My sister-in-law wants me to change my son’s name - she wants to use it instead

“Oh, I've always loved that name … can you change it?”

Mia* and her partner, Joe*, recently had their first son, and for a while, they couldn’t figure out what to name him. 

It wasn’t until the day of his birth that they settled on Liam, a choice that she had always loved and dreamed of using. 

However, she didn’t realise that she’d be fighting tooth and nail just to stop others from taking it away. 

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Hallie wants Mia to change her son's name. Picture: iStock

“Oh, I've always loved that name!”

“I have always loved the name Liam for its sound and meaning,” the American woman explained on Reddit. 

Naturally, she was “over the moon when my partner finally agreed to one of the names on my list”. 

RELATED: ‘My sister-in-law is obsessed with stealing my children’s names for her own’

Shortly after welcoming Liam into the world, Mia and Joe’s families came to the hospital for a visit; they couldn’t wait to finally meet the little bundle of joy. 

The first to meet Liam was Joe’s sister, Hallie* and her husband, Kyle*, whose first question was the baby’s name. When she learned it was Liam, she was initially ecstatic. 

“Oh, I've always loved the name Liam,” she began. “But [Kyle] wouldn't let me use it for our first son!”

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Laughing it off, Mia’s smile started to sour as her sister-in-law kept talking about her newborn son’s name. “Could you change it?” Hallie asked, who has two children of her own, James, six, and William, four. “Maybe call him [his second name] as his first name? It sounds nicer.” 

Mia laughed it off and “immediately” turned down the idea; there was no way she would change her son’s name just because her sister-in-law happened to like it.

“I firmly said I loved the name too,” she said. “And while I empathise with her, we would not be changing his name, or the order of his names.”

Once Mia declined the idea of changing her son’s name, she and her partner thought that “was the end of it”, but they were wrong. A week later, when the family were back home and recovering, Mia’s SIL popped by for another visit. There, she brought up the topic once again. 

See, it turns out she wasn’t allowed to name her own son Liam, as her husband’s ex has a son with the same name. “I told [her] that shouldn't have stopped her from using the name she loved,” Mia replied. “Those boys do not know each other, do not go to the same school, don't have the same last name and basically live separate existences…”

Mia added that while she doesn’t want to change her own son’s name, she wasn’t planning to exclude her SIL from ever using it down the track. “It's common in my culture and tends to serve as a bond between the kids,” she said. 

While Mia’s partner is “happy” with the decision to keep the name for their son, he “didn't see 'the big deal' with his sister's request”, which has sent Mia into a spiral. “[This] made me think my postpartum brain was overreacting and missing something,” she confessed. 

RELATED: I want to name my baby behind my husband’s back, I’m the one who had the child

“She needs to leave it alone”

Online, people instantly sided with Mia and argued that her feelings weren’t out of order in the slightest. 

“You had every right to name your child Liam and to keep that name,” read a comment. “Hallie’s request is disrespectful and out of line. Her bringing it up once was bad enough but for her to keep harping on it? Yikes. She needs to leave it alone.”

Some believed the name should only belong to Mia, and Hallie’s husband’s apprehension should be respected. 

“You shouldn't encourage her to use Liam,” someone said. “Kyle’s position is reasonable. Hallie needs to let this name go.”

“Yeah, if Kyle doesn’t want that name because of his ex, then he’s not going to want that name for his next children either, so it’s not like Hallie was going to have a kid called Liam anyway,” another agreed. 

Others pointed out that Hallie had already inadvertently named her son a version of Liam, anyway. “Liam is the Irish Gaelic form of the name ‘William’,” a person noted. “She already has a son named William, and Liam is one of several common nicknames for William.”

*Names have been changed

Originally published as My sister-in-law wants me to change my son’s name - she wants to use it instead