My father says using my new name erases the family history he gave me

I changed my first name last year. The old name was not associated with one dramatic event. It simply never felt like mine. I had used a shorter version socially for years, and at thirty-two I decided to make the name I actually answer to the name on my documents.

Most people adjusted faster than I expected. My mother practiced. My sister changed my contact entry immediately. Coworkers made a few mistakes and corrected themselves.

My father refuses.

He says the name he chose connects me to his grandmother and to the language his family spoke before immigrating to the United States. He spent months choosing it. When I told him about the change, he said I was treating that history like an embarrassing coat I could donate.

I tried to explain that I am not rejecting the person I was or the family I came from. I kept my surname. I still know the story behind the old name. I just do not want to be called it. Dad replied that I cannot keep the heritage while discarding the part that inconveniences me.

At first he used the new name around other people and the old one privately. Now he has stopped trying. At my birthday dinner, he made a toast using the old name three times. My aunt followed his lead. A cousin asked whether I had changed my mind. I left early because correcting every sentence would have turned the dinner into a seminar.

Dad later said he had been emotional and that family should be the one place where he can call me what he has always called me. That sounds intimate when he says it. It feels like the opposite. Everyone else meets me where I am; family becomes the place where my answer does not matter.

My mother wants me to give him time. It has been fourteen months. My sister thinks I should stop responding to the old name. I worry that doing that will turn ordinary visits into tests neither of us can pass.

I do not need him to love the change. I need him to stop treating his disappointment as authority over it. How do I set a consequence that protects my name without making contact with my father depend on flawless performance?