Most people take seriously the huge responsibility that is choosing another human being’s name. We opt to honor family, favorite literary characters, names that we’ve loved since our youths, or any number of meaningful options.

Some people seem to just toss something down on a birth certificate without much thought to things like initials, potential nicknames, or the fact that no one should be named that, ever – but at least these 13 parents have enough sense to regret their choices.

13. No one could have seen that one coming.

I named my daughter Karen.

Thanks, Internet.

12. Why are men, y’all?

Luckily my mother stopped quite a few bad names proposed by my father, but the worst one had to be when she proposed Levi, but he insisted that Garrett be my middle name if that was the case.

For those uninformed in the tobacco industry, Levi Garretts is a chewing tobacco brand. My father was well aware of this.

11. Maybe they were delirious.

I know triplets named Wild, Winter, and Wolf.

Feel bad for all of them except for maybe Winter cause that’s a OK name.

10. Whyyyyyyy though? Call CPS!

My mom went to school with a girl named Pennis, but everyone called her Penny.

9. Oooh, man, someone was in the doghouse.

My mom regrets my name. They thought I was going to be a boy, and had a boy’s name picked out. I arrived, very much not a boy, after 12 hours of labor and no epidural (sorry, Mom). She told my dad to just pick a name, so he named me after his sister. My mom and my aunt don’t like each other. At all.

Dad did not get naming privileges for my siblings, and Mom made sure to pick one name for each gender well before they arrived.

8. This is a stinking Greek tragedy.

i hope no one who knows me happens to be scrolling this sub… my mother absolutely REFUSES to call me by my name, and has my (22f) entire life. she named my older brother, so she let my dad name me, despite her so badly wanting to name me “laramie” (gag). my dad named me alexandria. I don’t like it, and i hate being called alex which literally everyone does no matter how much i insist on alexandria. But it’s better than what my mom wanted to name me, and calls me.

my mother hates my name so much, and is so pissed she didn’t get to name me, that she refuses to call me by my name. so instead, she came up with a nickname for me that she’s called me since i was an infant: buddha. not my real name, not a shortened version of my name, not my middle name, not my initials, not a bearable nickname, not even the name she wanted for me, but fucking buddha!? BECAUSE THATS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALEXANDRIA!? to add insult to injury, i was a very overweight child with a large protruding stomach. her yelling “BUDDHA!!” in the grocery store was always a mortifying experience.

she got “buddha” from calling me “beautiful baby” in a baby talk voice. so she would say it like “boo da ful baby” and it got shortened to “boo da” very fast. but of course when you see a mom calling her fat ass kid “buddha” the last thing you think is “oh, well thats CLEARLY short for beautiful!” no amount of begging or pleading (even as an adult) has made my mother stop calling me “buddha”, she will not use my actual name. its kind of ridiculous and annoying and upsetting, but i realize theres no winning. i am forever “buddha” smh.

i think i have name dysphoria.

7. Well that’s a big ol’ yikes.

my mom always told me the story of my eldest sibling (died at about a month old) who was named after our dad and his dad. my mom’s mother chooses all the middle names in our family, so the middle name was non-negotiable.

unfortunately for my brother, our last name starts with a K, and the men are all named Kevin, and our grandmother really liked K names. RIP K.K.K. the third

6. You never think about the details, hmm?

I’m the son. My father regrets the name he gave me, because it’s nearly identical to his name. Only difference is the middle name / initial- which rarely shows up on paperwork. So almost any time that either of us goes to do any paperwork or sign up for something, we run into issues involving our nearly identical names.

For example: We both face roughly a 20 minute delay when trying to vote because they mix up which of us is which. I receive his best buy receipts. He gets packages and mail meant for me and I for him. His credit card routinely pops up on my credit report, my student loan routinely pops up on his.

5. Too bad because it was really cute!

Before my son was born, my husband and I were having a lot of problems picking boys names. Everyone in my husband’s family has two middle names so that made it a lot harder.

After a few days, we landed on a name we loved. Harrison Atlas Henry Ames.

After a few hours of blissful happiness, I stopped dead in my tracks, telling my husband we can’t name our son that.

His initials would’ve been HAHA.

4. It was an awesome show and also I like that name!

Hi, the child here.

My birth mom named me Sabrina, after her favorite tv show, Sabrina the teenage witch.

You can bet that when a certain someone from my middle school that for some reason absolutely hates me found out, he started calling me “Sabrina the teenage bit*h.” I don’t go by Sabrina at all, by the way.

3. Please excuse my secondhand rage.

I don’t mind my sons name but I regret that I didn’t stand my ground and insist that his middle name be my great grandpa’s name. I really wanted to honor my opa who was a big part of my life and my ex insisted it was “too German” and insisted he have a “good Irish name” and “allowed” my alternative.

My ex is like a quarter Irish through his grandma that he never met, meanwhile my German dad literally didn’t speak English til he was 7 and my mom is German and I grew up in a household where German was spoken too but go off i guess.

2. Whew, dodged a bullet there!

Lol I’m not a parent, but my dad was going to make me Arizona Corona. I’m very thankful he didn’t name me that considering the times..

1. It’s a minor inconvenience, but…

Didn’t anticipate spelling her name every single time you need an appointment, prescription. It’s a strange but known spelling of a common name. Used it television, fashion, and an author with it.

Like Cierra for Sierra kind of difference.

I was also unaware of how people butcher my now husbands last name (German but short). We weren’t married at the time. So this kid has to spell out her first And last names every single time usually twice.

She just starts spelling now vs saying then spelling bc people still get it wrong.

Some of these are appalling, but others are just bad luck, right?

Do you love your kid’s name? Have regrets? Tell us about it in the comments!