A. writes:<\/p>\n
We have a four year old daughter and a six month old son and though we are not currently expecting, do plan to try for another once the baby is one or so. We hope to have four children total.<\/p>\n
My question is regarding an honour name. Both our kids have honour names for their middles – our son has his dad’s first name in the middle spot and our daughter has a double-barrelled middle that covers both grandmas.<\/p>\n
If we have another daughter, I have a great aunt I would love to honour. She’s my late grandfather’s only sibling and never had children of her own. Her husband has children but they were adults and out of the house for years (possibly decades?) before my aunt and uncle married. My aunt is an amazing woman who was almost like a bonus grandma to all of her brother’s grandchildren. Her name is Betty and as far as I know, she has never gone by anything else except occasionally Bette.<\/p>\n
Sounds easy, right?<\/p>\n
Well. My husband has an uncle with whom he was very close as a boy. This uncle was the strongest (and practically only) male figure in my husband’s life. Then, he got married. His wife is well known in the family for causing drama, acting spoiled and just generally being bat-dung crazy. Over time, the uncle also changed drastically and now has a terrible relationship with my husband. They don’t speak and have nearly come to blows. Their family will not attend any family functions if we are there, do to some blown way out of proportion slight from a decade ago. My husband basically washed his hands of it and wants nothing to do with them. And guess what the wife’s name is?<\/p>\n
Yup. Betty.<\/p>\n
My husband is therefore 100% not okay with it for a daughter, even in the middle spot. So now I’m a bit sad.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth alone doesn’t work for me. It’s too common of a middle name choice to feel like a real honour name when my aunt has never used it. I don’t like the idea of some other variant either because again, it’s not my aunt’s name. I’ve considered asking her what she would have named a daughter and maybe using that?<\/p>\n
I considered her last name but her current one is my uncle’s and isn’t one that I really associate with her identity. Her maiden name is actually my maiden name and isn’t really suited to be used as a middle (it’s LONG) and also, doesn’t obviously connect the honour to her so much as it seems like I’d be honouring my father or grandfather.<\/p>\n
Should I just let it go? Do you have any great ideas that I’m overlooking?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I think the “having a great person to honor” + “can’t use their name” is one of the saddest roadblocks to run into in baby-naming. But it definitely sounds like the name Betty is out, and I agree with your feelings about the other options.<\/p>\n
Here is how I comfort myself in such situations: Using someone’s name for a child is a great way to honor them and tell them how you feel about them—but it’s not the ONLY way. If you haven’t already done so, I’d suggest writing her a letter telling her you wanted badly to use her name but couldn’t because of an unfortunate coincidence, and also telling her all the things you wanted to communicate to her by the use of her name. If you don’t already have one, you could also add a framed picture of her to your house: this would remind you frequently of her, as using her name would have.<\/p>\n
Another idea would be to let her choose the child’s middle name. It’s a bit risky (what if she chooses a name you hate?), but would be a big honor and would keep her in the naming story: “My great-aunt chose that name. She was an amazing woman who…” etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A. writes: We have a four year old daughter and a six month old son and though we are not currently expecting, do plan to try for another once the baby is one or so. We hope to have four children total. My question is regarding an honour name. Both our kids have honour names […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-21O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7802,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7800\/revisions\/7802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}