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Woman Balks After MIL Expects Her To Convince Pregnant SIL Not To Give Baby A ‘Virtue Name’

An elderly woman holding a baby in her arms.
Dobrila Vignjevic/Getty Images

The first question most people tend to ask expectant parents is “what are you going to name your child”.

A question that most expectant parents tend to loathe answering.

As sharing the names they have under consideration often results in a mixed variety of responses.

Including people with no familial relation to the couple urging them to reconsider, despite having no right whatsoever to such an opinion.

The sister-in-law (SIL) of Redditor Immediate-Ebb3113 was expecting her first child.

While she and her husband still weren’t quite sure what they would name their child, the original poster (OP)’s mother-in-law (MIL) urged them not to use one particular type of name.

Feeling her MIL was shoving her nose in an area where it didn’t belong, the OP felt it was necessary to interfere herself and tell her MIL to back off.

Wondering if she was out of line for doing so, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:

“AITA for telling my MIL she’s making a huge deal out of virtue names when she really doesn’t need to?”

The OP explained why she felt it was necessary to tell her MIL to take a step or two back when it came to her grandchild’s name:

“My MIL has a really weird hatred for virtue names.”

“This is something she has become vocal with in more recent years.”

“A lot of it centers around the compared to your name/setting high expectations for your child thing.”

“I (29 F[emale]) have a virtue name; Serenity.”

“My SIL (25 F), aka my husband’s younger sister, and her husband, are strongly considering a virtue name for their daughter who is due in a few weeks.”

“MIL has been so outspoken recently against them that SIL asked me how I felt growing up with a name like Serenity and whether I felt a ton of pressure to live up to the name.”

“I told her I always felt like my name was really pretty and I never felt like I was expected to live up to it.”

“I told her until I was like 12 I was pretty wild as a kid and I never had it thrown in my face that I wasn’t living up to my name or that my name didn’t suit me.”

“I told her my name was seem as pretty normal and I wasn’t even in a religious town.”

“She mentioned MILs issues with virtue names getting to her.”

“I pointed out to SIL that Grace is a name MIL loves and that also counts as a virtue name.”

“SIL, who forgot that, laughed and it reassured her.”

“She thanked me for the talk.”

“I told her she could talk to me again if she needed to and they should just follow their hearts on the name.”

“We were at MIL and FILs house on Saturday and MIL was off on a rant at SIL about virtue names again and how she better not seriously consider one for her grandchild.”

“SIL told her there was a virtue name on the list and it was in their top three choices and could be her granddaughters name so she needed to stop talking about the names like that because she would not let her daughter hear that crap.”

“MIL pulled me in, expecting me to be on her side, which is when I told her she’s making a huge deal out of virtue names when she doesn’t need to.”

“I told her it’s not a huge deal and some are very common and popular today.”

“My name included.”

“She told me I should know having lived with one that it comes with a lot of judgmental comments.”

“My husband jumped in and told her the most judgemental one was her and like he had said before, she’s rude ranting like she does in front of me when she knows I have one of those names she freaks out over.”

“He told her nobody cares what she thinks of them at this point.”

“MIL ignored him and asked if I was really going to put her granddaughter through a life full of being compared to her name.”

“My husband and SIL told her to let it go.”

“She told me she expected me to be more understanding and less dismissive of her genuine concerns.”

“AITA?”

Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:

  • NTA: Not the A**hole
  • YTA: You’re the A**hole
  • ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
  • NAH: No A**holes Here

The Reddit community overwhelmingly agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for telling her MIL to calm down about “virtue names”.

Everyone agreed that the OP’s MIL was, indeed, making a mountain out of a molehill and concerning herself in business that wasn’t hers to worry about, with others pointing out that there are worse connotations to have tied to one’s name than virtue:

“NTA.”

“‘Virtue names’.”

“I very rapidly went on a personal journey from ‘what the heck is a “virtue name?”‘, to intuiting it reasonably quickly, to immediately dismissing these concerns as poppycock.”

“Ain’t no kid cares dick about ‘living up’ to their name.”

“To them, it’s just their name.”

“The ‘virtue’ of it all isn’t on anyone’s mind.”

“‘He told her nobody cares what she thinks of them at this point’.”

“My man.”- StAlvis

“NTA.”

“MIL needs to show some Grace and Charity and Prudence in dealing with her DIL, or else she won’t have any Hope that the grandchild will be part of her life and she’ll miss out on the Joy and Felicity that would bring to her.”

“If she changes her mind, and lets her Destiny include learning to live in Harmony with her DIL, perhaps the DIL will show her some Mercy.”- TemptingPenguin369

“NTA.”

“There are tons of virtue names that are not obviously virtue names to our modern ears.”

“Grace, Pax, Constance, Clement, Joy, Ever, Celeste, Iman, Felicity, etc.”

“Is this all her backhand way of getting your SIL to agree to some name MIL prefers?”-EquivalentTwo1

“MIL: Aren’t those names the worst!?”

“OP: Not in my experience.”

“MIL: Well what do you know anyway?”

“OP: Literally a whole lifetime of having my name.”

“NTA.”- purplstarz

“NTA but what the f*ck is a virtue name?”- Question_1234567

“NTA, but your MIL sure is.”

“How the hell does she feel justified making such a big deal about the horrible mistake virtue names are in front of you?”

“Is she just oblivious that throwing all this judgment around has the potential of directly impacting you?”

“And what does she expect you to say, ‘oh you’re so right I absolutely hate my name?'”-SmackoftheGods

“NTA.”

“Good on everyone for standing up to her ridiculousness.”- lmmontes

“NTA.”

“Next time MIL goes off on a rant about virtue names, start talking about vice names.”

“Vice names are the humourous opposite of virtue names, based on the old joke that anyone with a virtue name will invariably become the opposite of their name.”

“For example, a child named Charity will never donate anything, ,Grace will be clumsy, Prudence will be an impulsive risk taker, and Chastity will be promiscuous.”

“Vice names attempt to correct these issues by naming the child after an opposite vice, for example, instead of Charity the child is named Miserly.”- Ancient-Platypus5327

“NTA.”

“In my opinon, your MIL is just plain weird in assuming that virtue names may constantly get pressure to ‘live up’ to them.”

“Just as you have never felt pressure to constantly be serene and people named Grace most likely arent expected to always be graceful.”

“Rebel Wilson was never really expected to be rebellious.”

“She’s the one making these opinions up and projecting them onto your SIL and I guess she thinks that what she thinks is what everybody else thinks when that’s not true.”

“Secondly, it’s not even her child.”

“Your SIL should be able to name her child peacefully.”- Soggy_Dimension_9896

“NTA.”

“It’s your SIL kid not Mils.”

“If she wants a relationship with her grandchild she might want to get over it because if she’s fussy about this, imagine everything else that isn’t the same as ‘back in my day’.”

“This is why I didn’t tell anyone my child’s name before they were born.”

“No one is going to talk trash about a newborn baby to my face lol.”- Dry_Parfait4507

“NTA, the only honor name I have a problem with is Chastity.”

“And that’s for obvious reasons.”

“Like ‘hey, this is my daughter Virgin’ it’s just weird.”- glasswitch88

“NTA Your MIL sounds a bit unhinged.”

“Not much else to say.”- tybbiesniffer

“NTA.”

“Everyone else stood up against MIL’s cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs obsession with the name.”

“What is wrong with ‘virtue’ names anyway?”

“Hope, Faith, Charity, Felicity, Grace, Joy, Constance, etc., are all classic and lovely names.”- Ishcabibbles

It’s one thing to be concerned about a name having a bad connotation or association.

But, of all the names to feel strongly about, names associated with virtue seem an odd selection to boycott.

Seeing as the OP’s MIL appears to be fighting this battle solo, one can only hope that she will take the defeat with grace.

Ironic, right?…

Written by John Curtis

A novelist, picture book writer and native New Yorker, John is a graduate of Syracuse University and the children's media graduate program at Centennial College. When not staring at his computer monitor, you'll most likely find John sipping tea watching British comedies, or in the kitchen, taking a stab at the technical challenge on the most recent episode of 'The Great British Baking Show'.