Sister and brother at war when bro 'steals' sis's daughter's name for his baby. AITA?
When this mom is annoyed with her brother, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for still being mad that my brother stole my daughter’s name for his own child?'
A year ago my brother and his wife announced that they were having a baby and after they found out the gender they let everyone know they had picked a name, but were not going to announce it until the baby girl was born. At one point they told someone a fake name so all our relatives would stop guessing, and when their little girl was born they told us her real name. I’m not giving the real name but let’s say it was “Emily.”
The problem was, I already had a daughter that was a year old at this time whose name was very similar, basically “Emma-Leigh.” The names were so close they sound the same when speaking them unless you are listening for specific emphasis. Like Zara and Sarah, or Stephen and Stefán.
It’s not like I called “dibs” or wanted to use the name in the future. My daughter was already named! My wife and I were a bit shocked and thought they had said the literal same name as our own little girl, just with a different middle name. My brother corrected us and said “it’s different, Emily is spelled completely different from Emma-Leigh.”
It didn’t seem like the time or place to argue semantics, It being the day of the little girl’s birth, so we didn’t press the issue. Besides, we could see that the birth certificate was already completed and submitted so it would be hard to change her name even if they wanted to. Several other extended family members expressed the same confusion over how close the two names were.
A few days later we had a conversation addressing the “name problem.” We suggested, so the little girls would not be confused and so they could each have their own distinct names, that “Emily” could go by her middle name, or a nickname. “Emma-Leigh” already knew her name and it would be more difficult for her to adjust to being called something different, and besides, she’s got a years worth of precedence.
My brother gives a noncommittal agreement and says they could figure out some way to differentiate the two names. We move on.Apparently the best way he thought to achieve this was to call my daughter “the other Emily” which we do not agree with at all. The problem is he and his family see our parents more often because they live significantly closer, so now my daughter, the original one with the name, is called “the other Emily” by my family.
It had gotten to the point where I try not to let the two little girls spend time with each other so my daughter doesn’t get called by the wrong name. We refuse to call our daughter by anything other than her name and have the “but she had the name first, she’s not the other anything!” conversation a couple of times.
I love my niece, I just hate the way she is named the same as my daughter. It ruins every family get together, and I am told to stop bringing it up.I can’t make them change her name, but I won’t let them bump my daughter out of her name either! AITA?
Let's find out.
mm1772 writes:
YTA. Maybe it’s just my accent, but none of your examples sound as indistinguishable as you’re trying to present them as. But even if they’d named the kid Emma-Leigh, that’s the kid’s name. You don’t get to call a big family meeting and pressure them into changing it when they’ve made it clear this is what they want.
Either you can call your kid something else if you need her to be special that badly, or you can realize this is probably not the last time in her life she’s going to encounter people with her name she needs to interact with on a regular basis and just figure out how to deal without inconveniencing anyone else.
mermaidtoo writes:
NTA. Start referring to your niece as Emily2. If you hear anyone refer to your daughter as the Other Emily, correct them and point out that she’s the original and the other is Emily2. Next holiday, get them joke tshirts and other stuff with Emily followed by “established date of birth.” And Emily2 followed by “established date of birth.”
blooddiamond8 writes:
YTA. You kept harping and pushing over a non issue. And this happened. I have cousins who have the exact same name, and most often from the context, we always understand who is being referred to. Only when there is a small confusion, is a longer name used and then we move on.