Katie writes:
Okay, it’s officially Down to the Wire Time over here (T minus 10 days!), and I’m hoping you can help reassure me on a question that is dogging me a little. I wrote to you about this a few months ago, and since then there has been some progress. Here’s what I wrote then:
“We have long thought that if we had a girl child, we would give her a middle name to honor my husband’s aunt Jean, to whom he was very close and who died when he was a teenager. I love this idea- I like honoring the dear relative, and I expect it will mean a lot to my mother in law and to my husband’s grandmother to have their family honored in this way. The issue is this: I recently learned that aunt Jean’s full name was Regina. I’ve known my husband for 10 years and have always known her as Jean- it’s what she always went by – but now I’m wondering if it dilutes the honor of a namesake somehow to use the nickname instead of the full name. Regina isn’t our style, and to me feels strongly associated with a religion to which we happen to not adhere, so it would seem a little strange to select it. Plus, we like one-syllable middle names. So, thoughts? Is it okay to just use “Jean” as the middle name, or if we want to say that we named the child after her great aunt do we have to go with Regina?”
Since I wrote that, we’ve committed to using Jean as the middle name- and I really like it- but I want to make sure that we’re not inadvertently committing some sort of gaffe here. It would be sad indeed if, instead of feeling honored, the family felt annoyed by our use of the diminutive.
Are we safe?
Oh, what a very interesting question! I generally find myself trying to talk people out of modified namesakes, reasoning that Grandma Ethel is not going to feel honored by a baby named Addison “after her,” nor should she be put in the position of having to act as if she is as deeply touched as if the child were ACTUALLY named after her. I think sometimes such stretches happen inadvertently through a long line of “this from this, from this, from this…” where, for example, the parents say “We love Grandma Ethel, but um, we don’t want to use her name. Is there something CLOSE to that we could use?” So first they look at her middle name, which is Hester, and then at her maiden name, which was Douglas, and oh DEAR we’re not getting any closer to finding something. And so then one day while talking desperately over the issue again, they find out that the name Ethel means “noble,” and the name Addie also means noble, and so how about ADDISON! Perfect! Because they got there by such small increments and over the course of so many discussions and with such good intentions, they might FEEL as if they’ve basically named the baby Ethel. And yet I am always cautioning that Grandma Ethel might not feel the same, and advising parents to consider if THEY would feel honored if THEIR names were so changed for a namesake.
BUT: this is not at all your situation. You’re not taking a Regina and trying to name your baby Riley (same initial) or Juno (same meaning) or Juniper (after Aunt Regina AND Grandma Pearl! Two for the price of one!) or Jean (a name you prefer but she was never called Jean): you’re taking the name the namesake was ACTUALLY KNOWN BY and using THAT—because it evokes that person, while her birth certificate name would not. You didn’t even know her name was Regina when you first discussed using the name Jean. I would definitely say you could use the name Jean and say your daughter was named after her great-aunt.
As to whether the family will give this the same stamp of approval, it’s hard to say. I SUSPECT they would, and for the same reasons I give: they know her as Jean, so the name Jean is the name tied to their happy memories of her. And if anyone shows signs of bristling, you could give that explanation in affectionate tones (ideally with brimming eyes of love): that you know her name was Regina, but that since you knew her through your husband as Jean, THAT’S the name that reminds you of her.
I think in this situation, Jean would be a fine namesake.
BTW, my daughter’s name was her great grandmother’s middle name. There are four other women I can think of in the family who have it as a middle name after the great grandmother, but my daughter is the only one who has it as a first name and everyone was SO pleased by it, especially since the great grandmother went by her middle name.
Excellent! I also think Jean is appropriate and wonderful in this situation.
It seems unquestionably appropriate to use Jean to honor your baby’s great aunt.
Good luck!
I think that the family will be deeply touched that you’re using Jean, for all the reasons you’ve mentioned!
I’d go with Jean, for the reasons Swistle mentioned and because I would not be surprised if Jean herself preferred it. My husband and I had been together a looong time before I realized the name by which I’d always known his aunt was not her given name. That was because she’d always hated that name and insisted the nickname be used since she was old enough to have a say. Even my husband occasionally sees it in family albums and spends a moment wondering “who’s that?” before he remembers.
If we honored her by giving our child her given name, I feel confident she’d (perhaps privately) cringe. Of course, you can’t know for sure how Jean would feel, but if Regina was indeed so removed from her identity that you didn’t hear it in the last 10 years, there may have been a similar reason.
I was named after my great great grandmother, Sally. Years after I was born, my dad discovered that Sally was not her given name, and that she kept having to leave town and change her name for unsavory reasons. So, it turns out I wasn’t named after her at all, just after the alias she happened to have when my dad knew her, which was for the best, considering what her true nature was.
Sally- That is excellent.
Katie- Since everyone called her Jean, I think that is what the mn should be.
Totally agree with Swistle and everyone else – use Jean. Your husband knew her as Jean and so his fond memories are tied to her ‘nickname’ more than her official name.
Jean sounds very appropriate in this situation.
I think Jean is perfect in this situation. My guess is that she went by Jean because she disliked Regina, so where would be the honor in using that? :)
In defense of Ethel-Addison namesaking, I will say that a nod can be better than no honor at all, I hope! We’ve been guilty of the practice twice: once tweaking Joan to Joanna for our third daughter’s middle name (this one, I agree, was a stretch and would have been better left as is. Hindsight.). The second instance was using Juniper as the first name for our fourth daughter in honor of my great aunt June. In this case we were honoring the nn, Junie, which I have always called my aunt. We also call our little one Junie or June, and aunt Junie is delighted. I think more so than if we had left it at June and hidden it away in the middle name slot.
Jean is the only fitting name in this situation. So what if her full name was Regina, she was known by her loved ones as Jean. I think it will be wonderful for your daughter to have this connection with her.
My cousin named his son Timothy after his father who was known as Tim but whose name was Angus Gordon. My aunt was over the moon about this gesture and I’m sure your husband’s relatives will be too in your similar situation!
Just wanted to point out that choosing a baby name with the first initial of a loved one’s name is a common practice among Jewish families (as in Swistle’s Regina/Riley example). For instance, a great aunt Harriet might be honored with a baby named Hannah or Henry, and this is not considered a slight or a stretch by the family. Granted, Jews are also only supposed to name babies after loved ones who are already dead, so no one has to worry about the namesake taking offense!
Anonymous- As I understand it, that’s a modernization of the actual Jewish custom, which was to use the actual name.
My middle name was my great-grandmother’s nickname (“Mae”, when her real given name was “Mary Olive”). No one called her by her full, given name… so naturally my mom named me Stephanie Mae.
I think it makes the most sense to do it that way! :-)
We named our daughter Nancy after my husband’s mother, who was formally named Nancy, but went by Nan. Now, though, our daughter wants only to be called Nancy. So, you never know…. if you named her Regina, she might just love it and never want to be called Jean!
If we have a third boy we would have a very similar situation. We plan on using the name Hank as the middle name to honor my Mom’s Dad. His given name was “Hennard” but he went by “Hank” and when talking to my mom she’d actually prefer we use Hank as that’s the name she also associates with him.