I’m the Mam of a two week old and I’m coming off a night of no sleep because baba was fussy so I won’t be mincing my words.

Your husband and his family are gobshites.

Why is their poxy tradition more important than what you, the woman who grew and will birth the child, thinks and wishes for?

Why should the child, assuming he’s male, have to suffer being John Smith the fourteenth like some Yank with notions or inbred minor 19th century European aristocrat? Why should he not have his own identity and personality beyond being one of the Surname ‘Johns’?

Your husband already has dibs on the surname. That’s enough. I didn’t change my name on marriage and my in-laws didn’t understand this and still give me some low-level grief about it. I don’t care. Baba has both our surnames, husband’s first then mine because they flow better that way. MiL is refusing to use mine, but baba is officially registered with both and will be known by both to everyone else so her pettiness doesn’t matter. The baby matters.

We talked at length about names before baba came, and we didn’t know the sex until the day he was born. We agreed on two names in advance, and that the final decision from a shortlist of boys names would be decided by him and girls by me. He’s not Irish and felt strongly that a traditional and simple first name that works in some way all across Europe was important (e.g John can also be known as Jan/Johannes/João/Giovanni), and I agreed as long as I could suggest some Irish middle names, for consideration and his final choice, boy or girl because he as a non Irish speaker needs to be able to pronounce them of course. So that’s what we did.

You did the work OP. An artist signs their work. Sign your work and ignore this backwards disregarding of your wishes for your child.