Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Friends awful baby name

737 replies

ThisIcyHare · 01/01/2025 16:26

My best friend is due to have a baby soon, they are having a girl and she has been talking baby names with me, which feels super special. She has got a few very lovely traditional girly names, and a couple of more unusual choices, but not ‘offensive’. They are names I would expect from her. However, she has one absolutely terrible name, that actually just feels very cruel. It would be bad even by American standards and ‘tragedeigh’ names. It’s not that I wouldn’t choose it, it’s just crazy stupid and the child will be ridiculed by peers and adults. Some of her choices are genuinely wonderful, but I’m so worried she will madly choose this one awful name, I can’t say anything can I?!

OP posts:
millymae · 01/01/2025 18:21

I don’t see that it really matters what the name is - the OP has said it’s one of several her friend likes, some of which are lovely. Why on earth are lots of people saying she can’t tell her friend how awful this one name is - of course she can. She can emphasise all the names on the list she really likes but that the awful name is her least favourite and give the reasons why.
If I was the friend having the baby I’d be glad to receive comments good or bad, and I’d definitely think twice about using a name that someone really didn’t like.

Kim5678 · 01/01/2025 18:20

YourGladSquid · 01/01/2025 18:18

I almost forgot - if not chastity, then pleasure? I know a couple but it’s very old fashioned now

I was thinking Chastity too but I’ve never heard Pleasure as a name! It sounds like something that would come out of those online porn star name generators years ago

Shinybear · 01/01/2025 18:20

But is it just a name you don't like and find cringey, or is it objectively horrible? If it's a name that you just really don't like or has a strange spelling but isn't offensive, e.g. Brittaneigh or Kayleigh, then leave them to it. If it's something with an obvious and horrible/ridiculous meaning, like Beanleigh or Hades, then say something.

FizzyBisto · 01/01/2025 18:20

Perfidy?
Caprice?
Honesty?
Misery?
Cantankerina?

Or were you actually mysteriously telling-us-not-telling-us when you said Integrity? Grotty for short?

YourGladSquid · 01/01/2025 18:18

I almost forgot - if not chastity, then pleasure? I know a couple but it’s very old fashioned now

SemperIdem · 01/01/2025 18:17

It’ll be True or similar. Not any of the classic virtue name

Isittimeformynapyet · 01/01/2025 18:17

ThisIcyHare · 01/01/2025 17:15

No! It’s not honour, charity, faith. It’s like Integrity.

Rectitude? 🤔

Sasskitty · 01/01/2025 18:16

@ThisIcyHare please tell us! This untold misery of the unknown, on New Year’s Day is unbearable.. 👀👀

Delphiniumandlupins · 01/01/2025 18:16

If it's the name of an attribute - like Integrity, Chastity, Fidelity, Grace, Joy - you could mention how it can put pressure on someone to live up to that. Otherwise, just say how much you like some of her other suggestions. What does her partner say?

YourGladSquid · 01/01/2025 18:16

It has to be chastity lmao

Do the right thing for that baby and just say your opinion on it - maybe the mother is so caught up in it that she hasn’t even noticed. One of the very last contenders for DD’s name made it to the final rounds before we realised it sounded like AIDS in our language.

FizzyBisto · 01/01/2025 18:16

ForZanyAquaViewer · 01/01/2025 17:35

Precious, Blessing, Promise, Cherish, we love em. We (Nigeria) had a president named ‘Good Luck’.

And even more appropriately, his middle name was Withyourdrivingtest.

Bubblesfizz · 01/01/2025 18:16

What an utterly pointless thread. Well done OP

Calmomiletea · 01/01/2025 18:15

ThisIcyHare · 01/01/2025 17:15

No! It’s not honour, charity, faith. It’s like Integrity.

Verity? Constance?

NetZeroZealot · 01/01/2025 18:14

I also know a few Veritys and wouldn't say it was that bad.

HappyMe6 · 01/01/2025 18:13

bojangles

choccytime · 01/01/2025 18:13

Not read the whole thread so this might have been suggested , Dignity

Pibrea · 01/01/2025 18:13

AngelinaFibres · 01/01/2025 17:28

You could also shorten it to Pewb. Oh thats perfect .

HAHAHA
Best comment 😂😂😂

fairydust11 · 01/01/2025 18:13

Honesty ?
Virtue ?
Unity ?

Although none to my taste, not sure I would call any of those cruel or crazy stupid… Are you sure it isn’t just to your taste? Have you actually looked the name up on name berry to see if it exists as a name & people use it?

If you don’t like it, just tell her & your reasoning, but it’s her child & therefore I doubt she’d listen.

Brightstar5 · 01/01/2025 18:10

Serenity?

TMess · 01/01/2025 18:09

It’s Chastidy/Chasity/Chastity, isn’t it. I know several lovely girls/women with those names but I must admit I do always wonder whether they were made fun of at school!

LlynTegid · 01/01/2025 18:09

Please say something. Would you like a child to have a lifetime of correcting spelling of their name, or worse still, being bullied solely because of their name? Be a loving friend and point it out, be it directly, or by being positive about alternatives proposed.

BobbyBiscuits · 01/01/2025 18:09

If she asks your views again on her shortlist, you can easily heavily favour one or more of the others, without blatantly saying you hate 'tradgedina'. If put on the spot, revert back to saying 'oh, I much prefer Pauline or Stacey that you suggested before.'

Cakey46 · 01/01/2025 18:08

Amenity or Harrybo

holju · 01/01/2025 18:07

Tell her the word is slang for vagina in another culture

Lunde · 01/01/2025 18:07

YankSplaining · 01/01/2025 18:04

(points to username) Now we’ve got a Supreme Court justice named Ketanji.

If the name is Verity, OP is massively ignorant about “even by American standards,” because while Verity is 300-something on the UK name charts, it’s not even in the top 1000 for the US. Verity Lambert, born 1935, was also the founding producer of Dr Who.

I know several women called Verity - it is a pretty classic English name.