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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Friend choosing same baby name less than a year later

416 replies

OohAHzeah · 01/07/2020 21:38

I know she didn't look at my dd and decide to copy us exactly. When I announced dd name she said congrats and that she had always loved it herself. I didnt think much more and then she became pregnant.

Her baby is due soon and in the same school year as mine. She just announced today she will probably use dd name (!!) She didn't even make a joke like "hope that's not too weird!" She just stated it like fact and said she quite liked it.

Dd name is quite unusual btw. It's not typical Evie/Evelyn.

I get she may have loved this name secretly just as I did, but to really use it when I just have? If we had no friends in common it might be nice, but we have so many friends in common. Our whole school group and some uni too. Just made me feel a bit rubbish. Dh thinks I'm being silly, but he's not that close to her. I just feel like she's taking away the 'special-ness' of her name. Either that or she thinks we won't see much of each other. I love this name so much but if she'd used it first, I wouldn't have out or respect! But then is that just me being the fool?

I know I cant do anything about it.

But it's a bit weird?

YABU: Totally normal to have same name as friend if you liked it

YANBU: It's a bit weird to purposely use the same one

OP posts:
AmandaHoldensLips · 01/07/2020 21:41

What a cow. I'd be really pissed off.

Etinox · 01/07/2020 21:41

Any chance of them being in the same school? We have loads of shared names in our peer group and family.

slipperywhensparticus · 01/07/2020 21:41

Are you close friends?

theproblemwitheyes · 01/07/2020 21:41

YABU.

First, Evie is really quite common. There are 2 in DDs playgroup and i know another 2 elsewhere, all within a year old.

Second, she said she'd always liked the name! She shouldnt have to give up a name she likes just because you used it first.

DramaAlpaca · 01/07/2020 21:42

I agree it's a bit weird if you are close.

At least you know, as will everyone else, that she copied you.

MrFaceyRomford · 01/07/2020 21:43

I'm sorry but I don't really see what the problem is?

Sarahlou252 · 01/07/2020 21:43

Lots of people will come on and say you dont own a name, but its not something I would ever do, no matter how much I loved it. I'd use it as a middle name at the very most if I really really loved it.
So ynbu, no.

yellowsunset · 01/07/2020 21:44

@theproblemwitheyes

YABU.

First, Evie is really quite common. There are 2 in DDs playgroup and i know another 2 elsewhere, all within a year old.

Second, she said she'd always liked the name! She shouldnt have to give up a name she likes just because you used it first.

Re-read her post. Nice and slowly this time.
StuffThem · 01/07/2020 21:44

No point in making yourself annoyed about this. So she liked the name but because you conceived before her she has to chose a new one?

turnthebiglightoff · 01/07/2020 21:44

YABU. It's a name. Some people have planned names since they were kids themselves, why should they change their name because you chose it too?

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 01/07/2020 21:44

I’d definitely be a bit confused by it- a name a friend uses would rule it out for me. You got there first so I wouldn’t overly think about it.

2 diff nicknames?

StCharlotte · 01/07/2020 21:45

Mumsnet the year I was born:

AIBU to be pissed off that my seven best friends have also called their DD's Sandra?

TooTiredTodayOk · 01/07/2020 21:45

I wouldn't use the same name as a close friend, its weird.

AudacityOfHope · 01/07/2020 21:46

I don't really see the major issue, but even if I did, the only advice anyone can give you is to deal with it with grace. What's the alternative, lose a friend over it?

20viona · 01/07/2020 21:46

Yeah that is shit. What's the name?

Waxonwaxoff0 · 01/07/2020 21:46

YABU. No one owns a name.

Notmyrealname855 · 01/07/2020 21:46

Depends on how rare your DDs name is, can you tell us??

BarryTheKestrel · 01/07/2020 21:46

I had DDs name picked out since i was 14. I never told anyone except DH who loved it as much as i did, but it was always going to the name of my first born daughter. If someone we knew had chosen it before us I honestly wouldn't have cared, it was the name we'd chosen even if we hadn't told the world.

You don't own the name. It may not be common but unless you made it up, there will be other children called this. How often do you see this woman? Is it really going to be a problem? Can your mutual friends not differentiate between Becky's Lucy and Sarah's Lucy or whatever?

Napqueen1234 · 01/07/2020 21:47

Sorry I think YABU. If she’s always loved the name then she should go for it and so should you have done if she’d had a baby first. It’s not disrespectful if anything it shows you have similar taste. People have the same name 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sunnydayshereatlast · 01/07/2020 21:48

Well she looks like the one with no imagination doesn't she?

ThisIsGonnaHurt · 01/07/2020 21:50

It may have been the name she had always wanted to use so why should she not use it. How unusual are you talking?

I am called the same as my mums best friends daughter, there is about 4 years between us but I was supposed to be something else but when I was born my parents liked the other name. She asked her best friend and she loved the fact they would be called the same.

nanbread · 01/07/2020 21:50

Is she your best friend forever with a history of copying you? If not then let it go.

The chances of the girls being friends at school or in adult life are probably quite small, you may not even still be friends yourselves in five years' time. Whereas the name she has to say, and be happy with, forever.

And even if they are friends, what's wrong with having the same name?

Unless it's something incredibly unique that you made up, it sounds like she just happened to love the same name, and why should you getting pregnant before her stop her from using it?

Having said that, we didn't use a name we liked because a friend used it, but we weren't 100% sold on it anyway. If I had been, I would have used it regardless.

BertieBotts · 01/07/2020 21:52

I don't understand why this makes her a "cow" as someone else has said?

She probably liked the name before you used it. Otherwise she would have said something like "Oh wow that's a nice name, I've not heard it before" - she'd obviously at the time already had the thought in her head to use this specific name for her future child. Maybe it even had personal significance for her. It's not outside of the realms of possibility that she had a pregnancy before you, discussed the name/agreed on it with her partner, subsequently had a miscarriage and then didn't use it until later? This happened to us (MC April 2016, DS not born until Aug 2018) - a friend could quite easily have conceived and given birth between those times, and used the name we had already decided on in 2016! We would likely still have used it. Actually the name we love is for a girl, so we still may use it in the future.

Also, it's just a name! I don't see why somebody else having the same name "takes away the specialness", unless it's an actual unique name you invented yourself.

user1493494961 · 01/07/2020 21:52

Not a lot you can do about it, your mutual friends will probably think it's a bit odd if it's an unusual name.

UnderCaffeinated · 01/07/2020 21:54

I think in this case YABU, if she's always loved the name and you used it first, even if you'd never discussed the name, you'd be unreasonable to expect her to pick a different one because you've already used it. Imagine the sort of sting she may have felt when you used the name she had her heart set on. If she wants to call her daughter the same name then she's got every right to go ahead and use it. Appreciate the fact you both have great taste!