Passing down family name

I agree with some of the comments about family trees. Some of my ancestors had the same first name for several generations which makes it vey confusing when trying to work out which is which! But that tradiation was broken a couple of generations ago, and the name retained as a second name for some members of the family.
Also as someone mentioned, a member of my DHs family died aged 3 and a second son was given exactly the same name which caused me a lot of confusion when trying to trace ancestors as the dates given on censuses and birth certificates just didnt tally. We would never do that these days!
And the family name I mentioned was indeed a mother's surname some generations back.

Not seen any responses from NewGM yet. I hope OP's at least acknowledge or thank gransnetters for their advice even if they dodn't like it.

Being a NewGM I think her post will help her an others understand their role as Grandparents.

I have read people's responses and although I agree you will both have to accept the name(s) they chose, I think it's a little harsh to say 'get over it'! I can quite understand that your DH is hurt, when it's been a family tradition for so long and which he fully expected to be continued. But I'm afraid he will have to grin and bear it as the last thing you want is a family rift over this. I'm sure that in time you'll get used to the name chosen, ans we have with our grandchildren some of whom have names we wouldn't have chosen!
However, in my DHs family there's been a tradition of a family name as second name for several generations and our eldest son's first son also has that name, which we were pleased about. But we wouldn't have commented if he hadn't!

It's hurtful, but it's def their choice, and no worth falling out over.

This should so be the choice of the parents in my opinion. I inherited a name and didn't like it though I couldn't care less now. I certainly wasn't going to pass it on to my daughter. Son got his middle name as a sort of tribute to his grandfather rather than passed on from his father. Nice name fortunately. But when he and his wife proposed using her surname, which she wasn't changing, as their first born's surname on his birth certificate there was huge disapproval and my son caved in. Pity as her surname is much nicer than ours but it would have meant the family name dying out as his was the only male line and older relations were horrified. They compromised by using her surname as one of the children's 'given names'.
We had enough trouble in our house from having three of the six of us with the same initial.

Mercifully there has been no discernible passing down of first names on either side of my family, or DW's, though some have recently been chosen as second names, freely chosen by the parents, not by GPs, who have been duly flattered.

Ancestry .com would probably have imploded if I had been coping with a tradition of one eldest son's name to accompany one of the commonest surnames in the UK.

A baby's name is totally down to the parents. It is absolutely their right to choose.
There were vast generations of Williams in my husbands family, and I was given no choice but to call our eldest son William... very much against the grain though.
But, son William and his wife rebelled when they had their son... he has it as his second name, which in my opinion is perfectly acceptable.
Just enjoy the new baby whatever his name.

Someone I worked with many years ago had to call her firstborn son Selwyn as it was a family name, all I could think of was the sit-com 'Oh no! It's Selwyn Froggat!' Luckily she and husband got to chose the second name and I think the child was known as that.

A good friend's mother disliked the name they chose for their first born son so much she refused to use it to begin with!

Its quite normal to have a mothers maiden name as a second name here and a grandmothers .My late dad had both with was great when we came to do his family tree after he died as he didn't know anything about his family as his mother died when he was young and the siblings were all put in childrens homes.He would have been delighted that through his name we managed to trace his family back to 1740.My own son was called after both his maternal great grandfathers and we call him the short version of his second name as we had promised we would to my husbands granny .His first name is William ,his new boss wanted to know what to call him,is it Bill or Billy or Willie or Will he asked ..."no its Sandy short for Alexander" ...his boss was a wee bit confused....lol

My DS and DIL called their second son Jake. Not a family name but we quite liked it. Then, to our surprise we found out that my DH's father was called Jake by his friends. Life is very cyclical, isn't it?

My SIL is Daniel his father and GF are Daniel, the eldest son always gets the name. Thankfully I have a DGD named after her GGM, although my DD said if they'd had a boy his middle name would have been Daniel

My late husband was Alfred son of Alfred son of Alfred - he always wanted to be called Paul so when our son was born that was the name he chose for him. When I had our daughter my sisters in law thought I would chose Mary as her name after my Mum but I had decided that she would have a different name to save any upsets. We had thought about Clare Louise or Sarah Jane. Husband thought she looked more like a Sarah Jane so that was the choice. PS - daughter(now 38) hates her name, doesn't like Clare Louise, wouldn't like Mary (my Mum) or Eileen (Mum in law) either!! I don't like my name much and hubby didn't want his name to be used for grandsons either - my grandkiddies all have none family first names. Not worth fussing over is my view, I just love having grandkiddies

I suppose if the poor wee lad was going to be horatio17th Duke of Crackenthwaite then I can understand the disappointment if she's named him ziggurat Stardust. But a child with all its arms and legs in good order is all anyone needs.

'Wife's choosing'. ?
She's the baby's mother for goodness sake! Of course she gets to choose the name.
I think you need a serious attitude adjustment towards the baby's mum if you're going to have any hope of developing a loving grandparent relationship with your baby grandson.

I don't blame her for choosing a different one. However, I think it is nice to use the family names as middle names. My grandson has a strong but little used name, that DD threw in as a curved ball after he was born. You get used to the name very quickly as the child's character starts to fit it. Her in-law's compulsory passed down name was just David, and matched that of her late father, so no problems having that as a second middle name.

Enjoy your new grandchild! Hey, they could have named him MoonRocks or ZiggyStardust.

We had that in my late husband's family, with the resultant Big Katy, Little Katy; Big Mary, Little Mary; Lizzie; Lizzie Anne; etc. I decided unilaterally that I would only reuse names that were free due to death. So my son has his late grandfather's and uncle's names, my daughter has new for the family names. No one kicked up any fuss.

We were under pressure from the parents in law to follow this tradition when out first child was born, but we didn't like the name and we chose names we did (and still do) like. My mother in law made clear her displeasure, but I ignored her comments, didn't want to sour relationships, they were, and still are, my DHs parents. After all, we chose the names. it was our right to do so. My DH also didn't want our child to have have his name as he didn't like it either, and the name was only used for 3 generations anyway.

Sorry but as it's their child, it's really their choice. In time the child will completely fit the name and you will wonder why this was such a big thing .

Just as an aside in my Grandmothers family there were 11 children , the first was called Lily and so was the 11th. They went by the names Big Lil and Little Lil all their lives :-)

Oh don't worry yourself about a name. I'm sure you know the important thing is that they have a healthy baby. I'm racking my brains to remember my GDs middle name .... I can't! Enjoy your new grandchild ?

I can understand that your husband is a bit hurt but times have changed a lot now. I was named after my maternal grandmother just her first name, however my mother was upset that my father would not agree to me having her second name as well (which was a Scottish surname) which was quite traditional apparently. My mother-in-law told me she had broken family tradition by naming my husband a name of her own choosing simply because she was not going to be told what she should or should not call her baby.Apparently she did not get on with her in-laws and this added more fuel to the fire! Generations ago it was more of the done thing .Nowadays with lots of books on baby names and the meanings of the name as well it's lovely to be able to choose from a much bigger variety than there seemed to be generations ago.

I think you will have to respect the parents' wishes and just love the baby. These days you are lucky if the parents don't opt for 'Bleach' or 'Neasdon'. Some pop star woman has called her child 'Bear'.

My DH and I tried to be inclusive and tactful in our choice of names but also wanted to pick names which could belong to respectable, established and successful adults. We added the DH's father's name as a second name and my surname (which I had kept as a teacher) as a third middle name. My mother still made rude fun of one of the names we were considering. As parents you can't please everyone.

By total coincidence we chose a boy's name and a girl's name which were at the top of 'The Times' list of popular names for their respective years.

My dad wondered if I'd keep my maiden name as part of a double barrelled surname. I would have loved to oblige ( no boys in the family) but that would have made me Corney-Crisp, sounded like something in the Sainsbury's cake aisle lol !

Digressing slightly, anyone who has dug around in their family history on the 19th century censuses may have found that one child in the family will have a surname for a Christian name, when I first started doing genealogy I would puzzle over what I considered a strange first name, until I realised that it was invariably the mother's maiden name and the desire to pass that name down a generation or two was often quite prevalent in the 19th century.