27 Parents Explain Why They Regret The Names They Gave Their Children
Some of these names are beyond ridiculous. Like Milton. Found on r/AskReddit.
1. “Fuck.”
To a degree I regret the names of both of my kids.
My wife and I picked out the name Aidan long before the current Aidan/Aiden/Ayden/etc. craze. After my son was born we found out it was one of the most popular names of the year. We probably would have picked something else just to keep him from having the same name as 4 other kids in any given gathering.
For my daughter we picked the name Arya, long before we even knew there would ever be a Game of Thrones show, but that’s not why I regret her name now. No, that would be as a result of her middle name. Naomi. Nothing wrong with that on its own–until you see her name written out with her middle initial, especially in all caps.
ARYA N.
Fuck.
2. …and she grew up to be one
As friend of mine spent a lot of time picking out her first son’s name. She and her husband were going to go with Timothy when she wrote out the name in different variations with their last name.
Needless to say, when she wrote out T Watt, that was the end of any name that started with a T for any of her kids.
3. They actually didn’t care
Not the namer but the named. My rents named me Andrew but it was recorded as Adnrew. Apparently my mother noticed soon after but didn’t actually care. She then lost my birth certificate so I never knew; found out when I got it replaced trying to get my license. I had to file court papers and everything to get it changed, and she thought the whole thing was hilarious. So no, my parents didn’t regret anything.
4. Dammit mom
I’m an Andrea but my birth certificate says Anarea! My mom didn’t know for almost 20 years. I still haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed.
5. They couldn’t decide on her birthday either
I went to High School with a girl whose parents defended her name whenever questions of it came up.
She didn’t mind the name either though.
She was April May June, but we called her Spring.
6. Parents readying themselves for a good troll
My wife and I have a daughter that we named Jordan. I’m fine with that, my wife is a very independent woman and Jordan is kind of a strong name for a girl.
Now we’re thinking about having another kid, and if it’s a boy she wants to name him Michael. Jordan and Michael. Michael and Jordan. I’m 6’7″, she’s 6’3″ and both very white. She somehow thinks that it won’t be weird if our (most likely) tall children are named freaking Michael, Jordan. I don’t want to be answering questions or listening to jokes about their names for three the next 20 years though.
7. Don’t stop…believing…
My high school art teacher had sons named Michael and Jackson. His name was Steve Perry, same as the lead singer of Journey.
8. “I was named after peanut butter”
My actual first name is Jif. People think I’m from New Zealand and I’m saying “Jeff”. Thanks Mom and Dad.
9. Maybe she can’t pronounce it
I think my mother regrets my name. She wanted to name me Sebastian, but my grandmother said she’d call me Se-bastard. She caved and named me Joshua. I heard this story all my life, so when I had my first son, we named him Sebastian. I’ve never seen my mother so happy. My grandmother calls my son by his middle name.
10. He fought for his kids
My ex and I had a great marriage – until it fell apart 14 years in.. Up to that point the worse thing we ever fought about was baby names and paint colors.
She wanted our first to be Zebulon Zachariah. Not even kidding. We fought and fought about it. She was dead serious and I was completely baffled as to how she thought that was a good idea. I finally talked her into a more sane first name and conceded Zachary as a middle name.
Second child she wanted Dartanion. “Little Dart!” She would say. Oh hell no. We fought over this one while she was in labor ON THE WAY TO THE HOSPITAL. she wasn’t giving up. I won that one too with something not common, but sane at least.
Third child she was back on the Dartanion train. Fought for 9 solid months. Thank god that one was a girl.
11. Free Mason
The year is 2014. On a crowded playground, a mother’s fear is realized: She cannot find her son.
In desperation, she calls out his name. “Mason? MASON?”
The mother puts her head in her hands and laments the choices she’s made, as 81 tiny voices respond, “Mommy!?”
12. Foreign names don’t count, do they?
My parents named me “Harsh”. It’s quite a common name in India and has a different meaning (happy), but in the US, people always ask me why I am named “Harsh”.
Also, they occasionally crack jokes like, “why are you so harsh?”
13. …your money
I worked with an Indian guy name Surender. Pharmacist at a grocery store.
Imagine all those old, yuppie, white (and black) people shuffling into line at the pharmacy only to run into an Indian guy with a bad accent and “Surender” on his name tag. This was shortly after 9/11, mind.
I was 16. Surender was a nice dude, just trying hard to make money and immigrate to the US. I learned a lot about life from that job.
14. “I do not kill people”
“Is your name really Hannibal? Like that’s on your birth certificate? Like, your parents call you Hannibal?”
15. Many regrets were had
Yeah, my kid is named Chad.
16. A teacher and you didn’t realize they rhymed?
Naming your kids is tough.
First you have to run it through the ‘people you hate’ filter. We hate a lot of people.
Second, you want to be hip, but not too hip. The world can do without another Ansley. Rose is an up and comer too.
Third, you have to run it through the playground filter. Asher? Ash-hole.
Plus I’m a teacher. There are a lot of names I can’t use because – Oscar? I remember Oscar. Fuck man, I can’t name my kid Oscar.
So we settled on William and Jillian. Willy and Jilly. Wait. fuck man. How douchey is this. Kids’ names that rhyme??? We seriously didn’t figure this out until so random person was all ‘ how precious!’
17. Initials are often overlooked
Oh, and consider your initials carefully. My surname begins with a “W”. My brother had a daughter and named her Jennifer Elizabeth (pretty vanilla, huh?) They got a a shit ton of blankets and cups with JEW embroidered, engraved on each piece. We aren’t Jewish.
18. A little bit
My husband and I were discussing hypothetical names (we have no kids yet). our last name begins with S.
He wanted to use the name Amanda Sophia. I pointed out that giving our kid the initials “ASS” was a bit cruel.
19. Means your mom was getting stuffed while you were in the womb
My mom wanted to name me Stuffin. What the fuck is a Stuffin.
20. “You shall not pass!” He works at a movie theater
I used to work tech support with a guy whose name was Gandalf.
In the 70s (when he was born) Tolkien wasn’t even a nerd thing, it was a hippie thing. His parents were big hippies, and loved the books. So they named him Gandalf (his sister’s middle name is Galadriel).
He said at first, people rarely recognized the name. It was a weird name, sure, but few people knew he was named after a fictional wizard.
Until the movies came out.
He HATES Peter Jackson.
21. Very popular at football games
I once knew a guy in highschool whose last name was Sweat……and the poor bastards parents made his first name Richard…Thats right…Dick Sweat
22. Her last name and birthmark
Had a high school teacher whose name was Ms. Splatt. Oh that’s not so bad you might think but she had a wine stain birthmark on one side of her face. Kids can be cruel. I always wondered why she decided upon teaching asshole teenagers as a career choice. Also she was mean as hell.
23. Thomas and Jeremiah, the cartoon from the 1780s
Twelve years ago we had twin boys. We knew one would be Thomas after my wife’s uncle. but struggled to name the second. For about 28 hours he was Baby B. Then we finally settled on Jeremiah. Two days later we introduced them to our pastor and he said “Oh cute Tom and Jerry” I looked at my wife and we were both thinking “Oh we did not just do that.” But we left it.
24. “That’s funny,” usually doesn’t make it a good name
A friend’s middle name is Baldrick – his parents thought it would be funny after watching too much Blackadder.
25. That’s not how a relationship works
My mother and stepfather picked out and agreed upon a name for my little sister while my mom was pregnant. Her middle name was supposed to be “Kate”. Step-man never said anything about it. He liked it, was fine with it.
Baby gets born, birth certificate is being written out. Mom’s exhausted so she lets baby’s dad deal with it.
A few weeks later, mom takes a look at the new social security card and birth certificate. And FLIPS HER SHIT because the middle name on all this paperwork is Leigh, even though that name had never come up in discussion. She didn’t even know until she stumbled across it by accident, quite a bit too late.
26. Milton…
I had to fight like hell for my wife’s entire third pregnancy before she let me name our son Milton. Among other things, my wife recommended that I impregnate another woman if I wanted to name someone Milton so badly. During his first few days when we were signing him up for dr appointments and other stuff, we were asked if he was named for a grandfather or something. Nope, just liked the name.
Of course now everyone agrees that Milton is the perfect name for the little dude and he’s the superstar of every room he toddles into. He’s got a memorable name to go along with the cuteness power of 1,000 cute supernovas.
Fuck you haters, Milton is an awesome name.
