Parenting

Moms, Not Dads, Should Have the Final Say on Baby Names

ParentingPublished May 8, 2012
By Mary Hawkins
baby

When it comes to giving your baby the perfect name, you really just can't afford to screw up. I mean, your poor kid is going to be stuck with whatever moniker you pick out for the rest of his life, so you'd better do your research and think long and hard before putting anything down on that birth certificate. (No pressure.)

Of course, when it comes down to making the decision, moms have way more say than dads do on choosing the final name. Or at least we should. Yeah, yeah, yeah -- I know things are supposed to be all happy and equal and you're supposed to compromise when it comes to making parenting decisions. But baby names? Yeah, the moms definitely win that war hands down.

My husband and I had a pretty hard time picking out our son's name. I offered up quite a few suggestions that he immediately shot down, so when we finally did come to a consensus and found a name we both liked, we stuck with it -- and luckily it suits our 6-year-old perfectly. And while we had his first name picked out by the time I was about 4 months pregnant, we did go back and forth a bit with what his middle name would be.

You see, in my husband's family, most of the males are given one of two middle names. I won't lie -- I wasn't particularly fond of either of those names, plus neither one really seemed to fit with the first name we had chosen. Oh yeah, and then there was the part of me that knew there was no chance in hell that our son would have any other middle name than the one I'd already settled on in my head -- my dad's first name. Lucky for me, I really didn't have to fight my hubby too hard on this one, but I totally would've duked it out with him if he'd resisted me in the slightest.

After all, I was the one who had to endure 9 months of pregnancy (which included unbearable heartburn, a 50 pound weight gain, and hemorrhoids), so it only seemed fitting for me to get my way when it came to naming our son. Moms carry the babies, so moms should have the final say on what the babies are going to be called -- period. Oh, and another thing, in most cases, the baby automatically takes the father's last name, so it's not like they have any room to complain. They get a piece of the pie regardless of what that child is called. And actually, if you look at it that way, and the mom gives the baby his first name and the dad gives him the last name, everything works out to be 50/50 anyway, right?

Did you come up with your baby's name, or did you let his father make the final decision?

Image via Seattleeye/Flickr

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