What we name our children is a deeply personal decision for most, whether we want to go for family names, traditional names, something that reflects our beliefs or personalities, or just a name that’s always spoken to us when we think about the humans we will love more than any other.
There are some people, though, who are just woefully misguided about what human beings should be called, and honestly, it’s our sacred duty to try to stop babies from being named horrible, scarring things they will probably never get over.
These 16 people heard what someone was planning to dub a new baby and knew they just had to speak up.
16. Teachers have hard times picking names.
Not in the medical field, but a teacher. There are certain names that each teacher avoids because we’ve had a student (or seven) with that name who were difficult in one way or another.
One year, there were four Dylans in the same cohort and they were all hell on wheels. One of the teachers at that grade level had a baby with his wife that spring, and she named the kid Dylan. The rest of us were like, “didn’t you vehemently veto that?”
He just shrugged and said it was important to her and he wasn’t the superstitious type. Flash forward a few years, I saw a toddler tearing through the salad bar at the grocery store, spilling things, moving spoons from one container to another, reaching in with his hands… it was Dylan.
15. A classic princess fan.
My dad wanted to name me Snövit, the Swedish name for Snow White, but in the end my parents named me something else. Had my younger brother been a girl he’d been named Törnrosa, meaning Thorn Rose and is the Swedish name on Sleeping Beauty.
Never did get to the bottom what my dad’s obsession with princesses was all about.
14. Pregnancy does weird things to your brain.
My mother (who has an odd, to say the least, sense of humor) wanted to name my baby brother Ichabod Rusty.
Our surname is Ford.
She was determined to call him Ichy Rusty Ford. Tickled herself shitless through the pregnancy. And look it was funny, I mean I was 12, but everyone thought she was just being her usual goofy self.
Apparently, she got attached to it and at some point Dad just said “f*ck no, we are not naming the baby that.”
They settled on something much more appropriate…
Although, these days I think the little sh%t might have been better named Ichy Rusty lmfao!
13. Not just Nathan.
I’m neither of these, but I had a classmate in university whose name was Meganathan.
…To date I don’t know why Nathan failed to suffice.
12. Doomed from the start.
I had a coworker named Trina. When she was pregnant, she told me that she and her husband had decided to name the baby Latrine. I had to explain to her that she was naming her poor baby after the hole in the ground that soldiers sh%t into.
She was horrified, and changed it to Katrina. Two days after the kid was born, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
11. When you realize you’ve made a poor choice.
My ex husband didn’t think it was fair that girls could be names “Grace” or “Hope” etc and seriously suggested “Pestilence” “War” or “Plague” for a boy. His choice for a girl was “Tangerine”.
Fortunately we never had any children.
10. Bless that baby’s heart.
Working as an ERT on overnights, I got called to OB to help out alot. One name will always stick with me because of how unfortunate it is for the kid and how ridiculous it all is. The mom was deep in meth and other substance abuse and she told us she wanted him named Zion.
We were like oh cool no problem so we asked her to fill out the paperwork of everything for us to submit and put in the chart and she wrote down Vzyiion…..she looked us dead in the eyes and said, the V is silent…..
She also gave him 5 middle names because she didn’t know which one was the father so he got em all….
9. How is that a compromise?
I work in a music store that offers lessons and rents instruments. We have a list of the oddest child names.
~ Jamuary, Qwest, Sixte, She’Bra, Battle, ShyAnn are just a few on there.
~ The best one was Alivia (pronounced Ah-Lee-Vee-ah). When speaking with the grandmother she said that the mom wanted to name her Olivia but the father hated the name. Dad saw a bottle of Aleve on the counter so he and the mother compromised and came up with Alivia.
8. I’m guessing she wasn’t the first baby. Or the second.
My mother’s name. My grandmother wanted to name her Ishbelle and my grandfather wanted to name her Laura. So they got a baby name book and the first name they agreed on would be her name.
Her name is Wanda.
7. That’s why you don’t ask toddlers for their input.
I once had a student named Linoleum. Some midwife dropped the ball on that one.
My brother wanted to name our soon to be younger brother Corn Peas and our parents almost went with it because they felt bad about asking for his input and then rejecting it.
Fortunately they got over that and passed on the name.
6. Everyone needs a midwife like this.
Back in 2000-2004 I worked at a hospital doing admin and an ol’ battleaxe of a senior midwife stomped over with this angry-looking pregnant teenager in tow.
“Varvara!” Old Battleaxe roared. “Varvara, open up that internetty-thing on your computer!”
Old Battleaxe did not know computers, but she was well scary, so I agreed, and opened up the internetty-thing.
“Show this ridiculous child the first picture that appears when you type in the word Chanterelle!”
The angry pregnant teenager whined about how it was a pretty name and loads of girls were naming their little girl it, and then went stone-dead silent when she saw picture after picture of nasty sulphur-yellow mushrooms sprouting out of muddy forest floors.
“Told you! It’s a f*cking fungus!” Old Battleaxe roared, and stamped off to be Terrifying and Sensible at other pregnant teenagers, leaving me with the angry one.
Turned out that the name she had actually been thinking of was Chardonnay, which is both the name of very expensive wine and the name of a character in a UK soap opera called Footballers Wives, which was about as classy as it sounds.
The baby got that as a middle name later on, which was fine, the first name was Sophie or something along those lines.
5. When you just can’t be bothered?
Not a midwife but lived with a student midwife when I was a student. The first set of twins she delivered got called “Red” and “Blue”
When I worked in a boring admin job dealing with applications from members of the public I came across “Jessica Rabbit”, saw her passport and everything. I just hope she chose that later in life rather than parents landing her with it.
The worst ones I saw in that job were combinations made by women getting married and taking their husbands surnames so can’t really be blamed on the parents.
4. What on earth.
My co-worker went to school with a girl named Fallopia. I feel sorry for her especially when she takes biology classes and they talk about Fallopian tubes.
3. That’s a pretty name, what the heck?
And here my mom was talked out of naming me Violet.
“Sounds like an old lady” they said.
2. She must really have loved that vacuum.
My mom wanted to name me Kirby. After her vacuum.
Thankfully my dad talked her out if it.
1. Definitely something.
I was almost named Cinderall I have no idea what my dad was smoking at the time.
What is wrong with people, y’all???
What’s a baby name you had to protest? Share it with us in the comments!