What Would You Do If Your Parents Offered to Pay to Name Your Baby?

When I was pregnant, my dad made me an offer — a hefty stipend in exchange for naming rights to my firstborn child. It was all in good fun, of course, especially as we exchanged text messages negotiating terms. We settled somewhere around the $50,000 mark getting him full say in first and middle names, but when he asked what a measly $10,000 could get him, my husband and I conferred and agreed it'd only be enough to cover the first initial.

Obviously, my dad didn't pay up, and we never actually took requests in choosing our baby girl's name. It was all just a joke, or so I thought.

Grandparents these days are so determined to see certain traditional family names passed down to the next generation that they're actually willing to write a sizable check to make it happen.

This form of bribery is an emerging trend, as reported by The New York Times:

This may seem like an unusual proposal, but several professional baby-name watchers report seeing [it]. Maryanna Korwitts, a naming consultant. . . . said one client's grandfather offered a family business if a baby could be named for him. Another's in-laws, she said, suggested a dream wedding the mother never had and could not afford on her own — the price being the right to name the firstborn.

The article profiled several parents who were faced with the very real opportunity to put a price on their future son or daughter's name, but none of those interviewed ended up completing the transaction.

"You only get to do this once," one said. Still, others saw the allure: "If I really believed I could have gotten her to pay. . . . I would probably always resent that person, but to be able to take care of that anxiety, that would be nice."

It's true that being made to call your child after his grandfather might not be so terrible when it comes time to send little Frank off to college, tuition-free. But according to BabyCenter editor Linda Murray, millennial parents care too much about "trying to choose a name that is unique, that suits their child and that says something about their personality" to leave it up to someone else. The stakes are just too high.

As for me, I love family names. I'd choose Eleanor over Emerlai (I admit I just made that up) any day. We named our daughter after her great-grandmother. And, looking back, I'm wondering why we didn't make a cent on that deal.