Original story
My family traditionally passes down family names as first names. I was named after two grandmothers (both had the same first name).
My brother is named after an uncle and my sister is named after a cousin who died in infancy. My mom is named after her great grandmother.
Her siblings were named after different aunts/uncles/grandparents. My grandma was named after a sibling of hers who died in infancy and her living siblings were named after other family members.
I have cousins named after family members, my mom has cousins named the same way. The relatives do not need to be dead to be considered.
But if we have a recently deceased family member it’s considered the correct thing to use those names.
I always went by my middle name. I like it far better (it was a name my dad wanted me to have) and nobody else in the family has it which is a bonus for me.
And because of this I always wanted to break the tradition, something my husband is eternally grateful for, because his style of names, like mine, are not like my family’s style of names.
We had boy/girl twins two weeks ago and we chose to name them names we loved vs family names. Our daughter is Piper and our son is Robin.
We chose not to give them family names as middle names and went with names we felt worked for them but that we also loved as well.
My family were upset and especially because the last of my great uncles died recently and it was expected my son would be Gerald after him. My daughter was expected to be Jennifer or Patricia after my aunts who have the least number of kids named after them.
I had told my family ahead of time we were not going to follow the tradition but clearly they didn’t believe me because we got a lot of negative comments from my side about disrespecting my family and breaking their hearts with the snub toward my great uncle. I told them the twins are our children and others could choose to continue the tradition.
My dad was the only person not upset. He told me he was glad I did what I wanted.
He also knows I prefer to use my middle name instead of my first name. He was forced into continuing the tradition from mom’s family with all of us so his support means a lot (he could back up my mom for the sake of it).
Some of my family have made some pretty hurtful comments and I have taken some space. But it also makes me feel guilty that they’re so angry and hurt at my decision.
AITA?