Molly Ringwald Explains How She Clashed with Her Greek In-Laws

Molly Ringwald & husband Panio Gianopoulos

Molly Ringwald who is married to Greek-American writer Panio Gianopoulos has revealed how she clashed with her Greek in-laws over naming her first child after her husband’s mum. The Pretty In Pink actress, 42, writes about the family upset in her book Getting The Pretty Back.

In an excerpt published in US Good Housekeeping, she says: “During our courtship, my husband told me about the Greek custom of naming the first-born after the father’s parents. “Only later, when I became pregnant and found out it was a girl, came the sinking realisation that I was expected to name her after my mother-in-law [Ereni].”
The actress, who has three children with Panio Gianopoulos who she married in 2007, quickly adds that she loves “my husband’s mother”, but that she felt “choosing a name for my child should be one of the inalienable rights of motherhood”.

In the end, the couple compromised and named their daughter – who was born in October 2003 – Mathilda Ereni. But Ringwald admits that things came to a head when her in-laws continued to refer to her child as Ereni during their annual trips to Greece. “One day… I’d finally had it,” she says. “I dissolved into tears and screamed out my frustration… ‘Can’t they understand it’s important to me?’” Eventually, her husband explained the situation to his mother, but Ringwald says she was stunned when she heard her little girl introduce herself as Ereni to her Greek playmates. “At that moment, I realised the obvious: our children gain not only from the love we give them, but also from the love they get from everyone else,” she says.