Woman praised for rejecting her husband’s baby name suggestion

‘Girl, it is super simple. He gets to choose the name when he pushes out the baby,’ one blunt reader says

A soon-to-be mother is being applauded for standing her ground and refusing to use the name her husband suggested for their daughter.

In hopes she would find clarity on whether she was right or wrong for shooting down her partner’s request, the 36-year-old woman took to Reddit’s forum, Am I The A**hole, for advice.

The pregnant woman started by explaining she and her 38-year-old husband were expecting their first child soon – a girl. The two of them were stoked to find out their baby’s gender, but now, it has caused issues.

“See, when we first started talking about names, the ‘boy name’ was immediately decided: Stuart Jr, after my husband,” she admitted. “But, for a girl, things got murky.”

Though their first born wasn’t going to be a boy, the Redditor’s husband wanted to stick with their original choice but tweak it. His solution was to name their daughter “Stuarta.”

“No, you’re not having a stroke. Apparently, his logic is that since Stuart ends in ‘t,’ we can just add an ‘a’ to make it feminine,” the Reddit user admitted. “I tried explaining why that doesn’t quite work, how it sounds more like a furniture brand than a human name, how she’d be endlessly correcting people and explaining its origin.”

According to her husband, his moniker proposal was “unique” and honoured him. The Reddit user wasn’t pleased. She started offering alternative names, some that had the same “sound or meaning” as “Stuart.” Unfortunately, her husband wasn’t interested in any of them.

“Now, I love my husband dearly, and I understand wanting to honour family,” the original poster noted. “But I can’t imagine subjecting our daughter to a lifetime of awkward stares and endless questions about her ‘unusual’ name. I also worry about potential bullying and the impact it could have on her self-esteem.”

Lastly, the Redditor added how her husband has now suggested naming their daughter after him. “I think it’s terrible and will set her up for a lifetime of awkwardness,” she said.

Other Reddit users jumped on the opportunity to add their opinions and offer suggestions for how to help the original poster. Most people agreed that her daughter could not be named “Stuarta,” and she was therefore not in the wrong for refusing her husband.

“Naming a child is a two yes and one no situation. Means you need two times yes for a name to be it and one no to make sure that name is not the name you choose. Works both ways if you’d ask me,” one person commented. “Also, I am not a fan of naming the first name of a child after a parent.”

Another proclaimed: “Here’s the thing though. WTF should any child HAVE to be named after him in some way? I get the tradition thing but this is just weird behaviour.”

“This,” a harsh reader started. “So when she’s old enough to have to explain why she was named Stuarta, what else is there for her to say but, ‘My father has such a big ego, he insisted his first child be named after him, no matter the emotional damage it would cause a daughter.’”

“I’m guessing the kids will have his last name, too. So why does he also get to name their first names after himself?” a fourth questioned.

One viewer bluntly said: “Girl, it is super simple. He gets to choose the name when he pushes out the baby.”