Baby names can bring out the worst in people, for some bizarre reason.
People dislike the names parents choose, couples fight over choices, family members try to dictate which name is chosen, people try to lay sole claim to a name, etc.
A soon-to-be second-time mother turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subreddit for feedback over her baby name drama.
Parking-Historian499 asked:
“AITA for using the baby name my sister-in-law (SIL) wants to use?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My husband and I (mid 30s) are expecting baby number 2. We have a 2-year-old son already and are expecting a daughter. My SIL (husband’s younger sister) has a 3-month-old daughter and is not planning on trying for another baby for a few years.”
“We’ve been honest about the baby names we like when asked, and our top baby name currently is a pretty popular name (top 10 and has been in the top 100 for a long time). My SIL told us last week that our top name is the girl’s name she has always loved and planned to use for her future daughter.”
“The name is Emma. It’s such a simple basic name (which is why I love it), so I’m surprised it’s causing this much drama.”
“I truly can’t remember her ever mentioning this name when she was pregnant with her daughter.”
“Her husband is Italian, and all the names my husband and I can remember them sharing were all Italian names. Emma isn’t Italian, so I’m surprised it’s even on her radar, let alone a top name.”
“My husband asked her why she didn’t already use the name since she already has a daughter, and she said her husband picked her daughter’s name (not sure if this is true), but the name we’ve picked is the name she’s always wanted to use. She’s asking us to pick any other name from our list and save this one for her.”
“She has no emotional connection to the name at all; it’s not a family name on her side or her husband’s side. However, it was my great-grandmother’s name.”
“We didn’t pick it for that reason, and my great-grandmother died before I was born, but when we told my mom the name, she got emotional because it was her grandmother’s name. I thought that was special, so that is one push for us to want to use it over the others we liked.”
“Our other reservation about ‘saving’ the name for her is that she doesn’t know if she will ever have another daughter, so it seems silly to save it. If she were currently pregnant with a girl, I would maybe be slightly more receptive to a conversation about this.”
“I would be so upset if we don’t use this name and then she never uses it either.”
“I wouldn’t care if we both use the same name. She has a different last name from us (married name) and lives in a different state.”
“Plus, I’m fine with my child going by a nickname, if that makes things easier. But she is not fine with that.”
“My dad and his first cousin have the same first, middle, and last name and it’s really not an issue. Only time it gets slightly confusing is if one of them changes their Facebook pic to something other than their picture, so I can’t figure out who is who in my newsfeed without checking their profile.”
“She’s been making a lot of noise about this to other family member and we’ve gotten calls from my in-laws and my husband’s aunt giving us other name suggestions and trying to get us to pick something else.”
“My husband is adamant that we’re not changing our minds and doubling down that that’s the name. Which we hadn’t even fully 100% decided, it was just a strong frontrunner.”
“She and my husband already have a kind of tense relationship (or at least he would describe it that way, she probably wouldn’t). They’re fine and pleasant to each other when we see her, but we don’t go out of our way to spend time with her.”
“But hearing all the noise from family, I’m starting feel guilty. His family is genuinely making me feel insane.”
“So I’m wondering, AITA if I use the name?”
“Truly regret ever sharing our list with anyone at this point. We weren’t officially announcing the name though.”
“We just got asked a lot by family what names we’re considering and saw no reason to gatekeep (regretting that now).”
“For this situation, SIL had asked me over text what names we liked, and I screenshotted her the list we had going in our notes app. It had like 5 names on it.”
“And I told her which one was our favorite.”
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
“Using a baby name that my sister-in-law wants to use. My husband’s extended family is heavily implying I’m the a**hole, and my sister-in-law is upset.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“How can people lay claim to names they may never have the opportunity to use in the future, particularly when they could have used the name in the past? It’s both selfish and unreasonable.”
“NTA. Name your baby what you want and tell any guilt trippers that the subject is not up for discussion. If she ends up pregnant with a girl in a few years, she can still use the name. Many families have cousins with the same name.”
“They are either favoring their daughter over your husband, or she has whined and cried to them enough that they just want her off their backs—thus guilt tripping you. Don’t let them think you are weak and can be manipulated. Your baby, your name!” ~ IcyWorldliness9111
“NTA. She had her chance to use the name and didn’t do so for the first or middle name, so it can’t be that important to her.”
“Not to mention she isn’t planning on even trying for another baby for a while, and trends change quickly, she could be totally over this name in a couple of years and never use it, and then you would regret passing on it for nothing.”
“Use the name, SIL can get over herself.” ~ Salty-Tea6815
“Aaaand this is why you don’t tell anyone the baby’s name until it’s on the birth certificate. Cousins with the same name are not unknown. NTA.” ~ TassieBorn
“I have a big Italian family—lots of relatives. At one point years ago, there were 11 Anthonys. Name the baby whatever you want.” ~ Annie17851
“I have like 40 cousins. Call for John, James, Anthony, and Michael, and you get 60% of them.” ~ SecretLadyMe
“Big Mexican family, here. The 20 cousins on one parent’s side got off easy—no repeated names among the cousins.”
“As for the 30 on the other parent’s side… Most of the guys are named José or Hector, after their dad, or a combination of those.” ~ Narwen189
“NTA. Actual baby trumps hypothetical future baby. People who nuke relationships over this kind of thing confuse the hell out of me.” ~ Fall_Relic
“I have two older sisters, one of which never wants kids and the other who goes back and forth about wanting kids, but is 30+ and single and doesn’t want to be an ‘old mom’ so she doesn’t want kids and blah, blah, blah.”
“When I was a month away from having my parents’ first grandchild, a baby girl, my parents offered me the totes of baby clothes they’d held onto for 30 years in the hopes to have a future granddaughter wear them.”
“To say my sister threw a fit would be an understatement. Like, she’s single and nowhere near having kids, and even if she did who knows if it’d be a girl. I’m weeks away from my daughter being born, yet she didn’t want me to have them because she wanted them for her hypothetical baby.”
“I told her that I’ll keep all the clothes after my daughter grows out of them, and when she has a daughter, I’ll give them to her. But my sister was so upset because I might ‘ruin them’ and refused to even try to be reasonable.”
“She also was super crappy to me my entire pregnancy and postpartum and never tried to get to know her niece. But I’m no contact with her now and never took the totes of clothes because it wasn’t worth the fight.”
“The first thing I said when she mentioned wanting them was that she could go through them first and take whatever she wanted, but she just said how she wanted them all. It wasn’t worth the energy it’d take to fight her about it.”
“I made sure to communicate with my parents privately about our childhood toys, like the Barbie’s and American girl dolls, and got the totes of those before she even thought about them because those were a majority mine anyways and getting those for my daughter to play with in a few years was a hill I’d die on.” ~ sammyluvsya
“NTA. You can both use the name. Who cares if cousins share a name? Families have multiple people with the same name all the time.” ~ witx
“Back in the day, people were routinely named after their relatives. My own mother is one of four Margarets, and each go by a different version (Rita, Peggy, Margaret, Maggie).” ~ nuance61
This is OP’s husband’s family, and if he doesn’t care about their demands, she doesn’t need to.
As OP stated, they could both use the name Emma if the sister-in-law ever has another daughter.