The case of the 'Stolen Name'

[Igetknockeddownbutgetupagain]

I was going to change details to protect identities, but actually I hope the people concerned do read this and realise they are in the midst of what is a petty, ridiculous situation. FYI, these are not characters from a Jeremy Kyle episode, these are sane, educated beings who should know better.

My Mum got a kitten about 3 weeks ago, a while after the sudden death of her previous much loved feline friend.

She has called it Milly May. No reason, just liked it, but had a few other ideas.

My sister takes a photo (yawn, but whatever, different strokes) uploads it to #the root of all evil# / aka Facebook, and puts the kitten's name underneath.

My cousin, pregnant with her 1st baby, due in Feb, later comments 'Original name...!'

She sends my mum a message, the day after Christmas telling her that she had chosen Mollie May for the baby, as her Nans name was May, and she felt my Mum must have known (??!) and that she'd been very upset ever since. My Mum, sent a very nice message back saying she hadn't known, just liked the name and how was the pregnancy going now?

The next day, no reply, my cousin simply 'unfriended' her.

My cousin is 32.

Bloody mental. Or is it...? Should my Mum change the kittens name? Try and talk to my cousin over the phone? Or do what I've suggested, which is ignore the situation and carry on as normal?

I call all my cats after friends of my DM from my 1970's childhood. :) So unless anyone in the family is planning to call their babies things like Beryl, Barbara or Doris I'm on fairly safe ground

Hmmm pregzilla

I once taught a class with TWO Lily-Mays and either a Milly or a Molly-May, I can't quite remember.

my h is currently researching his family tree. They have managed to go back as far as the 1800's. Anyway it seemed there was quite a high inphant mortality back then, and there seems to have been a trend for naming children after other dead children. Anyway he found one entry where a child died when about one yo and another baby was born to the mother five months later and was given the name of the dead child. So the mother was pregnant with that child when the first one died and named him after the dead one.

Hopefully, she'll now have a rethink and the poor child will get a slightly less twee name.

Do cats get middle names? Or is it a hyphen job? Milly-May?

Bloody ridiculous.

Your mum is supposed to be psychic then.

Just ignore her.

Or change the cat's name to Molly May.

Send her a link to Rod Stewart singing Maggie May and suggest she sues him for nicking her name as well . . . I've heard he's got a bob or two put aside so she might be on to a winner there.

For the sake of keeping the peace, just shorten the cat's name to Milly.

Then the baby can be Mollie May, the cat will be Milly, everyone is happy.

Anniegetyourgun.

Sorry, I obviously need to recheck the rules of protocol. All I know is that you just can't call a cat Spider.

(A prize for the first poster to identify my reference! Erm Annie will donate a silver bullet from her gun)

Your cousin will end up having a boy because the scan was not all that clear and ends up red faced.

When my sister told our mother her new dd's name, my mother was aghast. "You CAN'T!!! That's the cat's name."
My sister was and carried blithely on regardless. Fast forward a couple of years, the cat died and now, 25 years on, my niece is still holding on to "her" name and few people can even remember my mother had a cat.

Spider? I don't recognise the reference, I'm afraid. I do know that T S Eliot said cats need three names, but neither titles nor spiders were mentioned iirc.

You might want to name a baby after one of my cats (Oscar), but I wouldn't recommend using the other one (Bubbles). Disclaimer: we got them both as adults and just didn't change the names. Mind you, Oscar is such an... Oscar we'd probably have called him that anyway.

Indiana Jones named himself after the dog, so if it's all right for him...

Anyway, the important thing is, this thread is clearly designed to go down in the annals, so the only question is whether future namechangers will refer to it as Namegate or Kittengate.

Yes hecate has the answer! Respond by changing the cat's name to Mollie May from immediate effect!! GENIUS.

Stupid bloomin name anyway, will hopefully do her child-to-be a great service by getting her a better name.

Your cousin is being bonkers! My half sister actually called her son the exact same name as my six year old son. So my dad has two grandchildren called steven James surname (not the actual name)

She defriended your Mum? Because your Mum was not psychic and named her cat something a bit similar to the baby name she had in mind.

Pregzilla indeed.

The kitten died? WHAT A TERRIBLE STORY!!!!!

Suggest she calls the baby Kitty instead