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While we all go to great pains to find the perfect name for our child, those who deliver babies everyday hear the good, the bad and the very funny. A recent post on Reddit asked the question, “Nurses and midwives of Reddit, have you ever tried to talk new parents out of a baby name? What was it?” And the response is hilarious.
Naming your baby is not always easy. No one wants to choose a name that could potentially cause ridicule or teasing, nor choose something too outlandish, difficult to say or hard to spell. However, sometimes the desire for a certain name far outweighs these considerations. And often, it takes an outside eye to point out unsuitable choices.
When the above question was posted on Reddit, some responses really stood out.
One said, “Boss’s friend named their kid Monster Galileo <last name>. Nurse tried to talk them out of it. Called in child services to talk them out of it. They insisted. Kid goes by Galileo.”
While the person acknowledged that Galileo had a certain ring to it, they felt it still might cause problems. “Honestly, I kind of like the sound of it for an adult or a performer’s name,” they said. “But guh, being a kid named ‘monster’ has to be rough in school.”
Another bizarre offering comes from a post saying, “Not a nurse, but as a med student a patient wanted to name her child ‘Mudpiles’. The nurses silently protested and waited a few days. Mom changed her mind.”
Meanwhile another said, “I worked at a registrar for a while and among the birth certificates I got some of the standouts i saw were: Killer and Sweet Prayer Sunrise (this one was a boy).”
While there are some unusual spellings for fairly regular names these days, this post reveals one that really tickles the funny bone. “My classmates mother was a maternity nurse and she has a couple who wanted to name their son “Collin” but wanted to give him a “unique” spelling for it. (I do not understand why parents do this. It doesn’t make a boring name more interesting all it does is set your child up for lifelong inconvenience.) They spelled it out for her to put on the birth certificate C-O-L-O-N. They tried to name their son Colon. As in, the organ attached to your anus.”
Fortunately the parents realised their error and went with a more acceptable spelling. “When my classmates mother explained this to them they were painfully embarrassed and asked her to write it down with the normal spelling instead,” said the person. “I don’t think they’ll ever live it down.”
In the end, it’s not really up to the midwife, nurse, teacher or anyone to suggests an alternative name. Ultimately, the decision rests with the parents. And in most cases, a name becomes part of the child as they grow into it.
One particular situation underlines this. Someone posted, “My boyfriend’s grandmother wanted to name her daughter Sunshine. The midwife said that wasn’t allowed because ‘it wasn’t a real name’ and his grandmother had no other back up baby names.” Unfortunately the new mum was forced to chose a different name in the spur of the moment. “So a few minutes later when she heard someone down the hall screaming ‘Tina’, she named her daughter Tina because she couldn’t think of anything else on the spot,” they said.
Another person had a similar situation. “My mum and dad were talked out of calling my sister Florence after my mum’s grandmother,” they posted. “The midwife said ‘you can’t call such a beautiful baby that’ so they didn’t!”
Maybe sometimes, there are situation where parents should be left to make their own choices. It’s their baby after all. As another reader commented in response, “Florence is a great name”.
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