Godmother stole my son's name

[MagsMaggie]

My baby son's Godmother recently had a baby boy and called her son the EXACT same name as my son, her Godson. She did not even ask us before stealing his name. I know that my son does not "own a name" however we did not use another name as she asked us not to. The name we gave our son is unusual. She had not heard of the name until we named our son. What type of Godmother names her newborn son after her baby godson? Our sons are so close in age. She even used the exact same spelling. My partner and I are angry. Are we being unreasonable? I feel like she has ended her relationship with us by doing this

Of course you can’t steal a name but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I would never dream of using the same name as one of my friends children, never mind that she is his god parent. I think it has massive implications such as no longer wanting your children to play or be around each other as it would be very confusing. Never mind the fact it’s just downright rude. I would feel exactly the same and want to avoid this person in future . Especially if she made it clear in the past she didn’t want you to use a name and you respected that and then she uses a name you picked.

It's sad that she can't use her own mind to come up with something. Now whenever this person's name is used in the family, people will have to clarify who they are talking about. Your name is a big part of your identity and she was wrong to not even check with you. I'd imagine she knew you rightly would not be too impressed.

I would be more concerned that both of you are naming your kids with unusual and supposedly unique names. The kids are the ones that deal with parental selfishness.

@MagsMaggie
Once you admit that you do not own a name, the need to be that invested makes little sense.
Rarely are there names that someone else somewhere have used. In classrooms on jobs etc, there are often several people with the same names, and nothing major or monumental happens because of it.

In my opinion, as adults people rarely appreciate the cutsie or unique effects at spelling that parents engineer in their efforts to be different or creative. Kids often seem to enjoy being able to find personalized items with their fairly common names on them.

Given that you don't own a name, I don't think that a head's up is necessary. If you are friends it maybe the kind of thing that you talk about in the course of normal conversation, but many people prefer not to mention actual names until after the birth.

In our immediate family, we have. 3 Jonathan's and 5 Matthews and no one gets upset or confused. Too many more important issues about which to be concerned.

Your son probably won't care. By the time that he is old enough to be aware, shared names, both dates etc, will likely be an commonplace experience for him. He may even enjoy not having such a unique name all to himself.

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I'd be fuming. I think that's really really odd behaviour to be honest.

In our family it's usually always family who are god-parents. The understanding that if something happens to us, our child will go to one of their god-parents. It's the norm where I live in Ireland.

Get over it and move on who cares. There’s more things to worry about in life than the same name

Also not knowing someone with that name means NOTHING. Names are cyclic, what is common for us is not common now... we are old.

Want to give your kid a unique name then name her Mary or him Gary. There are next to no little Marys/Garys now.

Don't name her Aria Winter and him Jensen Lennox because you 'never met one' in real life before as its just standard 'current' type name.

I never met anyone with DS name (although I was never precious about it being rare), it was top 20 when he was born. My DS knows several with his name (now hes a teen with a social circle) but me and DH still don't know any (wasn't even any in his class in primary).

If I had a pound for every new parent that said they had 'never' met a Harry/Oliver or Amelia/Isla before they used it and now its 'everywhere' then lets just say I would have a fair few pounds. Of course the names where everywhere before but they just werent hanging out with pre-schoolers.

Your pal is a massive hypocrite if she asked you not to use a name that she wanted to ‘claim’, and then went on to use your unique name. I don’t understand why people would just shrug this off. It isn’t just about the copycat-ing, is it?

I can see why she’s upset you. Personally I’d have just gone ahead with the name I liked best. She may never have had children, or only had girls. This was the most unreasonable request.

How old’s your baby? If you said, I missed it. Would you consider changing his name now? That is something you can do and just rise above anything she says either way.

This is one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard of. Is it really because she picked the same name? So if you had both called your sons Chris, say, would there be the same problem? I find that hard to believe. It's all down to how "unique" the name is and how you feel it's now not so special and fabulous because someone else dares to have it. Get over yourselves.

First child?

You love your friend enough to ask her to be Godmother so don't let this get between you. It is annoying.
You can't do anything about it except build a mind bridge and get over it..
Try to find it flattering.

Say to her, "I'm so glad that you loved my baby's name so much that you used the exact same one. Do you think the boys will find that confusing at all?"

They will grow up and away but they will have that name bond, cute. The surnames will differentiate them.

I think it has massive implications such as no longer wanting your children to play or be around each other as it would be very confusing

What an insane perspective. Are there really parents who veto their child’s friends if they have the same name, as the confusion would simply be too much? Absolute insanity. How have such people managed to navigate life sufficiently to procreate in the first place? Surely they spend their time in a permanent state of confusion over the many insolvable problems they come across.

I think its weird behaviour on her part if she already asked you not to use a name she wanted but this honestly wouldnt bother me, it would bemuse me because its a bit silly/ridiculous to copy someone's name. I'd take it as a compliment and secretly laugh about it. I wouldnt be changing my child's name just because of this, why should I have to do that?

Oh for goodness sake - grow up and move on. You picked an unusual name and someone else has used it - so what? You don't own a name and you'll likely find he'll go to school and find another child with the same name, or join the workplace and ditto.

As for your friends texting - do they not have much going on in their lives that this has created so much drama?

You are very contradictory if you "know you don't own a name" then you also know you have started a big discussion about nothing, for no reason - WHY?!

I would hate it, I love my daughter's name so much, if one of my friends choose it too I think I'd be really upset, even if it's silly. Names mean a lot to some people. I automatically ruled out any name already used in a pretty wide circle of friends, I just don't think it's something you should do, especially if it's a unique name.

It's not the name though, it seems like this woman has past jealousy issues and is trying deliberately to undermine the OP by getting her to change her original name then using the same first and middle names! That would be someone I would distance myself from. Not the ' her son has the same name as mine' She seems very manipulative.

If the name is, say, Milly-Molly-Mandy, could you ask for a birth
certificate rectification to Milly-Molly-Mandy The First, just to annoy GM?

I can totally understand why your upset. GM asked you not to use a name implying she originally didn’t want your children to have the same name then deliberately does it? As others have said i’d seriously consider changed your ds’s name if you and dh still prefer your original choice.
Btw she didn’t consult you because she knew you’d already been kind enough to leave the other name at her request so she knew if she asked you’d likely ask her not to use it.

Nobody owns a name - completely true. Even with an unusual name OPs son is likely to meet someone who shares his name at some point.

However, given that you've said its two names, which are unusual, I think it's very odd for someone close to you to chose those same two names.

If someone in my friendship group had an eg Ocean Isaiah, and then a few months later another friend in that group had a son and called them Ocean Isaiah, I'd find that very strange.

Would some people really not think that was a weird thing to do?!

The moral of the story is if you love a name, tell no one.

Things I’d like to do to annoy her would be

1. change my babies name to the original name and say the name she picked was really annoying you and you couldn’t see it being used forever…..so faddie or
2. Refer to my baby as say Charlie and hers as Charlie2…..with a tinkly little laugh. It will annoy her so much, and if she has the gaul to say anything I think I’d be saying the less she has to say on baby names the better and you’ll differentiate how you like! Keep it up forever!

Write the card:

Congratulations on the birth of Charlie2

Lots of love me and the original Charlie, No1!

It might make you feel better