"AITA for telling my sister that her baby name is weird?"
I (36F) am married and have two daughters, Lillian (5F) and Madeline (7F). My youngest sister Shaelyn (24F) and her fiancé Anthony (27M) are expecting their first child, a daughter, together in early February, and I couldn’t be more excited for her.
She’s always dreamed of becoming a mom and I’m super hyped to become an aunt again. The only thing is the name she and her boyfriend have picked out. Both my sister and her fiancé had previously decided to keep their daughter’s name private, but they recently decided it was time to share the name with both my family and his family.
So, my sister recently shared the name with us in our family group chat, and they want to name their daughter: Araya Sunshine Heavenly Olivia [last name]. At first I thought she was joking, and she informed me that she was being completely serious, and that the two of them have had their hearts set on this name ever since they found out they were having a girl.
I told her that she could name her baby whatever she wanted, but she should consider that she’s not just naming a baby, she’s naming a human being that will eventually become an adult, and that I think the name would be quite a weird name for an adult to have.
Her response was “If you don’t like the name, don’t name your kid that!” then proceeded to tell me that her chosen name was much better than the “basic, boring, grandma names” that I named my daughters.
She then told me I was an ahole for criticizing her baby name, but I think I’m trying to save her future child from a lifetime of bullying and jokes over her name. I don’t have a terrible name, but my name is a traditionally male name, and I was constantly getting teased in my school years for having a “boy name."
I fear that if my sister proceeds to name her baby the name they have picked out, then the poor kid’s gonna get bullied at least 10x worse than I did in school. Am I the ahole?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
GregoryGoose said:
NTA: For their daughter's sake, they should pick one middle name, or a hyphenated two word middle name. This one doesn't make any sense. You cant just throw two words and a name together in no particular order and call it a middle name.
There is no reality where someone is ever going to use this entire name when referring to her, and it's unlikely that she will ever truly identify with it. It will only come up in her life during the times that filling out forms gets weird.
Other than that, nobody in the world except her and her parents will even know how stupid and ridiculous her entire name is. Maybe her classmates will find out and bully her. Nobody will ever be like, "oh what a cool and interesting name." Best case they'll say, "oh that's weird and your parents must be weird too."
SailorCentauri said:
NTA. This poor kid is going to be bullied for having a name like that. Not to mention the difficulty finding a job when your application has "Araya Sunshine Heavenly Olivia" on it.
Should someone be bullied/ have limited job opportunities because of their name? Absolutely not. But research has shown on multiple occasions that kids are bullied because of their unique names and employers do view unique names negatively.
ch4nell said:
NTA. That is just a ridiculous name for human being are you kidding. You are in the right and looking out for your niece. She needs to grow up and realize naming her child that is a mistake.
Substantial-Roll-860 said:
NTA. But, if neice doesn't announce all four names, Araya could pass for a beautiful, non-English name. If, however, anyone even says Araya Sunshine, to say nothing of the rest, bullies will line up.
Secret_Werewolf1942 said:
NTA, your sister needs a wake up call, that's just ridiculous.
Intermountain-Gal said:
YTA. I agree that the FULL name is odd, but I like Araya. It’s lovely. Kids rarely know each other’s middle names, anyway, or not until graduation, so it shouldn’t be the issue you’re worried about. But at the end of the day, it isn’t your business or mine. It’s a decision to be made by the mother and father of the child. You need to apologize for being out of line.
If she happened to be teased you can commiserate with her as you’ve been down that road. Just don’t ever criticize her parent’s choice. I have found that kids are much more accepting of unusual names now than when I was a child, simply because they’re more exposed to different names.
These days I can pretty much guarantee two things about names in school: there will nearly always be two of some name in the classroom, and there will be at least one with a non-mainstream name.
My name was unusual though no one teased me about it. Ditto for two of my 3 siblings. My youngest brother was given a name that was a boy’s name when my parents were kids, but had been turned into a predominantly girl’s name by the time he was born. He was teased quite a bit about it throughout grade school. As an adult nobody says anything about it, and he’s fine with it now. So please apologize.
NemiVonFritzenberg said:
Esh also no one cares about middle names.