Guess what? I AM THE ONE NAMING THIS CHILD!! - Page 2

[Keeta]

I do ultimately think it will be up to the kids to decide what they like to be called - BUT I think that we as parents help set up their preferences in a big way! I have friends that have a son named Daniel - he is NOT Dan or Danny. His dad is Patrick, NOT Pat. I'm pretty sure they always just called him Daniel, and now it is his preference and he communicates that to others. I think if Zachary is always called Zachary by mom and dad, he'll probably come to prefer that form of his name, but there are no guarantees. Maybe he'll prefer his middle name and confound you all!

My aunt wanted to give her daughter a short name - Kate - and then there my cousin went introducing herself as Kate Elizabeth as soon as she was old enough to talk! She's Kate now, though, as an adult.

[tsume]

I can understand your frustration, but I would try to let it go. You have no control over your MIL's actions and thinking that she should act one way is only going to drive you insane.

You call him Zachary and when you introduce him to people call him Zachary. They'll take the hint to not call him Zach when you only call him Zachary (il's and family are a different story). Even the il's friend's will usually wind up calling him what the mother calls him (just from my experience).

With our first we were going to name him after his dad James Jeffrey. DH goes by his middle name and we were going to call the baby by the first name. FIL's given name is Jimmy. So when we told mil that we were going to name the baby II and he was going by the name James we started hearing Baby Jeff, Little Jimmy, etc and it drove me nuts. I told dh we're not naming this child after him (even though I'd like to) because I didn;t like the lack of identity for the baby.

We came up with a different name and it fits DS perfectly. Not saying you should change Zachary's name, but wanted to share my experience.

[BelgianSheepDog]

Oh man, reading this thread I am glad we resolved fairly early on to keep our baby's possible names (we have a boy and a girl name picked out, we just don't know which one it's going to be yet) to ourselves. I don't know why we decided to do it this way, we're first time parents so it's not like we have tons of experience to draw from, we just got a gut feeling that it should stay between us and we're very strict about it. We won't even tell our good friends or the midwives. I don't think I've even written them down anywhere! The names we have picked are very precious to us, but we foresee great controversy about them from the family. For one thing, his family expects him to name after either his grandfather (who had the frumpiest name ever, heh) or his great grandmother, but we're completely set against that, we want the kid to have his or her own name. So I'm glad we're getting to enjoy peace about this issue at least for a few months. Our families find plenty to be pains about as it is!

[gen_here]

Not in your DDC - just saw this on the new posts.

My ds is Robert. I don't like Robbie, Rob, had an AWFUL experience with a Bobby growing up. So we told everyone, he's Robert. Period.

He is named after my FIL and his father... FIL is Bob, growing up he was Bobby when his father was Bob.

Over this past year, we have taken to calling our son Bob-Bob... because "bah" was the first sound he started making. But we still introduce him as Robert and we will correct anyone who calls him any of the three nicknames that are out of the question. The only ones who call him Bob-Bob are my M&FIL - and that's fine with me because they didn't do it until we started - they respected our wishes.

I think the biggest issue with Zachary/Zach is that YOU don't want him called Zach and they won't respect that. It's not so much the name - it's the disregarding of your wishes. In that situation, I would dig in my heels and correct her everytime she called him Zach.

[Caroline248]

Originally Posted by Wolfcat

First of all, Lily and Jack... aren't they the characters in "Legend"?

Yes, that was unintentional, but I realized that when I was pregnant with Lilly and if she was a boy she would have been Jack.

YOu are the very first person in 18 months to say that!!

~C~

[ladybugamber]

I've talked to my MIL and finally just told her in the nicest way I knew how... that his name is Zachary and that is what I expect him to be called until HE chooses otherwise. I've read all of your comments and I wanted to thank everyone. You all brought up some really good points and I appreciate that very much!!

So far the name has been changed back to Zachary instead of Zach... and I've corrected EVERYONE on it since my "issue" with it. Everyone seems to understand... or at least they seem too... Which is probably good... because I'm now 7 months pregnant and just looking for someone to cuss out.

(Kidding... I'm getting better actually)