Widow changes son’s name after vowing to name him after late husband- was she wrong?

The widow lost her husband to Covid-19.

A new mum has opened up about a recent fallout with her mother-in-law. She explained that her mother-in-law wanted her to name her newborn after her late husband. The mum's husband died from Covid-19 when she was just three months pregnant. She told Reddit, "After he died my MIL thought it would be a great idea to name the baby after him (if it was a boy), which I agreed with at the time because I was just so overwhelmed with emotion. She said it would be like he's still there in a way." However, when her son arrived the mum didn't want to name him after her late husband. She explained that it felt like they were "sticking to the past".

"My baby should be his own person. So I gave him a different name on his birth certificate," the widow admitted.

The mum confirmed his name on Facebook, much to the mother-in-law's disgust.

"When I made the announcement on Facebook that baby "Lucas" had arrived, I started getting confused comments from my mil. She called me a few hours later, asking why I had broken the promise. I told her my reasoning, and that I just wanted to move on in a healthy way. That I felt like calling my husband's name when referring to my son would hurt me and make the process harder."

The mother-in-law claimed what she did was disrespectful to her late husband. The new mum admitted that she didn't feel the need to tell her or any of her extended family about the name change.

The mother-in-law started to yell at her, "She said she had been waiting all this time to meet her grandson and now she doesn't even want to see him. I said that was fine and hung up. I do feel bad that I didn't honor the promise but I feel like I don't owe her or anyone anything."

The mum explained that she changed her mind about her son's name shortly after he was born.

Do you think the new mum was in the wrong?

We think she's perfectly entitled to change her own child's name. Naming him after her late husband may make things harder for her, but a word of warning to her mother-in-law may have been a good idea? What do you think?