Baby names can be a very contentious topic indeed, and some couples find compromises are hard to come by.
As one person, who’s 35 weeks pregnant, wrote in a Reddit post on r/AmItheAsshole, her discussions with the baby’s father on the matter of names have ‘always ended in an argument.’
She’s described how her partner has some pretty… strong thoughts and feelings on what their daughter should be called, and has dismissed all her suggestions.
‘The name of our daughter was decided quite early on in my pregnancy and it was my partner’s idea for the name choice,’ she wrote. ‘She is being named after my partner’s friend, who sadly passed away while serving in the British Army.
‘I wasn’t too sure on the name when I first heard it, but it did grow on me after a few weeks. He also turned down every single name I mentioned – when I say close to 20 different names, and he didn’t like any of them. He was pretty much set on naming her after his late friend.’
So he’s got a pretty strong reason for wanting to get his way with the baby’s first name, but that’s not the only name the dad is adamant about.
The post goes on: ‘The idea of middle names got brought up, and he straight away said that his mum would be happy if we gave her his mother’s middle name.
‘I didn’t hate that idea but what I didn’t like is how he said it, like he expected me to agree.
‘I’ve never had an issue with his side of the family – they are nice and friendly people and very easy to get along with. Never had any issues.
‘I told my partner that either I picked her middle name or she didn’t have one because he chose her first name, and also I’m not a huge fan of the middle name in question, but that’s not the point.
‘He straight away turned it down and said his mum told him how happy she would be if our daughter got her middle name and I just don’t agree with that. I also gave him another opinion – our daughter can have his mum’s middle name, but she gets my last name, and again he didn’t agree.
‘Then again I stated: “Well she just doesn’t get one then if we cannot agree”, and he said how his whole family has a tradition where everybody must have a middle name. Am I being responsible with my arguments or am I not being responsible whatsoever?’
In the comments, people have largely sided with the poster.
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One wrote: ‘I’d die on this hill as he clearly has no respect for your opinion on this topic.’
‘You’re willing to compromise,’ commented another. ‘Your partner is not. Don’t be a doormat.’
‘OP,’ said a third, ‘give your daughter your last name. It will simplify things when you divorce him.’
If you ever end up having a hard time coming to a decision about your baby’s name, just know that you can change your mind after the little one arrives.
When asked whether this could possibly have a negative impact on the baby, chartered clinical psychologist Dr Georgie Taylor previously told us: ‘Based on child development literature, the short answer is, no.
‘Research indicates that babies start to recognise their name at approximately five months old and most do by nine months.
‘Prior to that, they will recognise their caregivers and siblings’ voices, will respond to music, loud noises, and changes in tone, but it takes time for their brains to organise individual words from the stream of sounds around them.’
Even after that point in their development, there’s a trick to help them learn their new name – if you can get your partner to agree to it, that is.
‘A well-known psychological concept called associative learning (Pavlov, 1897), indicates that two unrelated stimuli-like names can be linked together to produce a new learned response,’ explained Dr Georgie.
‘In real terms, this suggests that if you pair the new baby name (e.g., Amelia) with the original one (e.g., Olivia-Amelia), the baby will start to associate them (i.e., ‘my name’) and you can then phase out the original one.’
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