Sorry I didn’t pay any attention to this thread yesterday. I was out sick.
Basically, Ellen Cherry has nailed on the head how I feel. There’s no way the parents of the deceased child are going to have a fit about this everytime they hear the name. They’re not those kind of people. But I have a feeling it will be upsetting, especially to the mother. Understandably, losing her baby and having a hysterectomy at the same time were extremely traumatic for her.
I guess I get tired of the “It’s our [fill in the blank], we’ll do what we want” with no regards to others’ feelings attitude that so many people seem to be taking these days. It if’s “just a name,” why couldn’t these new parents have chosen a different one?
Anyway, thank you to everyone for your replies. I can definitely see both sides, which is why I thought it might make a good topic for discussion here at the Dope.
The point is that it’s not “just a name.” Naming a child is a highly personal choice, and although your friends should be sensitive to the fact that someone they know lost a child of the same name, the “I’d like to name my child Emily” trumps “the dead baby’s name was Emily.” Perhaps Emily is a family name. Maybe the mother decided when she was a child that her first infant would be named Emily. Maybe they just looooove the name and despite trying to think of others, “Emily” stuck.
I don’t have kids, but I do have a name picked out if/when I do have kids. I picked that name when I was a kid myself, and have always planned on naming my first female child that name. If I had friends who had a negative connotation to that name, I’d feel bad about it, but I’d go ahead and name my kid the name I want. It goes both ways - if I didn’t name her that, I’d be forever looking at the kid and thinking “Her name should be <the name I want>” and feeling bad that she didn’t get the name cuz those people I knew way back when had a problem with it.
If one of my close friends lost a child I would never ever even consider naming a child the same name, especially so close to the event. I would be very upset about their loss, because my friends and I are close and I am close with their children. It would be like naming a child the same name as a close niece or nephew. I value my friendships more than any particular name.
If it was someone I was only aquaintances with, like a co-worker or friend of a friend, and I had my heart set on the name, I might consider it but I would do so knowing it could hurt the parents. I would weigh how often I come into contact with them and if they would ever interact with my child with how much I liked the name. So I guess my opinion would be based on how close they are. If the baby was born on Christmas and the other couple haven’t heard about it yet, maybe they aren’t particularly close.
I’m pretty sure they knew about it Christmas day just like we did. I just haven’t talked to the other couple this week. Between being sick and not wanting to call and bring it up (or tell them if they didn’t know) … well, I haven’t called.
It is certainly insensitive if they are close enough for the parents who lost a child to see their daughter on regular occations. It does not, in my mind, cross over to rude, and there may be good reasons for doing it, but I don’t see how anyone can be arguing it isn’t insensitive.
I just don’t get that — what if the name you’ve picked out clashes with your husband’s last name? What if your kid doesn’t look like a “____”? What if there’s a famous mass-murderer named “_____” right when your kid’s born?
I guess if your attachment to the name is so much stronger than your friendship, it probably wouldn’t be surprising that you’d go ahead and use it anyway. But you’d definitely be sending that message to those friends.
You might be surprised, too, once you become pregnant - your sensitivity to these issues may change drastically. Mine did, anyway; and I know of a lot of mommies whose perspective on all things child-related has been permanently altered.
It does. For years we’d intended to name a daughter Katherine. My brother in law married and divorced one Katherine we weren’t fond of, but our intention remained firm. When he married the second Katherine we couldn’t stand and we discovered ourselves pregnant thereafter, we discovered our attachment to the name was over.
Other names we threw away were perfectly good names of former lovers of both of us. As much as I believe the past is in the past, I don’t want to be reminded of my husband’s ex’s when talking to my kids. Nor does he want to be reminded of mine.
Most of the names I’d picked before I met my husband got thrown out in the husband filter. To give him credit, he didn’t make faces when saying no like I did when he said the names he’d carried around with him.
So despite the fact that both of us had lists of names going into our relationship, we spent three years trying to get pregnant and had two names picked out while trying (the first the female variation on what we named our son, so it wasn’t working for a girl since we already had named a child that) we were six months pregnant before we had settled on a name neither of us had considered before.
My boyfriend and I, even though it will be years before we settle down to have a family, already have names picked out, honoring people in our lives. If a close friend, and there are only a few, had a child and then lost it of that name, I would mention it, but most likely not change our plans. Further more, in some culture (Jewish being the one I best), it’s tradition to name a child after a generally deceased person who meant a lot to the family.
The attachment to the child will be much stronger than the attachment to the friendship. And if the friendship was really that close, I would expect my close friends to understand why I named my child what I was naming it, despite their dead child having the same name. People can talk about things, you know.
As far as will I change my mind about the name - doubtful. It’s not a name I picked out of a hat when I was 12 because I thought it sounded cool. It’s an old family name that has been reused many times within my family, it’s a normal name, so I’m not concerned about it “clashing” with a last name or becoming synonymous with a mass-murderer (did people quit naming kids “Tim” when Timothy McVeigh was doing his thing?)
On the face of things, I’ll have to agree with missbunny. If the two couples aren’t that close, then there shouldn’t be any problems, right? At the very least, doesn’t that give the excuse that thinking of the deceased child just never occurred to the couple with “Emily”?
Naming their offspring isn’t something that most people do lightly. Generally speaking, a lot of time, thought and discussion usually goes into it. Why do you doubt that your friends have thought about the problems of using Emily and resolved them to their own satisfaction? Maybe they simply don’t particularly care for the other couple and don’t see themselves being friends in the long term? It doesn’t seem uncommon for couples to be unable to agree on names at all and they often have a very short list of names they both don’t hate - perhaps Emily was all they could agree on?
I also recall one of my friends who was determined that her child should have a traditional Scottish name in honor of her roots, and after she found out that her baby was a girl she began calling her Eilidh (pron. something like A-lee in English I think). However, when the child was born and she saw her daughter for the first time, she realised that the girl could not be anything but a Sarah, and so that was the name she gave her. I know other people with similar stories. Maybe this “Emily” just looked so much like an Emily to her parents that they couldn’t imagine calling her anything else?
In short, I think you might be underestimating your friends. You need to hear their side of the story before you jump to the wild assumption that they were being insensitive just because they wanted their own way.
And I still don’t think it’s insenstive to give your child the name that you think will serve them best through their life.
cazzle, at least your Scottish friends didn’t name her M. Eilidh.
Much depends on just how close the couples were. If they were not close enough to ask about it, then I don’t really think they were very insensitive. If I were close enough to think twice about it, then I would certainly talk with the other couple first.
I just couldn’t do it without some understanding first, but I can’t judge the parents who did.
It’s not a matter of being “offended.” That’s something that you have some choice about. The parents of the child that died are deeply wounded. Having a little girl around that is the same age as their own – and with the same name – may keep that wound open for a long time. It depends of the people involved. You can’t just say to people that “this shouldn’t hurt you” and have it be so.
People can talk about things, sure. They should. But I wouldn’t “expect” my friends to understand why I picked their dead kid’s name.
(Obviously, if this was indeed previously discussed among the couples, that’s a whole other story–and I would love to hear the rest of this particular tale.)
Yes, naming a child is a big deal. And it is interesting to go through the process and then watch the child use the name. But you know what? When all is said and done, it is not the most important thing. We had a tough time agreeing on a name. (Our surname is very unusual.) The names we’d picked out didn’t seem to fit. We thought we were being so original when we did name our older son. Twenty-three years later, his name is in the top 5 most popular baby names. It’s really pretty funny.
I guess what I am getting at is that until you actually have the child, do not be too sure you’ve got the name, and all it encompasses, perfectly picked out.
Which is why I can’t understand why people think this isn’t insensitive. Justifiable maybe, but unless their has been prior agreement, it doesn’t seem like there is any way to get around insensitive.
Anyone close enough to know about your baby being born within a week of it being born is close enough to be hurt. I have a really good friend whose wife is pregnant right now and I don’t even know when the baby is due, but they are close enough to me that I wouldn’t be unfeeling about something like this.
My parents have friends that lost both of their children as teenagers. Although they continue to see them, twenty years after the fact they continue to be sensitive to the topic - they don’t talk about grandchildren around them or brag about the accomplishments of their children (normal conversation around others).
That’s true, and I think sometimes we forget it around here. But people also aren’t rational in matters like this- offended-ness and insensitivity may not go hand in hand.
