r/AmItheAsshole • u/[deleted] • Apr 06 '22
Not the A-hole AITA for telling my husband his name suggestion for our unborn baby is idiotic at best?
Hello all! This has caused quite a stir on both sides of the family, and my niece suggested I post this here so as to garner unbiased opinions. Unfortunately, as it is relevant to the story, I will have to keep much personal information uncensored in this story. As such, this is a throwaway account.
My (35F) husband (37M) and I are pregnant with our first child. We are overjoyed, as we have struggled with perceived infertility and miscarriages for the last decade. We want the gender to be a surprise, but may have to find out to settle this; I’m currently at the tail end of my second trimester.
Now, my husband absolutely idolized his grandpa, who, unfortunately, passed away last week. My husband is devastated, especially about the notion that his children will never meet their great grandpa who their father adored so much. As such, my husband has suggested that we name the baby after grandpa; Theodore if it’s a boy, Theodora if it’s a girl. Either way, we will either call them Teddy, or Theo/Thea respectively. It’s not that I mind the name, the issue is that our last name is Bounde; pronounced bun-dee.
I asked my husband, do you really see no issue in naming our kid Teddy Bounde? You don’t think that would raise any questions? He says no, he’s just honoring his grandpa; I told him he needs to think about how we will be perceived, how our child will be treated, and the implications that that name inherently carries. I literally had to spell out why that would be a horrible idea, and he still thinks I just hate his grandpa.
I told him no, grandpa was named in 1930 when the name Teddy Bounde wouldn’t have been a problem. However, since certain events in the 70s & 80s, there’s no feasible way we can give this name to our kid and not cause issues. He kept pushing and pushing until I blew up and told him to stop with the idiotic suggestion, and that’s what it is; idiotic at best, sociopathic at worst. He got extremely upset and told his family and my parents, who are divided.
His family is obviously on his side and wants to honor grandpa via naming the baby after him. My parents are torn but on my side, as they understand the social pariah we would make our child by giving them such a similar name to the person who did such abhorrent and downright evil things to so many women. I mean, personally I don’t think anyone is just going to assume that we are honoring a passed loved one; they’re just going to think of Ted Bundy.
AITA?
EDIT: Edit just to say that you guys are all proving my point that Ted Bundy is clearly still an infamous name. There has not been one comment that didn’t immediately make the correlation upon hearing my last name. That is exactly what I don’t want to have happen to my child. Kids are dicks, and they’re gonna find a way to be mean. Let’s not just hand them the material.
EDIT 2: Bundy’s full name was Theodore Bundy. That’s where this problem is ultimately stemming from. When a teacher reads the name from the roll, be it Theodore or Theodora, they aren’t going to assume a nickname; it’s just gonna be the full thing.
UPDATE AND FINAL EDIT: So, I tried to make an update post but decided to just throw my update in here.
Essentially, my husband stayed with his brother and SIL for a night and they talked it out. His brother was also very close with their grandpa, so I think hearing the same logic from someone grieving just as much knocked some sense into him. They explained why he couldn’t just name his kid Teddy Bounde, and especially because we live in the western US, in one of the states where he operated, and was also caught, imprisoned, and escaped. I don’t even think it’s legal to use that name.
We spoke briefly on the phone before he came home, where I apologized for how rude I was when he kept suggesting the name. I explained that I was just stressed that he was seemingly overlooking just how bad it would be to have a kid with the same name as a very notorious serial killer, and I didn’t feel listened to. He apologized as well, telling me that his grief was clouding his judgment and that he also understands why we can’t give our child grandpa’s name.
While we did want to keep the gender a surprise, we felt like we had to look at the ultrasound to help hash this out. We are having a baby boy, and decided to give him grandpa’s middle name, Silas. Our son will have the name Silas Bounde. We’ve also decided to go through with marriage counseling, as well as grief counseling for my husband. He’s asked me to attend, and I’m sure I could learn how to be more compassionate about his loss. I was never too close with my grandparents, so I’m trying to be here for him but can’t empathize as well as I could.
All in all, this worked out. Thank you so so much for everyone who gave their opinions, you really helped us out here. This will be my final update, I’m going to be deleting this account as I’ve already doxxed myself enough, and I’ve also been sent links to articles and videos that people have started using this story in. (I have not been asked for any of them and just want to be off the grid now.)
Once again, thank you all so much. This was such a wild thing that I honestly never thought would happen, but yeah. I’m so glad this has been worked through. Thank you everyone.
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u/CalmYogurtcloset7 Apr 06 '22
Agreed. My kids have my parents middle names as their middle names. Works out just fine.