This is a repost. The original was posted in r/namenerds by User RopePsychological567. I'm not the original poster. This Boru was suggested by u/SunnyRyter.

Status: Pretty much concluded, but ongoing according to OOP.

Mood: A little bit of sense was had

Original

March 9, 2025

My wife is a huge Shakespeare fan, and she loves the idea of naming the twins Romeo and Juliet. I'm against it, I can’t get over the idea of naming our kids after a fictional couple who die. I do really like the name Juliet, I even suggested that if we go with Juliet, maybe we could name our son Tybalt after Juliet's cousin. She insists that if we use Juliet, we have to use Romeo.

I'll admit Romeo and Juliet is one of the only Shakespeare plays I've read, but I've tried to look online for some other Shakespearean sibling names we could use, like Ophelia and Laertes from Hamlet or Claudio and Isabella from Much Ado About Nothing. She hasn’t liked any of them because either their source isn’t serious enough or the names aren’t recognizable/famous as Shakespearean.

She’s really stuck on this. On their own, I think they’re lovely, but I don’t think they work for twins. Is there a way I can convince her this is a bad idea, or does anyone have other Shakespearean name suggestions that might win her over? I'm not sure if I'm overthinking the meaning behind the names and being weird about it, but I can't talk with anyone about this because she wants the twins' names to be a surprise.

Notable Comments:

YOUR KIDS WILL NEVER EVER EVER FORGIVE YOU EVER ,ITS STUPID Sorry-Salamander570

Weren’t Viola and Sebastian twins in Much Ado About Nothing? I think those are both lovely names on their own and I’m not sure many people would immediately think of Shakespeare the way they would with Romeo and Juliet.

And they’re actually siblings not love interests.

Edit- it was Twelfth Night, sorry! Not Much Ado about Nothing! rivertoyoursoul

Twins are individual people and future adults, not your accessories. Please have her speak to actual adult twins. bigbirdlooking

They're gonna be bullied with incest jokes their whole lives Dismal_Lead2578

The specifics of Romeo and Juliet aside, neither you nor your wife should get to be "stuck on" these or any other names. If you've vetoed them, they're out. It is also true that naming siblings after a couple nearly synonymous with young love is ill-advised, but even if it were not, neither parent should get to bully or steamroller the other into a naming choice.

Frame this differently with her; you are allowed to veto names just as she is allowed to veto your choices. Do not get mired in the literary merits or demerits of various Shakespearean oeuvres or characters, because it is beside the point.

This is the first of many parenting disagreements you will have in the future, in which you will need to compromise to find a solution. Now is the time to practice that skill and learn how to listen to one another's hard limits. SunnySeaMonster

We did that before she got hung up on these two names; at first, we considered names from the books we both liked, but Romeo and Juliet was the first Shakespeare play she saw, and once she got this idea, she didn't want to hear any more.

I'm hoping I can talk her out of it but if I can't I might show her this thread. Thank you. [OOP]

Update

March 12, 2025, 3 days later

Thanks for all the comments and name suggestions. I didn’t want to speak badly about my wife, but yes, I’m well aware of how deranged it is to name a pair of siblings after a fictional couple, and I was too much of a coward to bring up the incest thing in my original post.

In defence of my wife, her pregnancy has been very hard on her. It’s her first, and naming the kids is the only thing she’s seemed happy about these days. For context, she’s seen the Romeo and Juliet play in person and is an avid reader of plays in general, but she’s always liked Shakespeare most because they were the ones she studied. A few years ago, she even ran a Shakespeare club for kids at the local library. More recently, she was rereading the play and suggested we name the kids after the main characters. I was taken aback and told her we’d sleep on it, but the following day, it was all she’d talk about, and she was so happy I didn’t have the heart to talk her out of it.

She became more and more fixated on it as the weeks went on. After making this post, I asked her again why it had to be these two names. She told me she always liked symbolic meanings and grand declarations of love, and she wanted that sort of bond to carry over to the kids in a family sense. She also mentioned that out of all the plays she’d read, Romeo and Juliet was the most iconic, that people would be able to recognise them and that it would make it easier to talk to other parents if they asked why the kids were named Romeo and Juliet.

I sat on this for a few days. And honestly, it felt like I didn’t know her. I pray this is her pregnancy brain talking, but this isn’t her. She’s always been a romantic and fixates on trends/ideas but this is just weird. Yesterday, I finally told her point-blank that we were not naming our kids after such a famous couple under any circumstances, and I showed her this thread.

She refused to look at it and broke down. My wife asked me why I couldn’t just let her have this. Some suggested she needed to hear how crazy she was from someone who wasn’t me, so I told her best friend what was happening, and she was more horrified than I was — how I probably should have reacted.

Her best friend came over after work, and I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I know they watched the 1968 movie version of Romeo and Juliet together, which I’ve been told has a sex scene. I think that snapped some sense into my wife. Her friend left a few hours ago, and my wife’s been quiet, but she asked if we could look over the names I’d picked out again.

Thanks again for all the comments; I think we both needed reality slapped into us, her from her delusion and me from my apparent lack of common sense. She’s still dead set on something Shakespear/theatre-related and somewhat matching, but now that her head is clearer, I hope we can pick something better. From the quick read of the comments I showed her, she did like the name Sebastian, but she’s on the fence about Viola. I’ll let her off the hook for now since she’s so sick, but once we’re back to normal life, I’m not letting her forget this happened. I'll update this again once we finally have names picked out.

Comments by OOP:

I'm not sure I worded it well. But she's been very sick during this whole thing, not able to eat regularly, not sleeping, horrible cramps, etc. Naming the kids was the only thing she seemed really excited about, because the actual pregnancy hasn't been good for her. We agreed that she would get the ultimate say in the names because she's carrying the kids. I didn't want to burst her bubble when she first got this idea, but as the weeks went on, I realised how serious it was. I'm not mad at her for the choice, I'm mad more at myself for not doing anything about it, and at both of us for not realising what it could do to our kid's future. But I shouldn't have waited so long to speak with her. The last comment was that if we ever have kids again, I hope she won't want to name them after a couple again; not meant maliciously, but I see I didn't say that well either.

She's been like this as long I've known her, jumping from fandom to fandom, getting immersed in something for a month and then not touching it for a year. This time has been hard on her, which is why I'm trying not to do anything that would make her uncomfortable, but if she ever needs anything, I'll be here for her. The main concern is the physical symptoms right now, but I'll keep an eye out for anything else. Thank you for this information.

No one in our family knows about this name thing because she wanted to keep it a surprise. I sort of ruined that by posting, which is also why I think she also broke down when I told her we couldn't do it anymore. Now that her best friend knows, I hope she can talk about this with others if she feels like it. Her family and doctors are all local so she's taken care of in that regard.

I meant it more as a "I won't let her name any more babies we have after couples" but I didn't say it right. But I'm as much to blame for this happening. I agree I let it get out of hand. I'm not going to hold this over her head, and as you said it could be a funny story if she wants to tell it. Thank you, I'll show her this.

somebody suggests Sebastian and Juliet

One thing she really wants is for the names to be a set or related in some ways, eg siblings, family, 2 authors etc, so I hadn't thought of the pair, but they do look nice written out. Thank you.

I'm not the original poster.