle names.

I'm the last one with my last name... my dad was the only boy of the only boy, and I only have a sister who already changed her name.  That's a huge part of my choice not to change my surname!

[Deleted User]

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afox007

luckya23 said:

Nephew's middle name (22 months) is Edward and I never thought to this day anything about Twilight!

It's also my grandfather's middle name though.

I think I said before that we don't really do the "naming after people" thing, but then I remembered that my middle name is my great-great-grandmother's name, my mom's is her grandmother's name, my aunt's is the other grandmother's name.... Oops! 

My dad also has the same name his father had, but different middle names.

I'm the last one with my last name... my dad was the only boy of the only boy, and I only have a sister who already changed her name.  That's a huge part of my choice not to change my surname!

This makes me feel a lot better. I got worried because at one point my younger sister was wondering why I would name my theoretical kids after a book I hated so much. She apparently forgot that is our dad's middle name.