A new mom was left horrified when her husband’s family offered her money to change her baby boy’s name as they wanted to give him a certain moniker.
Taking to Reddit, the 25-year-old said that she and her husband were both ‘overjoyed at being parents’ even though her in-laws did not approve of what they had named their child.
“My in-laws have a tradition of giving the first-born son of every generation the same name,” she wrote.
The mom continued: “Let’s say it’s ‘Peter’. This has been going on for about seven generations already, and they’re very serious about it.”
Her husband’s eldest cousin was the latest person to be named Peter.
Because their baby is the first son of his generation, her in-laws insist that he should also get the name.
“I have no problem with the name Peter, and would’ve been okay with naming my son that. Unfortunately, that was also the name of my uncle, who died before I was born,” she explained.
“I won’t get into details, but it was tragic and traumatizing for my family. My father never got over losing his younger brother,” the mom continued.
She said that her grandmother had asked her grandchildren not to name any of their future children Peter while she is still alive because of the trauma, and the new mom told her in-laws about that ‘promise.’
“However, my grandmother sadly passed away when I was seven months pregnant. We traveled for her funeral. On our last days there, my in-laws called to offer me their condolences. Then my mother-in-law asked me if I was willing to ‘think about the name Peter now,’” she went on.
Her in-laws also said that they only ‘agreed to make an exception’ because of the woman’s grandmother but added that they had ‘no obligation to keep it now that she had passed.’
People on Reddit were baffled by the family’s tradition, with one person writing: “Just because they named their kids a name they didn’t like to keep up a tradition, doesn’t mean you have to. He is your son, you guys name him whatever you want.”
Another wrote: “Family name traditions are weird and you can do whatever you want and name your baby whatever you want. Keep pushing the ‘I’m honoring my late grandmother’s final wishes’ hard so they see how unhinged they sound asking you to flout that.”
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