Am I Wrong For Choosing The Baby’s Name Because I’m The One Carrying It?
I’m folding hand-me-down onesies on our couch, 20 weeks pregnant, left varicose vein throbbing from standing at the grocery store an hour earlier, when I think it again: would I be the bad guy if I just said I get final say on the baby’s name?
My partner and I got married two years ago, and we’ve always prided ourselves on being equal co-parents before the baby even got here. We agreed early on we’d both love every big decision, no hard feelings, compromise everywhere. But for three months, name picking has been the same quiet fight. He keeps adding Gary, after his late grandpa, to the top of the list. He says Gary was a kind, steady man who meant the world to his family, and I get that. But every time I say the name out loud, I can’t picture our kid—who already kicks my ribs at 2 a.m. every night—being Gary. It just doesn’t fit. I’ve shown him my top three: Wren, Elowen, Maeve. He shoots all of them down as too weird, too out of style, not “sensible enough” for a kid who has to grow up with it.
Last week I went to my 3-hour glucose test alone. He had a big work presentation he couldn’t miss, and I didn’t argue about it—it was a reasonable ask. I sat in that cold waiting room, drank that sickly sweet orange drink, got my finger pricked every hour, and by the end I was so hungry and my back hurt so bad I sat in my car in the clinic parking lot and ate a cold cheeseburger and cried a little. No one can split that part with me. He can rub my back at night, he can bring me saltine crackers when I’m nauseous, but he can’t take the daily discomfort, the constant low-level anxiety that something will go wrong that only I will feel first, the way my body has changed in ways that aren’t all pretty. All that is 100% mine.
I scroll through parenting groups sometimes, and every time someone asks this question, half the comments say you’re being unfair—it’s his baby too, all big decisions should be split evenly. The other half scream you carry it, you name it, no questions asked. I can’t tell which side is right. I talked to my sister, who had my nephew three years ago, and she put it in perspective for me. She caved on the name her husband wanted, even though she never liked it, because she didn’t want to start parenthood with a big fight. Now, three years later, she loves her kid more than anything, but every time she writes his name on a form, that tiny little twinge of regret is still there. It never broke their marriage, it’s not a huge drama, but it’s a small, unnecessary sore spot that could have been avoided if she’d just said what she needed early on.
What I’ve realized is that equal partnership doesn’t mean splitting every single decision 50/50, especially right now, when the load is already so uneven. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, either. I didn’t want to just storm off and say my way or the highway—that felt rude, and I do care that he feels connected to this baby too. So I came up with a specific compromise I felt good about, and I practiced what I wanted to say so I wouldn’t get emotional and start a fight over nothing.
When he pulled up the shared name list last night and Gary was still pinned to the top, I put down the striped onesie I was folding, turned to him, and said, “I get how much honoring your grandpa means to you. That matters to me too. I need final say on the first name, because this baby is growing inside me, and right now this feels like something I need to get right for myself. But we can 100% use Gary as the middle name. That way we both get to give him something that matters.”
He blinked at me for a minute, then leaned back on the couch and nodded. He said he’d been so focused on getting the name he wanted that he didn’t stop to think how much stress this was causing me. He said he knows he can’t carry the baby for me, so if this is what I need, it’s okay. We didn’t yell, we didn’t storm off. Our cat jumped on the laundry basket and knocked over a stack of burp cloths, and we both laughed while we picked them up.
For anyone else stuck in this spot, pulled between wanting to be fair and wanting to honor what your body is going through, this is what I’ve found works that no one really talks about. First, don’t frame it as “I get to win because I’m suffering” — frame it as a boundary and a trade. Offer something your partner cares about in exchange for getting what you need here. If you get final say on the name, let them pick the nursery paint color, or the stroller model, or which pediatrician you go with, whatever they care most about. It doesn’t have to be a big fight, it can just be a shift to match the uneven load you’re already carrying. Second, it’s okay if what you need doesn’t fit the perfect equal partnership mold people sell you. Uneven work means uneven decision-making sometimes. That’s not unfair, that’s just reality.
We still haven’t locked in the first name. He still thinks Wren is too weird, I still don’t love Maeve as much as I did a month ago. I still have days where I feel guilty for drawing a line here. I worry I’m setting a precedent for being uncooperative once the baby gets here. But then I wake up at 3 a.m. with heartburn, can’t roll over on my own, and I remember that I’m the one who will feel every contraction, who will be recovering from birth for weeks after the baby comes, who has carried every single bit of this so far. This isn’t about excluding him. It’s about asking for one small thing that feels mine, when almost everything else about this process already is. It’s still a work in progress, but right now, that feels like enough.
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