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I'm the Victim of a Baby Name Thief!
I had a baby name picked out for about 10 years, and I made the mistake of telling someone about it. Not only did they take the first name, but they took the middle name, too! It's completely uncommon. I know full well that I have no ownership of the name, but whenever I see this person writing their baby's name, I actually feel betrayed. Is this completely insane?
- Confused in NY
Name thieves are the scourge of the baby-naming world. Visit any message board devoted to expectant moms to see how many cousins, colleagues and in-laws are guilty of breaking and entering into personal name storehouses.
When you invest time and dreams in the names you love, it's easy to feel that you do "own" them. It's the law of possession: You've been living with it for so long, it has become yours. How can Miss Sally-Come-Lately have the same claim on it -- especially when you did all the hard work of thinking it up? Surely courtesy demands some request for your OK before she waltzes off with your name.
So no, you are not insane. Your feelings of disappointment, anger and even betrayal are understandable.
And yet, they're not very useful are they? The baby's been named and that name isn't going to change. In other circumstances I might suggest a frank conversation with your friend about why you're upset, but I can't think of a productive way to tell someone that their cherished child has a name he or she doesn't deserve.
That means that the only way to make peace with the situation is to work within yourself. First of all, as hard as this may sound, try to see the compliment in the name burglary. A name that you invented impressed this person enough to choose it for his or her own child. That's a huge vote of confidence in you and your taste. Second, you mention that you see the child's written name but not that you see the child, which leads me to suspect that you're not especially close with the parents. In that case, there should be no obstacle to using the name yourself when your time to have children comes.
But if the thought of the earlier-named baby rules out your favorite name forever, take comfort in the fact that anyone with the creativity to come up with one great name has the creativity to come up with another.
Just make sure to keep that one a secret.
Do you feel possessive of your favorite names? Share your experiences here. And if you have your own question to Ask the Name Lady, drop her a line!
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 2)
11-26-2010 @ 1:35AM
JEB BUCKINGHAM said...Why not steal George Costanza's future-baby's name....."Soda", or...."Seven".
Reply
11-27-2010 @ 2:37PM
David said...Dear Ms. "The Name Lady," I'm pretty sure this letter was a joke, made at your expense. It's a complete rip-off of the Seinfeld episode. You can tell its a joke because there are no details given. Any person who is that obsessed about a baby's name doesn't deserve to have a baby. Just name your kid Michael or Jessica and they will grow up fine. Weird names only cause bullying.
Reply
11-27-2010 @ 3:15PM
jennifer said...I actually had this happen with my SIL. Our first baby we chose a unique family name and told her when she found out she was expecting too. She didnt steal the name but said that she wanted to name her daughter the same name but added a B to the begining then announced it at Sunday lunch like she had oh so cleverly thought of it herself. My husband freaked and told her that its unacceptable that she was only doing it to be hateful and that she knew we had chosen that name for our daughter...needless to say she didnt use the name but used someone elses name instead.
Reply
11-27-2010 @ 6:21PM
HillClimber said...Somewhere I was hoping that someone would give a rebuff to this silly habit of naming children totally irresponsible, unspellable, unpronounceable utterances that they hope to pass off as names. Is your daughter Shanana, or Latisha, or Twi'leafa? Your son goes by an equally ridiculous moniker too, I'll assume. No - when you brand your child with one of these ridiculous handles, try to remember that NO ONE has a responsibility to try to remember, spell or pronounce this misnomer. And just to make everyone happy, I'll do my best to make a complete mockery of the name the first chance I have to do so. Don't forget too - the poor child will have to carry your foolishness for the rest of their lives.
Reply
11-27-2010 @ 7:21PM
HillLeveler said...Actually, you do have a responsibility to remember, spell, and pronounce the name of someone who turns out to be, for example, your student, teacher, co-worker or customer. if you mock people's names, you won't have many friends and you could be out of a job.
Therefore, if the name truly is foolish, then it is not just the child, but everyone who ever associates with that child, who will bear the burden.
12-06-2010 @ 11:55AM
Anise said...Wow, what a proud racist you are.
You do realize that there was a time the name "John" didn't exist, and that someone made it up?
It's one thing to warn parents against creating names because it might make childhood harder on their kids and create unfair expectations for them. It's quite another to offer a list of names that are recognizably African-American and call them ridiculous. I personally find naming your kid Tawanda much more reasonable than, say, calling your kid "Apple" like Gwyneth Paltrow did.
Poor form, very poor. Be less racist. The nation thanks you.
12-20-2010 @ 2:39AM
Please keep your ignorance to yourself said..."And just to make everyone happy, I'll do my best to make a complete mockery of the name the first chance I have to do so."
Who is this "everyone" that you speak of, and how is your promise of mockery supposed to make "everyone" happy? Since you are reading a parenting website, I would assume that you are a parent, or have some interest in parenting. Try to become a responsible, thinking person before you spread this kind of hate to the next generation.
12-23-2010 @ 9:13PM
ming said...Dude those names are fine. mind your own bees wax. if you want to badger parents on what they name their kids then go somewhere else
11-27-2010 @ 9:58PM
heelsmommy said...I have a family member who named one of her children the same name as my oldest child. I thought it was weird and then decided to just forget about it. The only problem... her second child was then named after my other child. Seriously? It ticked me off. But what do you say, "please stop naming your kids after mine?" (BTW- both names are uncommon. Not like Jennifer & James).
Reply
12-06-2010 @ 10:54AM
Smoochy said...My husbands cousin used our daughter's first name as a first name and his other cousin's daughter's middle name as the middle name for their daughter. Neither one of us was very happy about that!
12-06-2010 @ 11:59AM
Anise said...I'm sure it's upsetting...but this seems to be all about you, and not your kids. A girl who is named Jennifer (at least in my generation) had to be used to a lot of other girls with the same name...yet I never saw any of the Jennifers in my life freaking out about it. They were Jennifer F., Jennifer M. and Jennifer L. One liked to be called Jenny, another even went by Jenni-o (and still does, as an adult). Our kids are unique for a million other reasons than their name, and they seem to get this without any discussion. We should take a hint from our kids on this. It's annoying, but ultimately it just has to be taken in stride.
11-28-2010 @ 12:02AM
justanobserver said...My favorite obnoxious name is La-a, pronounced "LaDasha" (The dash don't be silent).
Reply
11-28-2010 @ 12:13PM
wolfcat said...Someone did this to my name when I was little. I value my unique first name that means Lord God in Latin. Very few people in the whole wide world have my name. I'm also a writer so I would be extremely upset if someone stole my daughter's unique name. I haven't been able to find ANYONE in the WHOLE world who has my daughter's name, I've been doing some intense looking too. Her name came to me and I've found an obsolete city in Russia and an old word for refuge that were her name. And there's the other name I have left for a future child I may adopt, it's just as obsolete as the last. I've only been able to find it in ancient india and norse history. These things prove reincarnation in my opinion because I never could have heard these names at any point in my life yet they were in my head and I feel passionately about them. Put it this way, I feel about those names the way I'd feel if I picked them out special for a loved child and the child died and someone thought they could just steal the one thing I had left. A name is a very important and sacred thing and it's the only thing that can never be destroyed or stolen from you and it will be there long after you're dead. Why would I give my kids a name that everyone has? My son has a slightly more common name and the name I wanted to give him is now his middle name because I believe the name should fit the child and he didn't come out a Wolf.
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11-28-2010 @ 3:40PM
Julie Butler said...I guess one solution is to never breathe the name to a soul, except for the dad-to-be, and then swear him to secrecy. This is becoming more of a problem, it is in fact not a joke at all. My daughter's name had been considered by a friend's sister for her own baby, but my friend reminded her who already had that name. So she came up with something else.
Reply
11-30-2010 @ 9:15PM
elisabeth said...Seriously? Get a life. This is so petty and tedious. I read the column thinking it was going to be a joke only to find out that it wasn't. Really people, this is what you worry about?
Reply
11-30-2010 @ 1:50PM
art said...There is a perfect name for children (usually girls) who's names were stolen -
'Anamika' - In Sanskrit it means, the nameless one, unnamed one or one who cannot be named or defined. ;)
Reply
12-02-2010 @ 1:27PM
H H said...This is one of the "entitled mommy" concepts that I most despise.
Nobody "steals" a name. What is stopping a mother from using the name? NOTHING.
SO WHAT if your friend/relative gave that name to their child? BIG DEAL. You end up having two Davids in the family instead of one! Will the kids be scarred for life? NO. Will the earth break open under your feet? NO.
Moms who whine (and yes, it IS whining) about "name theft" need to GROW UP and GET OVER THEMSELVES.
Odds are that your kid may not love your name and change it anyway when they get older. I did.
Reply
12-04-2010 @ 9:12PM
Divageek said...Yeah, I was on my 3rd child and I told my husband's cousins wife who was also pregnant at the time that if I had a girl I would name the baby STARR. So the word go out that she was going around saying that she would name her baby STARYA if she had a girl. She also was going around saying that I was "copying" her. I was furious! I gave birth FIRST and my baby girl stayed nameless for three days while I was trying to figure out what I would name her. To me the name "STARR" was contaminated and I wanted to name her something bigger and better. I asked myself, "what is bigger than Starr?" I answered myself "the sky contains the stars" so I named her SKYY! and EVERYONE loves her name...she also looks like a Skyy, b/c she has a strong American Indian look.
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12-10-2010 @ 4:28PM
green ninja said...I named my cat Skyy after the vodka.
12-05-2010 @ 9:10AM
MH said...I wanted to name our first born son, Bartholomew Nicodemus, but my wife would have none of it. Maybe I should have not mentioned the short version Bart Nick. As far as I know it’s still available, any takers??
Reply