This is the orginal message
I spoke with Chris and while we certainly don't want to start anything
we would rather you did not use Grace. You are obviously free to do what
you wish but we do use Grace on a regular daily basis and like i said
purposely used it in case she decides one day she doesn't care for
Emerson or she wants a more professional name someday. Feel free to use
Sue if you want as it is a family name and we really only use that for
Annaliese when she is in trouble. LOL. If she ever wants to shorten her
name it will be Aliese or Ali. Even a name like LilyAnn was fine since
you were going to call her Lily and Ann is obviously part of your name
too. Can't wait to meet her no matter what her name ends up being!
I caved and wrote her back...this is what I wrote
I
am going to be completely honest here and this is hard for me since I
hate confrontation, but I feel like this is too important not to stand
up for myself. Two parts of this message have really gotten to me, first
of all I would never have one bit of an issue with someone in my family
using one of my children's middle names, I have never once heard
Emerson called Grace alone, and if she wants to be called Grace down the
road that's fine, who cares they will never go to the same school and
most likely will never live in the same town. so I just don't understand
what the big deal is. My other issue is that I feel that it was pretty
condescending when you said "feel free to use Sue" maybe that wasn't
your intention, but you made it sound like you were giving me permission
to use a name that we have every right to use in the first place.
Bottom line is and I say this in the nicest way possible, this is no
ones decision but Dan and I. It would be one thing if we wanted to name
our daughter Annaliese or Emerson and obviously we would not do that out
of respect, but me personally if my brother came to me and said I am
going to name my child Catherine, James, or John I would think it was
really cool. I don't want this to become a problem either, but we are
going to stand our ground because this is a name we are both in love
with and I am not going to settle for something I don't love, just
because someone has a problem with it.
And this is what I got back....*sighs*
What I meant when i said feel free to use Sue as a middle name because i
understand it is a family name and we do not usually use it much. And
having two kids with the same middle name isn't a big deal at all. and
only said it If you changed to a different name and decided Sue fit
better than Mariellyn did. We believe that if someone family or close
friend has already used the name that it is polite to ask if they mind.
We actually have a friend with a daughter named Addison which is the
other name we considered had considered with Emerson. We asked if they
minded if we used it. Guess that's just always been our train of
thought when it comes to names....not trying to sound condensending at
all. just how we view it. I apologize if that is how you interrupted
that.
As far as Emerson Grace. We do sometimes on rare occasion
call Emerson just Grace...but Chris calls her Em Grace more times than
not these days. I tend to go between Em, Em Grace, Emme Grace, and
Emerson. When we named her we actually chose Grace in case she someday
didn't like Emerson and wanted a nice girly name. I have several family
members who go by their middle names so it wasn't anything new to me.
She may never go fully by Grace. But there is a possibility that she
might want to someday. While they wouldn't be in the same school more
than likely, we would have two Grace's in the immediate family at get
togethers, etc...
Chris and i are not having a baby now or maybe not
ever but a boy was always going to be James David after both
grandfathers and call him JD. But when Dan married you, we have always said that was not an option anymore out of respect for you and
Ryan. That's just how we feel about it. you and Dan do not felt the same
way. Neither way is right or wrong but we do feel differently about it.
Like I said, you are free to name her what you wish. But I felt the
need to stand up for ourselves as well as we do use it on a regular
basis and we will not discourage her from using it as a first name if
she should ever want to. Now you know how we feel about it. It's up to
you what you do from here.
For reference James is my first son Ryan's middle name. I give up on trying to reason with her...I could not care less if she uses my sons middle name for her son if she ever has one...I am not that self absorbed and I told her that so whatever...she can have her panties in a twist all she wants I am DONE WITH THIS