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What is the right word here?

Traditionally, fathers usually give names to their babies after 3 days of their birth\arrival\delivery.

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    FYI, the correct character for separating alternative options is the forward slash (/), not the backslash.
    – jwodder
    Sep 2, 2019 at 16:12

2 Answers 2

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Traditionally, fathers usually give names to their babies 3 days after their birth.

Of those three, birth sounds most natural; babies don't arrive and delivery describes what the mother does (or the doctor/nurse), not the baby, who is being born, so an alternative would be

Traditionally, fathers usually give names to their babies 3 days after they're born.

Note that I've changed the word order for 'after' as well, the 'after' ... 'of' construction is only used when describing a prolonged event, e.g. "After 3 days of marching we reached the camp."

Also, I think you can drop the "usually", since it's already implied by "traditionally".

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  • I would say delivery describes what the doctor does... Sep 2, 2019 at 19:13
  • @HostileFork you're right, that can be both the mother and the doctor; I hadn't considered the latter option.
    – Glorfindel
    Sep 2, 2019 at 19:16
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I would change to

Babies are traditionally named by their fathers when they are 3 days old

Although this can lead to ambiguity as to who is 3 days old in the sentence, it would be natural to assume the subject is the baby being named and not the father who is 3 days old.

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    Beside the point, but it's better style to avoid the passive voice, i.e. "Fathers traditionally name their babies when they are 3 days old."
    – wjandrea
    Sep 2, 2019 at 15:01

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