Middle name for baby

LittleDelany

I thought DH and I had decided on a middle name for our baby, but when I asked him this morning he said he hadn't put much thought into it.  David is his father's name and we've chosen it to be his first name.  For middle names, I thought we had settled on James (which I actually preferred for a first name).  DH's brother's name was James and he passed away last year from cancer.  I thought it would be a nice homage to him, as well as sticking with the family name trend (this will be the ONLY boy in the family after DH).  But DH seems up in the air, because he doesn't think it's proper to use his brother's name since "we wouldn't think about using it if he hadn't died".  Um, hello, isn't that sometimes how people choose their childrens' names?  Anyhow, other family names that he's considering are:

David Edward (grandfather's first name)

David Lawrence (uncle's first name)

David James (my favorite).

David Arthur (father's name - sounds to old fashioned to me)

 

Any thoughts?  And any ideas on how we can compromise on this?  I know some may suggest using a name from MY family, but unfortunately my father's name is Gumersindo (no middle name) and there's not a damn thing I can do with that to make it sound normal.  My stepfather's middle name is Charles, which isn't too bad, but I don't want to hurt dad's feelings.

TIA!

Ms.Jade

I'm with your DH. Death does not make a name more or less appealing. 

LemonBlush

I think David James sounds great and honors his brother.

KallieandJustin

I guess it is up to him if he wants to name your LO after his brother or not.  Personally, I really like David James, however if he isn't comfortable with it, its a no go.  My DH had a sister that passed away when she was 16 (it happened around 17 years ago) and with our first LO he wasn't comfortable naming it after her (we ended up have a DS so it wasn't necessary) but if this one is a DD, he has decided that he really wants to do this time.  Although I think parents have equal weight when it comes to picking a name, I think he will have the final say in this one about his side of the family.

WifeofaMarine

KallieandJustin:

I guess it is up to him if he wants to name your LO after his brother or not.  Personally, I really like David James, however if he isn't comfortable with it, its a no go.  My DH had a sister that passed away when she was 16 (it happened around 17 years ago) and with our first LO he wasn't comfortable naming it after her (we ended up have a DS so it wasn't necessary) but if this one is a DD, he has decided that he really wants to do this time.  Although I think parents have equal weight when it comes to picking a name, I think he will have the final say in this one about his side of the family.

This exactly. I like David James, but I think its up to your DH whether or not he wants to name your LO after his brother or not.

I like David Edward and David Lawrence out of the other names you mentioned .

LittleDelany

Thanks, all.  I would never want DH to do something he's uncomfortable with.  For some reason he's become "traditional" all of a sudden and thinks his son should be named after father, grandfather, great-grandfather, that sort of thing, even though his family doesn't really do that (and for the record, his parents LOVE the David James name choice).  He's also taken it upon himself to make sure all of our baby choices (name, baptism stuff) are OK with his parents first before we decide (that's another post altogether).  I just hope he decides soon because my mom and BFF are the queens of personalization and are going to want to get us all sorts of "David ..." crap.  I guess I should be thankful that he has several neat family name choices to choose from!