A mum has been left baffled by her friend’s “unreasonable” reaction to her baby boy’s name.
The woman took to Mumsnet for advice on if there was anything she could have – or should have – done differently.
She explained that she and her husband had recently welcomed a baby boy, with her partner suggesting a name for their little one that they both adored.
There was just one problem: it was the same name as her friend’s 6-year-old son.
The mum added:
“The name meant a lot to my [husband] and we liked it over other names so I decided to ask my friend whether it was ok to use it as this was the only reason we weren’t!
“For context my friend has never met my partner or been to my house, I see her about 3-4 times a year which I tend to instigate and we don’t live in the same area, so after much deliberation we didn’t think it was a good enough reason not to name our son a name we both loved.”
She sent her friend a message asking if it was OK to use the name, only for the other woman to say she didn’t mind – and she understood that picking a name is tough.
She said:
“So we named our son this and we are very happy with the name and it suits him well! I thought I’d done the right thing in asking…
“But since then my friend has deleted me from social media and I found out from a mutual friend she was hurt that we had called our son the same name as her son.
“She hasn’t spoken to me directly about this and I feel incredibly offended that she has deleted me and obviously can’t bear to look at any pictures of our baby who shares the same name as her son.
“I feel like I did the right thing in asking but wondered what others opinions are on this.”
The mum later said that it was a “fairly common name” and “not unusual at all”, adding that she would have understood her friend’s reaction if the name was particularly unique.
Most people thought that the mum’s friend was ‘unreasonable’ in her reaction.
One person said:
“Honestly some people get so precious! Nobody owns a name.”
Someone else added:
“Names don’t belong to anyone as sole possessor, and you’d asked her and she’d said OK! She’s got nothing to feel hurt over.”
Some others, though, could see where the mum’s friend is coming from.
A different person said:
“I would be annoyed too. I know general consensus is that nobody owns a name but it can take months to lovingly choose a name for your [child] so it’s irritating when a friend decides to copy.”
