Ashley writes:

My due date is January 16, 2009. We’re having a boy, and we’re having a hard time compromising.

Up until the news of it being a boy, we’d always talked about naming our son after my father and my husband (Bo Morgan). The problem, however, is my husband is a Jr. He’d never wanted to do the “III” thing until now. I’m demoralized that my father’s name is no longer an option and really don’t want the confusion of another John in the mix when we live within a 3 mile radius of one another and spend a good deal of time together. I’ve suggested calling him John Morgan, Jack, and I may mention Trip.

Am I being unfair to inhibit the family tradition, or should my input be just as important? I’ve thought about baby names as long as I’ve thought about my wedding day.

Please help shed some objective light on the subject and point me in proper etiquette’s direction.

Oh, Ashley, this is SO TOUGH! In high school I dated a boy who was a III, and his grandfather had deathbed-style forced my boyfriend (who was ten or eleven years old at the time) (at the time of the grandfather’s deathbed, not at the time my boyfriend was my boyfriend) to promise to name his son IV. But I HATED my boyfriend’s name, and also I think it’s WRONG WRONG WRONG for people to think they have the right to name other people’s children (which is what earlier generations are doing when they try to name anyone except their own children after themselves), and also I think the almost exclusively MALE thing of “handing down The Sacred Name” is egotistical and stupid, especially when it gets carried to a DEATHBED SCENE extreme. As if their own name is such an HONOR as well as a DUTY.

Um, opinionated much? I actually LIKE naming traditions and family names; what I don’t like is the situations they create. My husband’s family has a naming tradition, and when my husband’s parents broke it (they named my husband a name they chose, rather than following The Tradition), my husband’s grandfather refused to acknowledge the new baby. He kept that crap up for A YEAR, and continued to act coolly to his son/daughter-in-law until his death. I mean, can you imagine?? Creating a family feud because you didn’t get to choose to name your grandson after yourself? ICK!

Where was I? Oh, yes. We don’t have quite that situation here, do we, but we do have a difficulty: your husband wants to name his child after himself and his father, and you would prefer not to because you prefer a different name and because of all the confusion it creates to have three people with the same name. Totally understandable. I swear, one of the (many) reasons my relationship with my high school boyfriend didn’t pan out is that I wasn’t willing to deal with the naming tradition thing.

As far as the etiquette of the situation goes, you and your husband are the only two people who are involved in naming this child. While various issues might weigh things in one direction or the other, let’s assume the responsibility/privilege of choosing the name is 50-50. In my opinion, his 2-generation naming tradition doesn’t do anything to give his name choice more weight than yours: this decision still belongs to both of you, not to his parents and his grandparents (the ones who chose his and his father’s names). Basically the situation here is that you’d like to name the baby after your father, and he’d like to name the baby after his father.

And speaking of etiquette and The Right Way, a little-known and rarely-used rule is that suffixes (Sr., Jr., III, IV, etc.) are not permanent. In theory, they are used only for living holders of the name. So when your husband’s father dies, your husband should be John Morgan Sr., and his son should be John Morgan Jr. Only popes and kings are supposed to keep their suffixes. Not that anyone follows this rule (it makes paperwork difficult, and also presents a challenge when people don’t die in chronological order), but I like to mention it futilely whenever the subject comes up, in the hopes that the rule will come back into common usage and perhaps lower the pressure to have a III or IV or VIII or whatever.

Back to your situation (I do seem to keep wandering off), I can think of a few possible compromises:

1. Name the first boy after your father, as discussed, giving him a different middle name than Morgan (perhaps your father’s middle name, or perhaps another name). Agree that if you have a second son, the second son will be named John Morgan III.

2. Name the first boy John Morgan III (perhaps calling him Trip, Trey, John Morgan, J.M., or Jack, to lessen confusion). Agree that if you have a second son, the second son will be named Bo, with a middle name of your choice.

3. Toss out both grandfather names and pick something else.

Let’s take a vote, calling the choices “Option 1,” “Option 2,” and “Option 3.” The poll is over to the right. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results (163 votes total):
Option 1: 33 votes, roughly 20%
Option 2: 38 votes, roughly 23%
Option 3: 92 votes, roughly 56%

Robyn writes:

Up until a month or so ago we’d had the perfect girl’s name picked out for our baby (we don’t actually know if we are having a girl yet but we’ve already had four girls so the smart money is on a girl!). We’d picked the name Sophia Anne and loved it. Sophia has family significance and goes well with our other daughters’ names however recently a little friend at school also named Sophia has been bullying my daughter and that name does not have good associations for her so we need to change it. Please help!

Our living daughters are Rebecca Elizabeth and Emily Karen. We also lost two baby girls named Stephanie and Anna. Our surname starts with a K sounds, so K and C names are a little too alliterative. We want to keep Anne as the middle name (after a dearly loved aunt who didn’t have children of her own). We like names that the child won’t be constantly asked how to spell and that are pretty/feminine sounding.

I wonder if you’d like the name Fiona. It has a similar rhythm and it has the same “oh” and “fee” and “ah” sounds as the name Sophia. It’s pretty, it’s feminine, it’s good with the sibling names and it works with the middle name Anne.

Here are a few others to consider:

Angela Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Angela
Audrey Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Audrey
Julia Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Julia
Laura Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Laura

I realize I have a lot of A-ending names with the A-starting middle name, and that not everyone will like that. I like the sound of it, and because you chose Sophia Anne I’m guessing you do too. Let’s put a poll to the right to see what everyone else thinks. [Poll closed; see below.]

Poll results (268 votes total):
Fiona: 95 votes, roughly 35%
Angela: 8 votes, roughly 3%
Audrey: 74 votes, roughly 28%
Julia: 68 votes, roughly 25%
Laura: 23 votes, roughly 9%

Name update 05-15-2009! Robyn writes:

I’m sorry its taken me so long to update. To be honest I’m a little embarrassed and feel bad because after all that deliberation we’ve named our baby girl (born April 9th) ….. Sophia! The little girl named Sophia who was being a bully to my older daughter has moved interstate and simultaneously there was another little girl named Sophie that Bec became friends with and she told me one day how much she liked the name Sophia! WELL, I just about fell over and after a quick chat to Paul we were back to having Sophia as the favourite name. Before that we had a few contenders….our favourite of your ideas was Julia. Somewhat bizarrely we had a change on the middle name though. Paul really liked the name Grace and I thought that sounded good with Sophia but as I said before we were keen to honour our Aunt (who was actually named Judith Anne but “Judith” isn’t very pretty which is why we were going wtih Anne). Anyway the compromise was that Sophie (we’re using Sophie or Sophia) has two middle names: Grace Judith. I figure the Judith isn’t so bad when she has two pretty names to balance it and using Aunty Judy’s actual name is better than her middle name. I’m so sorry to have wasted your time but really appreciated your input and the input of the people who commented/voted – thank you!

C. writes:

My husband and I can’t seem to agree on the best name for our 2nd son (due 12/29/08). Our first son will be 2&1/2 when the new baby is born and his name is Julian Jay. We both LOVE Julian’s name and agreed on it right away but we haven’t been able to find that same excitement again for baby #2. We want a name that goes with our last name Mendez and sounds good with Julian, and it would be great if it was Spanish but not too ethnic or hard to pronounce in English.

Names that we are considering are Samuel Alberto (it’s kind of our back-up name, we think it’s nice but kind of ordinary, btw- my father-in-law’s name is Alberto but it’s not imperative that we use that name), and Sebastian- we both like this name alot but we are concerned that there isn’t really a good nick-name (I would really like it to be Sebastian Leif, Leif as in Leif Erikson- my grandmother was born in Norway and I’ve always loved that name and think it would be nice to give a little nod to that part of my heritage however my husband doesn’t like Leif). My current favorite is Roman b/c it is strong, simple, and not too common but also not too weird. My husband’s current favorite is Javier, which is okay I guess but I’d really like to sway him to Roman. Some other names that I’ve liked but my husband hasn’t are: Oliver, Elliot, Benicio, and Matteo. Some names that my husband likes but I don’t are: Alejandro, Santiago, Nicholas, and Guillermo.

Thanks for your help!

I knew a Sebastian back in my school days. He went by Bas, pronounced more like Baz. It looks kind of contrived when I type it out, but it felt perfectly natural at the time—and also seemed like a cool nickname. If you went with Sebastian Alberto Mendez, you could also call him by his initials: SAM. That would be confusing, though, so perhaps better to do Samuel Alberto Mendez and get the same cute initials with less confusion.

What do you think of the name Hugo? It’s gradually coming back into style, and it’s growing on me more and more. It’s relatively easy to spell and pronounce. Hugo Mendez. Julian and Hugo.

Ooo! You could use Ruben! The instant an acquaintance used the name Ruben for her baby boy, I thought that was one of the best baby names I had ever heard. Unfortunately for me, it is hideous with my surname. It’s good with yours, though! Ruben Mendez. Julian and Ruben. It’s similar to your choice of Roman, but maybe your husband would like it better.

Xavier seems like another good option. Xavier Mendez. Julian and Xavier. It’s similar to your husband’s choice of Javier, but maybe you’d like it better.

Well, let’s put it to a vote. I’ll put a poll over to the right [poll closed; see below], but also feel free to leave additional suggestions in the comment section.

Poll Results (238 votes total):
Samuel: 32 votes, roughly 13%
Sebastian: 67 votes, roughly 28%
Roman: 37 votes, roughly 16%
Javier: 6 votes, roughly 3%
Hugo: 23 votes, roughly 10%
Ruben: 43 votes, roughly 18%
Xavier: 30 votes, roughly 13%

Carla writes:

I came across your blog and it sounds like you might have a solution for my husband and I. We are expecting twins (boy/girl) in a couple weeks. We had originally chosen the names Paul David (Paul being my husbands middle name and his father’s name and David being my father’s name) and Caroline Louise (Caroline comes from the same origin as my name, Carla, and Louise is my mother and sister’s middle name).

My husband has expressed concern with the boy’s name we have chosen because he doesn’t want to think of his father every time he says it and his mother is already assuming that is the name. He has suggested John Philip or Samuel for a first name. Sam was my dog all while growing up so that seems a bit weird to me but I do love the name, and I like John Philip (Philip is my grandfather’s name) but having John and Caroline is a little weird as it just makes me think of the Kennedys. Is that off the wall? Would others make that connection or would that be a good alternative? There are also other reasons we like pretty much all the names we have chosen – in regards to the meaning of names, etc. and Paul David is also the name of Bono (the singer from U2) and we are huge fans so that is kind of cool too. Any suggestions or recommendations? I’d love to get your opinion!

Ah! I have some experience with this, in that one of my children has the same name as one of my parents. And what I’ve found is that I hardly ever think of it. In fact, the only time I think of it is when I’m addressing that child when that parent is in the room, and I suddenly realize that could be confusing. But since I don’t call my parents by their first names, it isn’t an issue: the name has become almost exclusively the child’s name, and I only occasionally remember it’s also my parent’s name. So if I were you, I think I’d go with Paul David.

But I do also love the name John Philip. For me, the John and Caroline thing is okay: the names John and Caroline are so established and classic, I don’t think I’d think of the Kennedys unless someone pointed it out to me.

Let’s have a poll over to the right to show what we think: Do we think they should stick with Paul and Caroline? Do we think John and Caroline has a strong Kennedy association? …Well, that’s a little complicated for the poll. How about this instead: I’ll make the poll just a list of names for Caroline’s brother, and then if you want to you can leave comments in the comment section about the Kennedys, or about your own experience with family namesakes. [Poll closed; see below.]

[Poll results (222 votes total):
Paul: 133 votes, roughly 60%
John: 52 votes, roughly 23%
Samuel: 37 votes, roughly 17%]

Josie writes:

We’re having a baby girl and we’re going to name her Samantha. Now the middle name is giving us pause. I’ve loved the name Faith, but alas it is my husband’s sister’s name, and his family is Jewish so they won’t name after living relatives. So then we moved on to a name with similar meaning — which is why I’ve loved it so — and wound up with Hope.

Perhaps you see where this is going. We forgot about Obama. I don’t think I have it in me to name my daughter after a presidential campaign, because what if Obama is a flop? What if he sucks? What if we look like cliche liberal assholes?

Is there any resource that will show similar meaning names? Because really, Samantha Hope? Oh good heavens. How do I explain that one? Oh HAI. AM LOONY DEMOCRAT WHO MIGHT AS WELL NAME HER DAUGHTER MICHELLE OBAMA.

I spent some time searching online for a similar-meaning-names resource. What I found was a lot of really unpleasant, flashing-ad-ridden baby name sites. The only grain I found in all the chaff was the name Nadia, which evidently means hope. That’s it. It’s Nadia or it’s Itxaro, apparently. And Samantha Nadia, while fine, doesn’t have the ring of Samantha Faith or Samantha Hope.

I have another suggestion, however. What about Joy? Samantha Joy. It’s beautiful, it’s meaningful, and it has the same rhythm as Samantha Faith or Samantha Hope. But is that a problem because it shares your initial?

And I have one more suggestion: use Samantha Hope. I wouldn’t have made the association myself, I think because the name Hope is so established already as a girl’s name. It isn’t as if you’re using Samantha Yeswecan or Samantha Maverick. My opinion, in fact, is that this is a non-issue: that you can freely use the middle name Hope without anyone associating it with politics.

But this is the kind of opinion that begs for a larger-sample-size survey. What do the rest of you think? If you heard of a baby girl named Samantha Hope, would you associate it with the new U.S. president? Vote in the poll to the right. [Poll closed; see below.]

[Poll results (292 votes total) for “Does the name Hope have political associations for you?”

Yes: 15 votes, roughly 5%
No: 224 votes, roughly 77%
What are you talking about?: 53 votes, roughly 18%]