DH and I were discussing that, should we have a boy, his MN would be 'Louis', in honor of my family and my maiden name. If we have a girl, however, we were tossing around the idea of using 'Katherine' (which i LOVE) as MN, in honor of DH's mom. Both my mom and his mom are very much alive and healthy (knock on wood!). How much do you worry about hurting one of the grandmother's feelings by picking the other grandmother's name? Would you not even cross that bridge?
eta; to add clarity
Re: Two living grandmothers?
Sorry, i wasn't very clear - i meant that Katherine would be the middle name (haven't decided on a first name yet but would not be either grandmother's name).
personally i wouldnt I can see one getting insulted. Not worth hurting them.
I didn't at all, but then again, my mom and MIL aren't the types to get worked up about this thing.
Afterall, unless you're an only child, they'll probably more naming opportunities down the line.
My daughter is Ruby Colleen, Colleen after my mom. My MIL talks about what a sweet name it is, but I'm 99.9% sure she's not offended.
Ie: use a C instead of a K or K instead of a C
I, too, think it depends on your family. With three living grandmothers (one technically a step-gma), I wouldn't do it... someone would certainly be bothered by it.
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I wasn't concerned about it, but we got lucky. If we had a son he would be mn David after DH's late father. We had a DD and used Elaine as her mn. It's my fn and both of her grandmothers' mn so she got to be named after everyone.
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I might explain that the boy's MN would honor your family, while the girl's MN would honor his, and make sure your mom knows it's what you agreed on. I also might plan to use her name should a second girl come along.
If they're both still living and you have equally good relationships with both, it does seem kind of like a slight to use one's name and never use the other's.
We had a girl first and gave her a name that follows my pattern. When we had a second girl we used mn's from our grandmothers one of his first, then one of mine.
Hopefully that soothed any niggling issues.
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I agree. It's your kid. You get to do whatever you want within the obvious realm of sanity.
I feel like people are overthinking this. Maybe my family isn't nuts enough, but I wouldn't share prebirth and I can't imagine anyone flipping out after the fact.
There will be more babies in the family after all. You don't have to nor should you wrap up all the family names in one kid.
It's a tough one. What is your mother's name? Is there a way to merge them or use both? We've talked about using my mom's name for a MN if we have another kid. Her MN is Lee so it works for either sex. Anyway, I know MIL would be offended but my mom is awesome and MIL is not. She is not at all a hands on grandmother. Obviously, I don't WANT to hurt her feelings but that's just how it goes. If we were closer to her, I could see how it would be a tough situation. I think if you use it you may want to give your mom a heads up so she can get used to the idea.
This.
I got lucky. DH suggested Diane, his mom's name, as a mn, but I also wanted to honor my mom, Susan. We compromised on Suzanne which happens to be my mn!
Is there a way to work in your mom's name also?
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Honestly, I haven't really thought about using any of our parents' names for our kids. They all have names that I would consider "super dated" from the 1940s-1960s (my in laws are more the age of my grandparents). If you think of songs with names in them from that era, you'll probably hit on my parents' or his parents' names somewhere.
We do talk about using our grandparents' names sometimes, though. Our grandparents' names were some what similar, so we think we can take one from each side without offending anyone. I actually worry a little bit that my grandmother will be a little TOO honored with our choices - I love her, butshe already makes everything all about her so I cannot imagine what she will do if I name a child after her!
DH was worried about this when choosing our names (we were team green) for the boy's name we chose Russell Henry. Russell is my grandfather who we both are very close to and admire. Henry was his dad's dad and is also his dad's middle name. DH was worried that his living grandma would be offended that we didn't use her late husband's name too (Arthur). But you can't have a big long name just to please the whole family. And you want to have names left over if you were to have another child of that gender. So if we have another boy his middle name would be Arthur.
Alternatively, our girl name had the middle name Jean. It is my middle name, but my mum's first name, my grandma's middle name and her mum's middle name. We didn't worry about offending his mom when we chose this name because it's a tradition. We've been talking about future girls names and I wanted to chose a family name again for the her middle name. I have suggested a few from DH's side but we don't really like their first or middle names. So we'll see.
Bottom line, name your child what you want to! Adults should be ok with it. Afterall they were once in your situation and you don't have a big name like Uma Therman's new daughter. lol
chart.