How do you feel about naming sons after their fathers?
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I like it but my husband is really against it and thinks it is boring.
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DH was named after his father who was named after a great uncle. I'm sure they'll probably want me to follow in tradition but we won't be.
Though I am willing to carry on the same initials.
For his family, it's tradition. Culturally for me, it's bad luck. When you name a child after someone else, everytime you scold that child or something negative happens, you don't want the namesake to be tarnished. So our culture avoids naming after someone.
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My husband is totally against it for his name. Our last name is Smith, and his name was super common for our generation. There were three guys with the same name (first and last) in our dorm building alone. But I like the idea for a name you really like. Just not in our case.
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I don't like it. I want to name our son, not my ILs. DH wouldn't mind though.
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DH and I would both name a boy after him / Junior.
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DH, his father, and grandfather all have the same first name but different middle names. We used the name for E's middle name, to honor the tradition. I don't really care for a full out Jr, but I'm on board with using part of the name.
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My DH, FIL and dad all have the same first name (and it's my brother's MN). I would not give that name to a son of ours, mostly because I wouldn't want to add to the constant confusion of 'which ____' but it would definitely be his MN.
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It's more of a tradition in our family to give the first born son the father's name as a middle name. I'm not usually a fan of giving him the same first name.
Every time I think about it, I think of a family I grew up with. Both the father and the son were named Richard but went by Dick. So if you called the house, they asked if you want big Dick or little Dick. True story.
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Not for a first name, but we would have used DH's name for a middle name. Unfortunately SIL used it on our nephew born in July
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My husband doesn't really like his name so he is against it! I would have been fine with it as a middle name.
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I think it's nice but we didn't really consider it. I would have been open to it if my husband wanted to. My son's name has the same first two and last two letters as my husband's name so they are not dissimilar!
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We were going to use husband's middle name until the last minute, but then I learned he doesn't really care for it, so I was like "why would we use it?!" That happened like 7 days ago! Baby was middle nameless until yesterday.
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Nope, don't like it!
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@MUI831: LOL!!
I'm glad you asked this b/c we kind of want to name our son after DH, but part of us wants him to have his own name! Still undecided.
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DH is a junior and he'd like to continue that and have a third. I'd rather not. I might change my mind if we decided to nickname him Trip or Trace.
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I'm not a fan of the same first name, personally. I like it when everyone has their own unique first name.
Actually, we used my DH's first name as half of my daughter's middle name.
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Not a fan. I also wouldn't name a daughter after myself.
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Not a fan. In my culture we don't name after the living, instead of to honor or remember someone who has passed.
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It's not my style.
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Not a fan.
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Just realized that I answered this about DH's first name, but forgot about his middle. It's a big thing in his family to pass on the middle name, so if we had a boy we would have to go with DH's middle name. Neither of us actually like it that much but it's really important to him because of his family. Though we'll probably never have a boy, so it's not likely to be an issue.
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I'm on the fence. OH is a junior, so if our LO turns out to be a boy, he may be a "the third" ("the third" and one other name are in the running). If that's the case, LO would go by his middle name (though I love OH's first name). If OH was not a junior, we would not consider LO having the same name as OH.
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Not a fan. I hate saying "First Name" and having both my FIL and BIL answer me.
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We will use my husband's middle name but I am not a huge fan of juniors plus my husband's whole name is extremely common.
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Not a fan.
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My brother and father are a junior/senior pair, and I think if my parents could do it over they would have given my brother his own name. It's not a huge deal or anything, but there were years when answering the telephone at our house was like re-enacting the "who's on first?" skit.
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@mrschickpea: I think that is nuts. My SIL did something like this - DH's middle name is from his father and grandfather and he wanted to use it for our son, but yeah, same thing happened here. Our ILs thought we should use it as part of DS's name anyways...uh, no thanks.
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I really don't like using the father's name as a first name. I believe that kids should have their own name/identity in their families, and not be given someone else's name. I especially hate the idea of calling a kid "Junior". It's like there's nothing to their identity except being their father's son, plus the name is completely juvenile.
I would've been ok with using DH's first name as a middle name for DS, but he shot it down. I would not have used DH's middle name in any way, because it's my dad's name, so I would have appeared we were naming the baby after my dad, which probably would've caused some resentment with DH's family.
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It's somewhat traditional in my family to name sons after their fathers. My dad and grandfather share the same first but not middle name. They both have two different nicknames so it's not confusing. LOs first name will be named after DHs father and brother, which coincidentally is also MILs maiden name. All three will have different nicknames. Middle name is after DH.
I am a fan of having a family association with your name. Whether it's specifically a junior or not. I personally think it's more meaningful than just choosing a random name.
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Not a fan. Sons have their father's surnames for life; therefore I don't see why they need their father's first and middle name too. Children should get their own unique names since they are unique themselves. Mother's of children should be able to pick names for their own children. Of course, if the parents are all for the junior/ third/ fourth/fifth great, but in general those are my three reasons why I don't like it.
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Not a fan. DH is a II and hates it.
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I'm sort of meh about it, but my husband thinks it's hilariously narcissistic, so I guess we won't be doing it.
Eta: it also kind of annoys me that this is such a paternalistic practice. Like, can you imagine a woman naming a daughter after herself? I'm sure it happens, but I don't personally know of any mother/daughter name pairs.
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@wonderstruck: I know! It isn't tradition or anything but I was a little miffed! I can't really blame her though, it's her dads name as well
It's very common too (James) and everyone thinks we should use it anyways. Ehhh, don't really want them both to have the. Same middle name if we have a boy or even girl as I don't mind using it on a little lady!
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I really don't like it. I think a nod to a family member as a middle name is nice, but don't love the juniors, IIs, IIIs, etc. Don't flame me for this, because it's solely my opinion, but I find naming your own kid your exact full name, a little egocentric.
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I don't like it. I am glad my husband has no desire for it either. I just don't understand the appeal. But I can understand if it has been a long standing tradition for generations for it to be harder to break that. I think middle names are great for family names though.
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@meredithNYC: mother-daughter "juniors" are very common in some Hispanic cultures. One of my coworkers (Peruvian) is the third or fourth of her name and she upset her family by not naming her first born after her. Another former co-worker (Cuban) passed on her name to her daughter and they called her "Little Name."
ETA: Carolina Herrera has a junior; they are Venezuelan.
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I'm not that into it, mostly because there are so many names I like so much better than DH's. I think I'd feel resentful if I were expected to give up the opportunity to choose a name for my child just because of tradition.
I do have the same first name as my mother (and several generations before her). We all have different nicknames, so there's rarely confusion. Honestly, it's been very convenient to be able to impersonate one another over the years.
Still, I will not be passing on the name, as again, there are so many other names I like better.
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My brother named is son the same exact name. We all call him Junior, which I have a feeling he's going to hate once he gets older, and I'm not a fan of calling someone completely different from their actual name.
My DH's middle name is a family name, and we used it for my LO's middle name also for tradition.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: interesting! Glad it's not a strictly father-son deal, after all, even if it mostly is in the US.
It's very common too (James) and everyone thinks we should use it anyways. Ehhh, don't really want them both to have the. Same middle name if we have a boy or even girl as I don't mind using it on a little lady!
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80 comments