My husband wants to name our baby after my childhood bully

"The name means something very special to him, but it's traumatic for me."

"When I was in high school, I was constantly bullied by a girl named Sophie," Jackie* begins her post in an advice forum. 

Sophie made fun of Jackie's appearance, personality, hobbies and grades, spread rumours about her and even told her she "wanted her to die."

Safe to say that Jackie was keen to put that part of her life behind her once she left primary school.

So when her husband, Nathan*, brought up the name Sophie during a potential baby name conversation, it sent shivers down her spine.

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Image: IStock

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"He said I wasn't trying to take his opinion into account"

"We don't know if our child is going to be male or female, so we started making a list of 10 male and 10 female names that we would consider," Jackie explained.

"One of the female names my husband was very insistent on was 'Sophie', the name of his dead grandmother who basically raised him since his parents were always busy with work."

Because of the negative connotations she has with that name, and the fact she was "tormented" by the girl, she told him she wouldn't even consider it.

Then Nathan became angry, as he really wanted to use the name of the person who meant so much to him.

But the OP remained firm, forcing him to try to compromise with her. "He told me that we should at least put it in the possible names, but I said absolutely not since I did not even want to consider it."

"He got really angry that I wasn't trying to take his opinion into account," she added, before asking the group, "Am I the a**hole for refusing to consider the name Sophie?"

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"You both have to agree"

Out of the 740 comments, it was clear most people sided with Jackie and thought that both parents needed to be on board with the name of the child. 

A top comment with 2.6k likes read: "NTA. This name obviously brings up memories for you of your school bully, so why would you want to name your child that, even as a middle name?

"I know personally when picking our children's names, there were names that were a hard 'no' for me for the exact same reason. Even though the names were lovely, they had been slightly tarnished because of people I knew at school who weren't very nice. My partner understood, and likewise, there were names I liked but my partner didn't. We accepted that and moved on, and decided together on wonderful names. Good luck, hope you can work it out."

Someone replied to that, saying, "Shame it's not as easy as that for everyone it seems... What kind of partner would still try and force a name after their partner says how they were tormented at school by someone by that name?! Just awful..."

Meanwhile, this person added: "His preferences simply don't come before hers. They both have to agree and they don't on this particular name. That should be the end of it."

Then one helpful user suggested other ways in which the couple could honour Grandma Sophie.

They said: "You could name her the gemstone or flower of the month she was born, something related to a hobby, profession or something else important to her, something related to a memory between your husband and her."

"You could also work with the same first letter," someone else added.

Hopefully Nathan can work with that!

Originally published as My husband wants to name our baby after my childhood bully