New York City father-to-be Nicholas Soukeras launched an online petition to decide the name of his unborn baby after the couple couldn’t agree.
Soukeras wants to name his son the traditional Greek name Spyridon after his father, but his wife, Kseniya, prefers Michael, in honor of her late father.
“I don’t want to call my son something I can’t even pronounce,”
Kseniya, who was born in Belarus, told the New York Post.
Soukeras’ online petition had about 3,900 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon, with a goal of 100,000.
In a lengthy and humorous description, Soukeras wrote that he launched the petition “as an outcry for the right, privilege and authority, under God and in accordance with the laws of the Greek Orthodox Church and in the tradition of all Hellenic peoples throughout the world, to name his first-born son ‘Spyridon’ after the petitioner's father, ‘Spyridon Hristos Soukeras’”
Soukeras told ABC News that the baby name petition was meant as a joke to make his wife and friends laugh.
But the father-to-be is tied to the name choice.
"It’s my father’s name," Soukeras told ABC News. "In Greek culture, traditionally the first-born son would be named after my father, a first-born daughter would be named after my mother, while the second-born would be named after my wife’s parents. That’s kind of the code we have. It matters to [my father], and it matters to me. I like Michael too, but it’s so common. This name has character and history."
Twitter users weighed in on the debate.
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