Submitted by KJEveryday t3_zzzj6w in relationship_advice
Hey all,
Looking for some advice in regard to a situation I’m having with my wife. At a high level, our issue is as follows: She wants to change our daughter’s middle name completely and I do not. It’s little more complicated though. Read on!
We have two kids. I’ll change their names for privacy, but let’s call them the following:
Kid 1: Violet Robin Smith - Girl - 4.5 Years Old
Kid 2: Mitchell Agassi Smith - Boy - 6 Months
“Agassi” is my wife’s maiden name. Smith is obviously mine. Since my son was born in the summer, my wife has been vocal about wanting to change our daughter’s middle name to her maiden name. Saying things like it’s been eating her up for years and it’s one of the “biggest regrets of her life”. I’m not trying to add any hyperbole, but she’s upset about it. She mentioned this in passing years ago as well, and I at the time told her something along the lines of “well, she has her own name already, but if it really bothers you, look into how to change it.” I feel like she never seriously followed up with me on it until our son was born. There was never a sit down convo of like “This is important want I want to make a decision.” As such, I did not know she was so upset and, again, if she wanted to change the name BEFORE our daughter was able to talk, I would have been fine with it. I thought it was a passing feeling and she’d get used to it over time. I mean, we did pick it out together! It wasn’t under duress or anything. On my wife’s end, she feels that our daughter won’t have anything of “hers” in terms of her name. For more context, my wife’s middle name is her mother’s maiden name as well and she is really close with her mom’s side of the family. My wife is an only child and her mom never took her husbands last name. My in-laws are still happily married. On my side of the family, I have a brother and both of us have our own middle names, and my mother took my fathers last name. My brother and I enjoy our middle names as they are unique to us.
So here’s our issue: I feel like it’s too late to change our daughter’s last name to be completely different. At 4.5, she knows her name and it’s her name. She even tries to write it sometimes. My wife wants to change it completely to match our son’s naming format: Violet Agassi Smith. But, again, I like her middle name! When we though of it, I liked it because I originally wanted to name my daughter after a bird and “Robin” has all of the first initials of her grandparents in it. So that’s a plus too. My mom also loves her middle name and asked for a necklace this past Christmas that as a combination of her two granddaughters middle names (Think something like “Robinette”). I only mention my mom to show that our daughters middle name is known by pretty much our entire family and is enjoyed to some degree. Family and friends will sometimes call her “Violet Robin” endearingly. I don’t care too much about feelings other than my immediate family, but I thought context may help.
As a compromise, I told my wife that I am completely fine with our kid having two middle names, so that it’s changed to Violet Robin Agassi Smith, but she is vehemently against it, saying it will be hard for her on paperwork and in life in general. She even said she is starting to dislike our kids middle name because it actively makes her feel bad. This is wild to me since, again, we decided on it together before the baby was born. One other thing to note is that I wanted to name my daughter something like “Cardinal” throughout the naming process and we landed on Violet (which I found out later was my wife’s first choice, but she played it cool). I got to decide on the middle name and opted for Robin. She agreed and never mentioned her surname throughout the process at all as an option.
Anyway, I feel like we are at an impasse. I brought it up this AM and she ended up crying afterwards when I reiterated that I didn’t want to change her name outright, but would be fine amending her overall name by addition and we should go about doing it.
Can anyone give a some perspective her on having two middle names, changing names ( at this age) and the idea of having the maiden name as something the child brings with them? I feel like I am compromising but I feel as if my wife has more feelings about it and it bothers her more.
HestiaAC t1_j2enx4o wrote
I think it's a cool naming tradition. I'm a genealogist and using the mother's (or grandmother's) surname as a middle name used to be extremely common- kind of fell out of fashion by the 20th century for whatever reason.
I think you still have time to change your daughter's middle name without it affecting her much at all. She's 4 and a half... she won't remember a change to her middle name. The two middle names thing seems like the best compromise- millions of people who two middle names and navigate through life just fine.
Sounds like your family is the biggest hurdle to overcome. You and your wife need to settle on a solution and present a united front to the family- say you know they were really fond of her name but after having your son, you realized how much you'd like them both to have your wife's name carry on with them. They may be disappointed, but it's not their child, not their decision.