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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2024-11-18 06:11:02+00:00.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is Ok-Risk-4415. She posted in r/AITAH

Thanks to u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for the rec.

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. Latest update is over 7 days old.

Mood Spoiler: tentatively happy ending

Original Post: November 8, 2024

Me (21F) and my boyfriend, let's call him Alex(23M) have been dating for about three years now. We've recently began talking about marriage and kids, something we both eventually want to have.

The other day a reel popped up on my fyp of cute boy names and I saw the name Everett. I thought it was a adorable and jokingly told him how it has to be our firstborns name. He laughed and said he liked it but it'll have to wait for the second kid. I was confused and asked him why.

He told me that his family has a tradition that every firstborn boy in the family has the same name. His oldest brother has it, his uncle has it, his grandfather has it and so on. For the sake of privacy and how oddly unique the name is, I'm not going to say it.

I'm not judging in the slightest, but this is a weird name and it's honestly not my favorite. I would never say that to any of his family members, but I did tell Alex I'm not a huge fan of it.

I told him I don't really want to follow those footsteps and he got upset and told me he can't be the one to break the tradition. He told me I was being an asshole for suggesting anything else. I told him I won't change my mind and we should make it a middle name or find another compromise.

Alex has five siblings. The tradition will continue if he doesn't do it. And frankly, I think I should get a say in what I name my kid. I told him since I'm the one carrying the hypothetical child for nine months and it would already be getting Alex's last name, I should have some say in the first name.

For context, I have two siblings, both girls. I'm the youngest and my eldest sisters are both married and took their husbands last names. It makes me a little sad that when I marry Alex, my last name will go out of existence. I've talked to him about hyphenating ours, something he doesn't want to do.

But anyways, I really don't want to name our first born son, if we ever even have a boy, that name. He thinks I'm "whining for no reason" since we don't even have a kid yet and I'm not pregnant, but I think my concerns are valid. I've told some friends about it and most of them think I'm overreacting over something that doesn't even exist yet. So am I the asshole for telling my boyfriend I don't want to follow his families tradition?

Some of OOP's Comments:

Commenter: Great conversation to have before marriage and kids. You get to decide if this is a deal breaker for you. What other subjects does he believe you have no say in?

OOP: (downvoted) The thing is, we get along great. We've had minor disagreements, but never argued over anything this big until now. For all the people saying break up, he's really a great guy. He thinks my last name is weird, which to be quite honest, it is lol. It doesn't make me any less sad about eventually losing it. This is our first big argument and I think it's why I'm at such a loss.

Commenter: And not even his own name, his big brother's name. Is every kid meant to name their first son that name? All the cousins are Gustavo or whatever?

OOP: All oldest sons are supposed to have it. His dad wasn't the oldest son. So yes, a bunch of his nephews will all hold the same name at some point.

Commenter (in reply to previous commenter listed above): That’s what I wondered, too. I feel like he doesn’t even understand his own tradition. I think it’s just one per generation, not every first born to every sibling.

OOP: That's what I thought too until I met him. It's not a culture thing, I've politely asked. If it was I'd be a lot more understanding. It's just an odd tradition.

Commenter: My question is if all his siblings follow this "tradition" won't there be like 4-5 kids with the same name in the same family within the same age range? That would already have me saying no. Can you imagine going to a family get-together and trying to call for your son and his 4 other cousins also come running because they have the same name? No thank you. NTA

OOP: Yes, there would. And I've pointed that out and he's admitted to me that sometimes it was annoying on family camping trips when he'd yell his cousins name and three others would turn around. Which confuses me because why would he want to continue that?

Answers to various questions:

We've talked about at least two kids close in age later in life. Right now we live pretty close to his family. My family lives on the other side of the country. I've expressed moving closer to my family when I finish nursing school, something he hasn't expressed disinterest in. His family is very religious while I'm not. Alex isn't really either, and he's moved away as it as he's gotten older.

Commenter: It's a tradition in your (and most) family that the kids have a unique name chosen by their parents lol why would his tradition be more important? Why would he unilaterally choose a name?

Also, if you want you can keep your last name

OOP: (downvoted) I know that, but he finds the idea of me eventually taking his romantic and I do too. It's complicated and maybe I do sound like I'm whining for no reason, lol. I like his last name plenty, it's just the idea of mine twinkling out of existence makes me a little sad. And if none of my kids could take it, it wouldn't matter that I kept it. It would still be gone one day.

Commenter: The issue isnt the name; the issue is your bf's attitude toward you having ideas that differ from his: he dismisses your wants, and puts his family's tradition ahead of you. To him, its not even a discussion.

That's actually a little scary.

You give 2 examples of him being inflexible (your last name and a baby name); I'll bet you can think of other incidents that fit this pattern, too.

This is a glimpse into your future. Are you sure you want the rest of your life to look like this?

OOP: We don't argue really at all, but we've had one big argument in our relationship and he's already ignoring me too. He's been sleeping in the guest room and won't talk to me when I try to sit down. An hour before I posted this, he texted me saying he needed space and that was it. I don't want to lose him and I didn't know where else to go so I came here. I just want to thank you all for your comments and support. I didn't know I could get this much advice and I'm beyond grateful for it. It's given me a lot to think about.

Mini Update in Comments: 14 hours later

I have no idea how to make an update, but I feel like I owe it to you all to make one when the time comes so please let me know how lol. As of right now, I just texted him and told him that when he gets home from work we need to have a serious conversation and I have some important things to tell him. Not totally sure what those are yet, but I'm going to find a way to start the convo.

Update Post: November 10, 2024 (2 days from OG post)

So, we talked.

I pulled him aside after he finished work and we sat down and had a long conversation. I told him that I felt hurt that he doesn't seem to be caring about my feelings and I never intended for a joke about tiktok names to turn into all of this.

I took your guys' advice and was really honest with telling him how I was really sad by the fact that I would lose my last name when we did eventually get married. At first he seemed confused and said if it really mattered hat much to me, I could just keep my last name and our kids could have his. I told him it seemed counter-productive to keep my last name because one day I'd still die and so would the name. He asked me what I wanted to do about it and we ended up compromising that our first son would have a shortened version of the traditional name that runs in his family. Not a nickname, but we would literally just shorten the name and that would be his. And along with that when we eventually do get married, we'll hyphenate last names.

I will admit Reddit got me a little in my head and had me thinking we would break up over this, so I was pretty emotional during this conversation lol.

I know this isn't the super exciting update you guys wanted. I also showed him the post and he read some of the comments. This is a direct quote from him, something he wanted me to tell you guys, "Thank you for helping (my name) while I was being a dick."

I don't really think he was being a dick now that I've seen his side, but he's also worried he has people after him now lol. He really is a sweet guy and this wasn't anything to break up over. When we talked he expressed that he was hurt because as much as the tradition seemed silly, it was something he had always been...

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