Some couples have baby names picked out before buying the first pregnancy test, and others are still debating at the hospital as they hold their new little one for the first time.

A name is a deeply personal and meaningful decision. This name will be one of the most frequently spoken words in your household, and it will be one of the first shapers of your child’s identity to the world.

So, what do you do if your family hates it?

When Grandparents Try To Intervene

People have really strong feelings about names. Some folks like them creative, others prefer traditional. Some stick with Biblical names, and others prefer to pick names from nature. And, bizarrely, some folks seem to feel that they should enforce their own preferences on others.

One mom says that her in-laws took this to an extreme level, and now she’s now sure how to endure the holidays with them.

It seems she married into a family that has carried out a naming tradition, passing down a grandparent’s name over generations. She and her husband have opted out, and the inlaws aren’t happy. People reports:

“They spent weeks trying to convince us to change it and my husband shielded me from hearing most of it, but I was still aware he was experiencing their attempts on a pretty much daily basis,” she writes. “He ended up blocking them from our phones for a temporary period. He calmed down and told them they were not to bring it up again and he was not going to tolerate them pressuring me.”

Now the in-laws want this couple to host holiday dinners, and the anonymous mom is concerned that they’ll spend the visit behaving as they did the first time they met the baby: trying to guilt the new parents for rejecting the chosen name.

Name-Choosing Discord Has Caused Rifts In Other Families

Skim any advice or venting forum used by parents, and you’ll see the stories. On the BabyBumps subreddit, for instance, a pregnant woman shared:

“I’m 27 weeks pregnant and I was having a really lighthearted, sweet conversation on the phone with my dad last night. I mentioned that we have a new name we like for the baby and then told him the name. He immediately, viscerally reacted negatively saying ‘Oh god, that’s awful!’ And then I replied ‘Dad! We like it..’ and he went on in the similar shocked and upset voice ‘That’s a terrible name, I’m sorry.’”

(The name was Bennet, by the way, with Ben for short.)

On Mumsnet, another mom shared that while she was still stuck in the hospital with complications after birth, her own mother picked a fight over the baby’s name, leaving her worried that she’d associate her baby’s name with her mother’s negativity. She wrote:

“I am really upset because we spent ages choosing the name and this is our first baby. Clearly we wouldn’t have picked it if it wasn’t our favourite. I am worried that now whenever I use/hear our daughter’s name I will have these negative associations. I am also annoyed that she thought it was an appropriate thing to say and I feel like it has ruined our relationship.”

(She didn’t share the name but said it was a two-syllable name on the Top 100 list so “nothing weird.”)

And, on The Bump forum, a woman said that when she told her parents the name she’d picked for her baby, they reacted strongly, because the name happens to be shared by a great-uncle who her dad had a disagreement with decades before. She said:

“I just feel like the wind has been let out of my sails. We don’t want to change the name, but I have absolutely no excitement at all for sharing it with our family and friends.”

She says she’s not talking to her mom, as of the time of the post.

Why Is Baby Naming So Fraught?

Obviously, names have a great deal of meaning to the people who pick them.

However, the folks outside that decision seem to think their input is valuable too. Mamamia reports that one survey found only 31% of grandparents don’t believe they have a right to weigh in on the name their grandchild receives, 20% actively hate the name given to their grandchild, and 6% have experienced a “falling-out” over it, in some cases ending the relationship!

They shared the story of one mom whose father still refuses to call his one-year-old granddaughter by her given name, choosing to call her by her middle name or his own remix of middle and first name instead.

From the point of view of grandparents, the current generation’s naming preferences may be inviting bullying, or falling outside of propriety — the New York Times cited grandparents who associated a certain name with antisemitism (it’s not the one you’re thinking of — it was Ivan); who thought it was improper to use a word backwards (Nevaeh) or name a child for where they were conceived; or thought that a certain name (Isaiah) would be more susceptible to bigoted attacks.

They quoted one grandma who described this as “like showing up at the country club with blue hair and tattoos.”

So, What Can Parents Do When Family Members Won’t Back Down?

Ideally, we hope that once that sweet baby is in their arms, grandma won’t be able to resist him and will give up the fight.

In the meantime, parents have a few decisions to make.

First, evaluate the arguments rationally and determine if there’s any merit. Is it possible the name you’ve picked really will do harm to your child? Seek outside opinions if you can’t consider this neutrally.

Then, you’ll have to decide whether this is a place for compromise or standing firm. If you give baby a different name than you preferred because Grandpa said so, are you going to resent him forever? If you stick with the name you’ve chosen, will there be more fights? Is it okay if he calls her by a middle name or nickname?

Finally, set the necessary boundary. Let your parents or in-laws know what will and won’t be allowed. That may mean no more arguing with you over the name, or may be a limit on the nicknames allowed, or may be a firm rule that baby will be called by her name.

Whatever you choose, set a limit both parents can stand firm on, with consequences both can agree with. This may mean changing the subject or ending the conversation, or it may mean walking away and ending the visit.

Communicate it to the relevant family members, and stick with it.