Who has the overall say in what to name the baby ?

There is no “rule”. Like most things in a relationship, it is negotiation. (In a good relationship, compromise plays a big part.)

You can have a baby, but you two can’t be adult enough to decide on a name?.....Relationships are about compromise and working together…...I’m not a parent and I know that lol…..

Edit: Ok maybe that sounded mean, what I meant to say is that there is no rule as well lol…..

I don’t think the woman should have the final decision. Just because she went through childbirth doesn’t make it any more her child than his.

I think you should talk to your husband and try to find a name you both like. If you give in, it should be because he’s adamant and you don’t mind the name he wants as much. Don’t give in, and then be quietly resentful. You’ll be saying this name for the rest of your life (godwilling) so it better be one that you’re fond of.

The name is just the beginning of a multitude of much harder decisions that you guys are going to have to make for this kid.

You should ideally agree. But if one doesn’t care as much as the other, they should give in.

Legally I was always the one to fill out the papers for the birth certificate and name.
I am not sure if they would have given that job to my husband if I had not been able to. I suppose they would have.
I could have put any name I wanted to on the form. He didn’t have to sign it, only I did.

By the way, I put the names that we had compromised and agreed on every time.

Isn’t ti obvious; the mother-in-law should! :-)

Well it really meant alot to both of us and I regret that I gave in every time someone asks me with disgust, “Why’d you pick that name ?”

This whole name discrimination thing is new to me…..does this really go on in the family community? Who would be so shallow to dislike a child’s name? It sounds like a bunch of kids are having kids lol….

The person who carried it for 9 months and pushed it out a far too small hole, meanwhile risking her life and vaginal well-being, IMO.

It looks as if we can tell who are the female answerers to this question. lol

I named my children, but that’s because my husband didn’t care. I thing I would have liked him to be more interested, but I’m sure it gets a little difficult if both parties are passionate about their choices.

When my parents could not agree on a baby name for me, they chose a third name they could both agree on.

As it turned out no one liked it much, and I changed my first name legally when I was an adult.

I had a friend who wouldn’t compromise on what she wanted, but she made a good point. She paid for the entire hospital bill cash by herself. He was a lay-about and she was the one supporting them all. She simply reminded him who was paying the bills. He got put to the curb when later he wouldn’t watch the baby while she worked and she had to pay for daycare, while he laid around. In her case, I really think she had every right to pick the name. Anyway the baby gets the father’s last name automatically, so the first name is the only side the mother has a say in.

Deciding on a name by who paid for what and who went through what sounds to me like the first of a long, long series of poor decision-making practices for parenting the child. Don’t people realize they’re talking about a person and a lifelong relationship? Naming a child with a permanent reminder of a power struggle won and lost shows poor judgment, in my opinion.

It’s like you’re launching missiles from a submarine and you both have to turn your keys.

Judge Judy!

You can always renegotiate and change the name, especially at this early a time. Why not pick something you both can live with?

It’s not Trig, Willow, Piper or Bristol is it? That would be justifiable grounds for a redo.

Sometimes people settle the question by dividing up the choice of first and middle names or by allowing the child to be called something other than his given name; for example, formally naming him Humbert Humbert but calling him Chris. Don’t you know people whose parents call them by different names—dad always says “Bill” and mother says “William”? or mother says “Arnold” and dad never says anything but “son”?

Even if there were a rule for something like this, and there isn’t, people would break it all the time.

well, naming a child is not like who’s next in line to make the executive decisions once the proverbial vice president dies. names for children are agreed upon from the start. once the two of you like a name together, that’s the name.

you don’t want a spouse to say later on in life, “see, i told you we should have named him kyle.” the way the name flows from your lips and how you see the child reacting to his name as he/she grows is the picture you should have in your mind.

it’s not at all like naming a pet cat or dog.

Weird names for babies. Who thinks them up and why do they do it? I’ve seen:
LaTrina
Curfew
Talon
Orangelo (Pronounced – Orange Jello)
Lemongelo (Pronounced – Lemon Jello)
Obviously it’s a choice that some people should never be allowed to make.

There is no set rule to who names the children. You have to compromise and negotiate. It’s not like, for example, the daddy wants to name his son Timmy. The mommy shouldn’t be able to just say no and that’s that, no buts about it. Like everything else in a marriage, work it out :)

@escapedone7 Anyway the baby gets the father’s last name automatically, so the first name is the only side the mother has a say in.

That sounds reasonable to me.

In our family, it is traditionally the mother who chooses the name, but I’ve never heard of a case where the father disagreed, so I can’t really say it’s a rule.

no lie. a pair of twins named syphilia and gonnorhea.

other unthoughtful names:

martell
tequila
mister (for a boy who will later be know as mister mister mister if he gets that old)
george george (no lie)

@charliecompany34 What is the matter with people?

@Trillian @charliecompany34

True story:

Harry Butts
Harry Mann
April May June
Tarantula (they call her “Tula”)
Taliban
Chiquita (yep, like the banana)

@escapedone7 That kind of thing doesn’t have to be automatic. My third will have my last name.

Vein… on…. side…. of…..temple….throbbing! Threatening…...to…..BURST.

@Seek_Kolinahr And my personal favorite (true story also): Fonda Peters.

The parents should find a way to compromise and agree on a name. If you each don’t agree with the other’s first choice, you look at other names. If one parent wants to name the child after someone specific, I think that deserves extra consideration. Besides, if they really can’t agree, why can’t one choose the first name and the other choose the middle name?

My husband and I compromised both times. I got to always choose the first name for my son which was his dads name and we couldn’t decide on the middle name so we asked my mom and she was the swing vote. As for my daughter, I got to pick the first name and he choose the middle. I got first dibs on the first name both times because I’m the one who had to push like hell both times to get them out. Not to mention, morning sickness, bloated aching feet, aching back for months, stretch marks, swollen aching boobs, extreme tiredness, and not to mention parts stretched beyond imagination. So I thought it only fair I get to name first anything that comes out of me first.

Ugh.. when I was pregnant, I was so mad at my boyfriend because he thought since I decided to keep our baby because he didn’t want to be a father, he got to decide on the name. He wanted to name our daughter Eve… I like that name but I didn’t like the reason why he chose that name. He said that he chose it because it’s only three letters and when she starts to spell, she’ll be glad we chose such a short name that she only has to remember two letters for. Men can seriously be retarded sometimes.

That’s not all, either. He wanted her middle name to be Isis pronounced Eyes-iss. He chose that name because he thought it just sounded cool… Well I asked him what it’s meaning was we had a baby name book and he said “Goddess of fertility.” ‘Nuff said there…. I was pissed.

I named our first child, my husband was supposed to name our second..but I did not like the name at all. We went back and forth the entire pregnancy, he fell in love with a name, I fell in love with a different name. We ended up naming him something very different than the two names (although, the name I liked became the middle name)
I actually don’t really like the first name. I was sort of angry about it at first, because the hospital kept asking us his name and I didn’t like the pressure and my husband just said “so is this okay?” and I just said fine! I regret it though.
I don’t think anyone has an overall say. I personally think the woman who just gave birth through her hoo-ha or had major surgery should get some more say…but men don’t seem to think giving birth is a big deal. (men as in my husband haha)

@casheroo Hey, we do our part, too. Sure it feels better, but that’s not our fault.

Hunny you had it in you for the nine months grab his balls and say whos boss

I know a woman who changed the name of one of her twins. There was a complication with his birth certificate, so when she went in to redo the forms, she simply put a different name when the kid was a week old:)

I do not think there is a law covering this. When I was pregnant my husband and I went through baby books together, laughed hard at all the weird names we could make up, considering our last name was weird anyway and settle don a girls and boys name just in case. We never had any arguments over the name at all, its called compromise. This is your child, he now has a name do not let others make you feel bad about it. My husbands father hated the name he was given and refused to ever call him it, it still hurts him after 54 years.

Come on, you two. Your new child will require so much from you. What you call them reflects your values and your hopes for their future. If you can’t work together to choose a name, I suggest you separate before your bickering ruins this child’s life. Did you consider letting you each select a name? One could be a first name and the other a second name. There is way more to parenting than knowing how to conceive a child. I suggest you consider marital counselling to help you learn how to work together towards your child’s best interests.

If I had to guess, I would say that the mother has the legal right.

As for who should have the say… I dunno. I suppose I’d be the type of husband to not worry too much about the name but want to claim veto privileges for absurd names. E.g. “no, you can’t name the child ILoveBigButtsAndICannotLie Smith.” (Note: my last name is not Smith, just an example).

For our second child, we finally narrowed it down to two names. We even agreed on one and I ordered a bunch of custom m&m’s with that name on it.

But neither of us was very comfortable with it. We just liked it “good enough”.

Then the baby was delivered and the nurses asked what the name was. For some reason, I mentioned the final two names as candidates, instead of just the one we’d settled on.

The nurses all very much liked the other name. And at that point, it became very clear to me. My wife was still in post-delivery haze but I now knew with certainty what the name should be. Not the one on the m&m’s.

Of course, I didn’t commit any legal forms without her approval. So I sought to convince her. It was easy… I cheated. I asked our two year old son to say hi to his new baby sister by her new name (and nickname). That did it.

My wife was kinda mad at me for playing the emotional/cuteness card. But now it’s four years later. And she still thanks me for driving the name selection at the end.

To @worriedguy‘s dismay, our girl’s name is Piper. And she’s awesome.

—

Point is, we like our privacy. We liked the idea of springing the baby’s name on friends and family as a surprise after the baby’s arrival. But, what we should have done is sought out the opinions of people we trust and respect. Instead of making the decision in a vacuum, we really need outside input.

Now our baby #3 is due in two weeks. At this point, we haven’t been able to agree on a single name at all. Not even potential middle names. But I do intend to repeat what works… and will ask for suggestions and opinions from people near to us in advance.

@robmandu I love the name Piper.

My husband and I discussed baby names after we had been dating for 6 months. Our son and daughter were named what we had discussed. When I was pregnant with our third we were able to come up with a girl’s name, but ended up having a boy. As I gazed at him a name popped into mind and I asked my hubby if he agreed: he did.

The name should always be a negotiation.

It should not happen like this: when my brother was born (after 5 girls preceded him) my mother wanted to name him Brian. She brought him home from the hospital and told us that this was our new baby brother Brian. My dad had fit after fit and put his foot down and demanded that he be named after him. He was. And that was a big mistake imho.

You should keep pondering names until you find one you both can agree on. It may not be his favourite or yours…but then, at least, there won’t be any hard feelings.

My friend’s professor holds the name of Micheal Hawk.
-everyone calls him Mike…
I wonder if the ramifications even crossed his parents minds.
I agree that it should be a mutual decision. Relationships must involve some give and take, but hey, I’m basically repeating what many others have already quoted. I’ve been told approximately seven names I was almost called, all of which I am relieved never made it to the birth certificate.

@robmandu I didn’t know you were having another…congrats!

@DR_Lawrence Well I never said I didn’t compromise in the end. It’s my child’s name and I would have liked to have agreed on one. I just wonder what would’ve happened if we couldn’t have come to a mutual agreement.

If you can’t agree, agree to flip a coin.

@mattbrowne i could never decide my child’s name by just flipping a coin

George Foreman named all five of his boys – after himself. they are all named George.

@Storybooklover – I meant it’s either your favorite name or your husband’s. Only if you can’t agree.