She stole our girl name! What would you do??

[Vikasjourney]

Ladies, what would you do if you were pregnant with a girl, your best "couple friends" were also expecting a baby girl, you told said "couple friends" of your chosen name aaaaaaaand BAMMM they had their child two weeks before your due date and SURPRIIIIIIISE they used your girl name!

Would you still use the name?

Would you unfriend those two and start an open war?

Ooooor... Would you quietly dispise them and gossip about them on Mumsnet pretending nothing happened when you meet?

I want to know your opinion on this!!

'How do you know the 3 Emmas didn't hate having to share their name? That the teacher didn't find it a pain ?'

I was one of 5 with my name (which is now rather rare) in my school class. We managed, as did the teachers. If that's all you have to worry about, you're pretty lucky!

I always shared a name with classmates (and now a colleague) and it is a bit annoying, although I do like my name.

I chose an unusual name for DC1 and will probably do the same for DC2.

We have a 3 class intake at my children’s school and for some reason they put all the kids with the same names in the same bloody classes! So it can’t really be a problem can it?!

I’d probably still use it and if anyone asked I’d say yeah, we were always going to use this name which x friend knew but never mind! Just be honest about it. It is a strange thing for the friend to do, there are hundreds of names to choose from.

Honestly, all those holier than thou people saying you don't own a name and nobody stole anything....I bet every person on here would feel a bit shocked and put out if it happened to them.

It's one thing if it's someone you rarely see or they didn't know, it's another thing altogether if it's close friends and you quite clearly told them your name choice in advance.

It's not even about 'owning' the name, it's about spending months trying to come up with the perfect name for your child and presumably deliberately avoiding the names of people you know, other kids in your circle etc. In normal circumstances, I doubt very many people would give their DC the same name as one of their friends children.

My sensible advice is to stick to the name you love but, realistically, I know if it was me, i probably couldn't do that myself as I'd hate that it would look like we'd copied them! Have you got any other names you like?

That happened to us!! It was a family member who knew what I always wanted to call a girl and then used the name - all the family knew but for some reason felt sorry for her. Then when I was expecting again they took the same name we had for a boy - I had a miscarriage (3 in total) but then had a girl - I'm fine about it now and I'm glad we used the name we chose instead of what we were originally going to call her, but I'll never forget that and things have never been the same between us!

I swear this site is so full of stupidity and immaturity, are you like 15 or what??
Name your baby whatever you like!!

This would really piss me off.
I'd use it anyway.
And hope they moved?
And tell anyone who would listen how it happened/ why they used it first.

Use the name if you love it.

You’re unlikely to be friends with the couple long term but in 80 years your daughter will still have the name you chose.

(I would blank them and block them but I’m petty like that....)

This is exactly why I didn’t tell anyone our names before our birth; because we didn’t know what we were having and because when we did know what we were having the alternative name will be kept for future use, we had a hard enough time choosing as it is. I would be livid.

I’d go ahead with the name anyway. My aunt has used my sons name as her little boys middle name, she said she loved it so she wanted to use it. Fine by me, and it would’ve been if she called her little boy my sons name for his first name. You can’t own a name

Use the name.

Don't be a drama llama

Use the name and let it go

Start a war definitely! How sly of them why not say they had fallen in love with the name and warn you.

Yes, no one owns names - but their decision wasn't cool. I'd be really angry. Maybe irrationally - but I'd still be angry.

And I wouldn't use the name, either. It would annoy me too much.

I wouldn't raise it with your friends. But I'd definitely view our relationship in a different light. It's something I'd have expected them to speak to you about - either at the time you shared it ("OMG you're going to call your daughter xxxxx ? That's our number one name too!") or when their daughter was born: "I know you love the name xxxxxx and we do too, so that's what we are going to name her." It's not like they need to ask permission - of course they don't - but not acknowledging it at all is weird and smacks of rudeness, to me.

As long as it isn't Lily-May go for it (nothing against the name, it's just ridiculously popular here).

It isn’t/wasn’t “your“ name. It was a name you and the other mum both liked. She may have been hoping to use it for a daughter for years. Do you really think she should have changed her plans just because she’d found out someone else also liked it? Try to look at it from another perspective. If you hadn’t discussed it and you also used the name, she could justifiably think you copied her. And if you’d been planning to use the name for a long time, you’d probably think she was being unreasonable to think that and that you had every right to use the name you’d chosen. Sounds rather childish imho. Just as if I’d complained about William and Kate copying our kids’ names for their first two. 😂

This is why I'd never discuss my name choice before the baby comes, except with the people I'm very closest to.

I suppose I would be a bit disappointed about it, specially if it was an unusual name. But really - just use the name for your daughter too. Laugh about it. When they are older it will be an amusing tale you can tell them about why they have the same name. Don't know if this is a possibility, depending on the name, but you could maybe use a different spelling if that works?

Mmmm personally I wouldn't but my children have quite unique but very traditional names and I like that they are the only ones, however each to their own, One of my good friends have just had a bobby, with our other good friend already having one. Mustn't be a thing for them x

If everyone had to change their dream name just because someone else close to them used it, there wouldn't be 3508249 Jennifers running around close to their 50th birthday.

If you like it, use it. Odds are you won't be friends with these people for the rest of your lives.

I would be quite annoyed, quietly annoyed. But I also probably wouldn't have told them my chosen name for this reason. Personally I would find a different name. I wouldn't mention anything to them unless they mention it or any other situations arise.

It depends. I’d be annoyed if you knew for a fact that they’d never considered it and have now taken it because you gave them the idea.

Other than that possibility, so what. You and they can use whatever names you want.

We didn’t know whether not or girl for first baby. We had a girl. Friends pregnant at same time due three months later used the longer version of the boy name we were going to use had it been a boy.
Second pregnancy and I had a boy and I said to them if it is boy we will use short version of your child’s name which would have been what first child would have been of a boy. They said we would rather you didn’t. We ignored them. Couple years later we moved away anyway and still see them at parties etc but not often. They always call their con by longer version anyway. So not an issue except I do smart at the cheek of them expressing a preference that they would rather we didn’t as if they owned it and had our first been a boy we’d have got in first.

This happened to my brother. Him and his wife were gutted. They had a baby with no name for a fortnight, as they went back to the drawing board..... They changed their name. They don't regret at all. They love the name they finally chose. There were no hard feelings that I'm aware of.