To tell her?

[AmandaHuggenkizz]

NC for this.

My friend has just had a baby. She announced the name to our friend group on WhatsApp. It’s very unusual. Personally, I don’t like it.
To be honest, I more than don’t like it and think it’s a ridiculous thing to call a child.

We all congratulated her and said he’s gorgeous (which he is!) etc but none of us have passed comment on the name.

She’s messaged me separately asking if the name is a bit much.

AIBU to tell her the truth, gently?

My friend called her son Ocean which was a bit but for a baby it was quite sweet. Hes 14 now and called Ocean she said to me recently she wished she would have called him something like James 😆 I never told her at the time I thought it was a bit out there though, her baby her choice.

I know of a child with a hyphenated name and a double barrelled surname. The mum when giving the child's name said "I know, it's a bit of a mouthful but he insisted".

I'm sure it's just me showing my age, but all through this thread, I've had 'Stagger Lee' going around in my head, but with 'Navy' instead of 'Stagger' - made a little bit more poignant as Lloyd Price left us recently.

To be completely fair, I think it's a bit pointless to say now 'imagine a 40yo man....' as he will never be a 40yo man in 2021. Just as we all laugh at the idea of a new baby Keith, Barry, Brian, Linda, Nigel etc now, nobody thought anything remotely untoward of it 40/50/60/70 years ago when people with those names were babies.

He might actually end up getting mocked in 2060 for having such a boring, safe, old-fashioned name, when everybody else is called Moonbottle, Harmony-Brite, Kettlescale and Braxxxton-Hixxx.

Normally don't comment on other people's kids names but if she has asked then yes, tell her what you think.

But gently

I probably would have been more direct than you, since she asked for your opinion.

If she hadn't asked I would have kept my mouth shut and smiled at the cute baby.

Have read more of the thread and realised that you have said something to her.

How did she respond?

Tactful way to do this might be to ask her what other options they had in mind, then tell her which one you like the best. It will make her reflect on her own choice if you don't re-affirm her current choice.

It's a nice name

Wow so many posters ! My daughter is called navy and everyone loves it and suits her ! How embarrassing that so many people have something nasty to say about someone's name especially a baby? Would you all tell your friend their child is ugly if they thought so also??I'm sure all your boring names are fine and suit your similarly boring outlook on life and no one ever has anything nasty to say about you !

@bodebrioche

Wow so many posters ! My daughter is called navy and everyone loves it and suits her ! How embarrassing that so many people have something nasty to say about someone's name especially a baby? Would you all tell your friend their child is ugly if they thought so also??I'm sure all your boring names are fine and suit your similarly boring outlook on life and no one ever has anything nasty to say about you !

😂😂😂 you complain about people being "nasty" and are then nasty yourself. Quality.

@bodebrioche

Wow so many posters ! My daughter is called navy and everyone loves it and suits her ! How embarrassing that so many people have something nasty to say about someone's name especially a baby? Would you all tell your friend their child is ugly if they thought so also??I'm sure all your boring names are fine and suit your similarly boring outlook on life and no one ever has anything nasty to say about you !

I love that not liking the name Navy means you have ‘a boring outlook on life’.

Nothing to do with not liking the name , i mean that you all have something to say to someone about their name ! Why does it matter what someone else calls their child and why would you need to voice it to a friend! And I was being sarcastic about boring names and a boring outlook !!! As clearly having a unique name is so exciting to talk about ! No one ever has a thread on how their friends called their children Sarah and Louise ?!

Why does it matter what someone else calls their child and why would you need to voice it to a friend!

Because the friend asked the OP for her opinion, and OP came on here to talk through that. Plus, as you'll know if you've spent any amount of time on MN in general or the baby names board in particular, people can be more, er, robust on here than in real life.

I meet a baby every few months; I'm in that stage of life. I have repeatedly - I suspect everyone has - said "Lovely!" in response to a baby name when internally I was thinking No, they didn't! or Fuck me, that's awful! or just Meh, not for me. Often in my case that's because I meet a lot of immigrants who don't realise that a particular name echoes a serial killer or a 70s TV show character. I never say anything unless asked very directly. On MN however, I can come along to a baby name thread and say that Felix reminds me of cat food or whatever.

There are likely people who don't like your kid's name. There are likely people who don't like my kid's name. That's not more or less the case because two dozen women give an opinion on MN.

No one ever has a thread on how their friends called their children Sarah and Louise ?!

I'd bet a tenner that you can search on here and find someone asking, and someone else replying that they sound too 1980s or something. Honestly, there are literally threads about names like John and Anna.

Why does it matter what someone else calls their child and why would you need to voice it to a friend!

The answer is right there in the first post.

@Campervanna

There should be a law that prevents parents from giving their offspring ridiculous names. It’s the child that suffers in the long term.

In some countries there is.

The estranged Biden granddaughter is Navy.

@Feather12

I quite like it. It sounds either traveller or southern US, I think it has a good ring to it.

@bodebrioche

Wow so many posters ! My daughter is called navy and everyone loves it and suits her ! How embarrassing that so many people have something nasty to say about someone's name especially a baby? Would you all tell your friend their child is ugly if they thought so also??I'm sure all your boring names are fine and suit your similarly boring outlook on life and no one ever has anything nasty to say about you !

From reading the thread, are you sure “everyone loves it”?

An update.

Navy has been renamed.

He was three days old when I had a 4am text from my friend saying “It’s fucking awful, isn’t it?”

She’s asked a number of people and it seems we all stuck to the polite “it’s unusual and if you love it that’s all that matters” line so she put two and two together.

I’m sad she changed it.
Navy is lovely.

Oh bless her. I don't think she'll regret it to be honest but it does take courage to do that so fair play to her.

Good she decided to change it. It's not the worst name out there and it would be easy to spell. I reckon the child will get to school and there will be 10 other Navys whose parents thought they were being so unique.

I'm all for a name that's easy to pronounce and spell.

@AmandaHuggenkizz

An update.

Navy has been renamed.

He was three days old when I had a 4am text from my friend saying “It’s fucking awful, isn’t it?”

She’s asked a number of people and it seems we all stuck to the polite “it’s unusual and if you love it that’s all that matters” line so she put two and two together.

Thank goodness for that. Poor kid dodged a bullet there.

You won't really know until you hear the new name whether he's dodged a bullet but copped a missile instead, though!