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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

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Original poster

I keep wanting to call my baby the wrong name

72 replies

NoteSpelling · 30/03/2012 13:26

I keep wanting to call her Zoe.

I don't particularly like the name Zoe, it has never been on any kind of shortlist, I don't know any Zoes, it is not her name. It is nothing like her name.

I don't mean I want to call her Zoe, as in I wish I had. I mean I keep nearly getting her name wrong. I look at her and she looks like a Zoe, or perhaps a Laila.

Calling her Zoe or Laila is absolutely out of the question.

What on earth is going on? I am a bit wierded out by this.

OP posts:

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Italiangreyhound · 31/03/2012 01:45

I am sure it will pass, try not to worry. Enjoy this lovely time. Zoe means life in Greek and you have this wonderful new life.

JessieEssex · 31/03/2012 10:08

Yep, I had it too! Kept calling DD Isabelle for no apparent reason....!

QOD · 31/03/2012 10:22

I call my 13 year old DD Kevin.

Just seems to suit her soooooo much more then her pretty girly name

Casmama · 31/03/2012 10:29

I kept calling my ds Dylan for a few months which was the name of my friends dog but having not seen this animal for about five years it did seem a little odd.

EssentialFattyAcid · 31/03/2012 10:38

I called my dd "Poppy" for ages as a pet name and did wonder if I had chosen the wrong name for her.

I don't use it much anymore though and I think her real name is nicer.

granule · 31/03/2012 10:43

I did this! I kept calling DS Steve for the first few months

I don't really know any in RL and it certainly wasn't on our shortlist. It really freaked me out.

It passed, he's now absolutely his own name and no other. Aside from 'you little bugger' under my breath occasionally.

ICanTuckMyBoobsInMyPockets · 31/03/2012 10:47

GoGo I kept thinkings DS' name was Jack too. It was never on the list, although a friend has a Jack. I was terrified I was going to tell people his name was Jack then be too embarrassed to correct myself and people would think I was losing it!!

FoofFighter · 31/03/2012 10:52

I had two names picked out for my DD but when she arrived she didn't look like either of them and a name popped into either mine or her dads head that we'd not discussed, thought of, written on list at all.

Now for the woo bit feel free to poohpooh it

When she was 2.5 she told me that the name she had been given eventually used to be her name when she was an old lady she was most insistent, saying she lived in a house with a stream and her bones were broken.

I'm now a firm believer in waiting the the baby arrives and see what it looks like before naming it.

Original poster

NoteSpelling · 31/03/2012 14:35

Okay, there are now enough of us that this phenomenon needs a name and a cod-psychological explanation.

Or is it really just woo?

OP posts:

TheEpilator · 31/03/2012 20:02

Oooh glad i mentioned it now! Thought I was a bit bonkers to start with, but its obviously not just me who believes that my DS had a previous life.

I remember seeing a TV prog about a little boy who had a whole previous-life story about being a fighter pilot who was shot down in WW1 or something - he actually went and visited the house he used to live in with his mum (on an island called Barra?), it was very spooky and actually quite sad.

Foxton · 31/03/2012 20:11

Oh TheEpilator - I saw that programme! I totally believe this is possible. Why on earth would anyone find themselves calling a baby Rhodri or Steve if there wasn't something mysterious going on? It's not like they're cute baby-type names.

On the other hand, I do still call DD2 by the cat's name sometimes (and vice versa).

chocolateyclur · 31/03/2012 20:42

Yep, me too. I was sure DS1 should have been called Alex. Positive.

His name is nothing like Alex.

I have a photo of him from around that time, and I still feel like that's a photo of "Alex" too. It's bizarre.

seeker · 31/03/2012 20:50

Because it's soooo much more likely that a person could have lived before than a tired, emotional, full of hormones person could get a name wrong!

I'm always calling mine by the wrong names. I sometimes run through cats, guinea pigs, pony's names before I actually get to the child I want. It's very common. It's what our brains do when they are tired or not concentrating properly.

FoofFighter · 31/03/2012 21:13

I really don't think that's the same thing at all seeker?

Original poster

NoteSpelling · 01/04/2012 08:39

I'm not tired or emotional .

OP posts:

seeker · 01/04/2012 08:44

everybody with a new baby is tired and emotional!

Which is more likely? Your baby has had a previous life and is able to psychically transmit to you what her name was in that life?

Or that your brain is playing a hit of a trick on you while it gets used to this amazing new experience it's having?

ChippingInNeedsCoffee · 01/04/2012 08:52

Seeker - I think that's an entirely different thing tbh.

I have seen a few stories like the one of the little boy who said he'd been a fighter pilot. There was one of a girl who had drowned when she was about 9, eventually she got them to take her to the village where she used to live and she took them to the house and her parents recognised her ... of course it could all be 'made for TV' - but actually, I believe it and I'm one of the least 'woooo' people you could meet.

Lots of children talk about past lives, but they get ignored/told not to be silly/humored but not believed and they stop thinking about it/believing it themselves and they 'grow out' of the knowledge/memory.

EverythingsNotRosie · 01/04/2012 09:08

This thread made me laugh. I have spent the last six months calling my DD Poppy when her name is actually Zoe! But she looks like a Poppy! DH won't let me change and I don't want to really, so Poppy is her nickname at the moment. I am sure she will become Zoe as time goes by.

NagooBunnytail · 01/04/2012 09:08

I really really hate the wooo explanation. It's not freakish or weird IMO to want to call a baby a 'funny' name. It's just a thing. The baby is yours, you think about it play with it, love it 'own' it. You can kiss it's face 8 million times and it can't object. You can call it whatever pops in your brain at the time.

I am that anyone seriously believes that 'Bob' was a man in 18th century Lancashire killed in a farming accident and then somehow transposed inside my daughter.

SucksToBeMe · 01/04/2012 09:11

Glad its not just me! I just had my DS curls chopped off,and now I call him by my brothers name ALL THE TIME.

seeker · 01/04/2012 09:13

fighter pilot boy explained

perplexedpirate · 01/04/2012 09:13

Nothing to do with names, but when my DS was about 2.5 we were walking past a music shop and he pointed to a guitar and said that was 'like the one I used to play, when I was big'.
I got terrifically excited thinking I had a reincarnated rock star on my hands and bought him a guitar.
Needless to say, it now sits in the corner gathering dust and receiving nary a second glance from DS.
He has made quite a few remarks like that though.
Woo indeed.

seeker · 01/04/2012 09:40

They all do this. My dd used to say "when I was a little boy....." and ds used to tell the most elaborate stories of things he had done "with his grandfather" I had to warn his Reception teacher that if he said he had done something "with his grandfather" then he hadn't.

It's called imagination and it's fantastic.

stinkingbishop · 01/04/2012 09:42

I'm worse. Have called both twins Fred, which is our cat. In fact I get mixed up between DS, DP and the cat too. Basically if anyone is in any way naughty and needs telling off, they're Fred.

My brain has gone, hasn't it. I liked it. It was a nice brain. RIP brain...

Original poster

NoteSpelling · 01/04/2012 09:59

I am not tired or emotional :)

Neither do I believe in the woo past life explanation.

I was just enjoying finding that there are lots of other people who have also experienced the strange sensation of being convinced their new baby has a different and seemingly random name.

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