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Names can arouse highly emotional responses which can be hard to cope with. Hard, not impossible. If she believes that she is incapable of loving her own niece because of her name, then I think she'd find herself mistaken if she ever had a Claire niece!

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My own one-and-only niece is Laine. Just Laine, no Elaine (though she's named after one), no mn, no nothing. And I really do not like it as a name; but loving the owner of it is easy! And since you'd only use it as a mn, I can't see the point of having tantrums about it.

Of course not! How old is your sister? I'm guessing she's young by the dramatic reaction...? She'll probably get over it by the time you would ever consider using it. For right now, I'd just keep a lid on it until she feels more secure in the relationship. :)

And I thought MY sister was controlling. No, you're not being unreasonable.

No I think she is. I wouldn't mind if my brother and his wife had a daughter named Laura for example or even if they had a son with the same name as one of my exs.

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I did know a girl who her father insisted on calling Suzanne. He two serious ex-girlfriends were called Suzanne. It was a way of humiliating his wife - that's the kind he was from what I could gather. She didn't go by Suzanne in the end though - she went by a nn for her second name Elizabeth.

No, she is being unreasonable. Has she even met the ex-girlfriend? Does she give any specific reason for hating her? Even if she does hate her, I say you are free to name your future children whatever you want. She can't tell you what to do. Besides, people rarely go by their middle names, and they are never mentioned unless someone asks. The odds of your daughter actually being called Claire are practically zilch, so tell your sister to chill out.

I think she's being petty. It should be that once your child is born you would help bring a good association to the name and over time it wouldn't bother her so much. And saying it would make her mad, is very different from using the manipulative "you don't love me if you do that".

Okay seriously you have every right to choose whatever name you want for your child. This is so silly. However that being said depending how close you are to her perhaps you may want her to have a postive association with your child and you will just elect not use the name. My aunt was given three vetos for names when her grandchildren were born.

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This is why many people do not share their baby names because suddenly you are influenced by others when it really is your choice. Once you share the name before the baby is born people will give their opinions. If they hear the name after the baby is born there is not much they can say about it to the parents and better keep quiet for this innocent childs sake.

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You sister sounds a little bit immature and you know what she may not even be with this guy in the future. Eventually the name Claire may never even bother her.

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However this all being said. I think you might want to consider if you want to share baby names at all with her in the future since she seems to think she has a real say and is using emotional manipulating tactics like "you don't love me".

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Personally use whatever name you want to.

I think you should use it anyway. Your sister is being a little silly in this. It's only a mn anyway. I don't see why you can't use it.

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:)

I think your sis is just being kinda immature and selfish. Plus, if it's her mn, unless you specifically decide she should go by her mn instead of fn, it's not like she'll be hearing it all the time. To top that off, if this is her BOYFRIEND's ex-gf's name rather than her HUSBAND's or even FIANCE's ex-girlfriend, there's not necessarily a guarantee that she'll marry this guy and for all she knows, by the time you're having this imaginary daughter #6 that you're not even expecting to have at this time, she may have broken up w/ this bf and become the best of friends w/ Claire... just to put things in perspective.
I'm rather neutral on Claire and find it overused right now, but ok... and it flows well as a mn w/ many other names.
The attitude she's displaying is what I refer to as adolescent melodrama... 'cept some teens are a bit more mature than that.

This message was edited 5/29/2010, 3:28 AM

Your sister's being petty. Did she have a bad run-in with her boyfriend's ex or something? If you like a name, you like it. Besides, you only said you might use Claire, not that you absolutely would.

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Claire is pretty classy, BTW.

Hmmm, that's a tough one. One the one hand, it sucks to be told that you shouldn't use a name you love. On the other hand, I can understand a family member cringing at a name that has very bad personal associations with it.

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This reminds of something in my own family. I have four half-siblings through my father, all of whom I despise. Just thinking of them makes me feel sick. Just hearing their names makes me feel sick. The name of the youngest is Suzanne. When my sister was pregnant with her first child, she told me that she really liked Susannah, but she was hesitating because it is so close to the name of our half-sister. I told her that I would really prefer she not use it, because hearing it would always make me think of someone I despise.

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In the end, she didn't use it, but I don't think it was because of what I said.

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Funny, because in the abstract I can say that I like Susannah, as I did just below, but in real life, I wouldn't want to hear it a lot, and wouldn't want a family member to have the name, because of that bad association.

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But I can see how it would be annoying to be told you "can't" use a name because it's a bad reminder to someone else. I didn't make as big a deal about it to my sister as your sister did to you, didn't say she wouldn't love me and didn't try to make her swear that she wouldn't. I just said calmly that I'd prefer she didn't. Yeah, it's a tough one.