Settling on the perfect name for your little one can be tough.
Some parents want to go the traditional route, while others opt for something a little more unique.
But what would you do if someone you were close to decided to give their child the same unusual name as yours?
A mum has told how she “ghosted” a friend of hers after she gave her son the same name she had picked.
In a post for Kidspot, the mum explained that she and her husband had given their first two sons more traditional names and wanted to pick something “a little more unusual” for their third.
She added:
“We knew we’d have negative comments from some family members but, what the heck? Everybody eventually grows into their names, don’t they?”
They eventually settled on the name Diesel, which they said “felt right” as it would be something the little boy would be remembered for.
The woman added that they had decided to start telling people the name they had chosen during their pregnancy, as a way of preparing their family members.
But bar leaving her mother-in-law stunned by the choice, and one friend who claimed the boy would change his name when he got older, everything went pretty smoothly.
When Diesel was six months old, the mum recalled how she ended up catching up with her friend Amanda, who was pregnant with her second child.
The mum explained:
“She spent a long time cuddling Diesel, telling me how beautiful he is and then she confided in me that she was also expecting a boy.
“She said having a son was her ‘dream come true’ because, as much as she loves her daughter, she really wanted a boy.”
She said that she saw Amanda again closer to her due date, which is when things took a bit of a turn.
The soon-to-be mum-of-two asked her how to spell Diesel, as she was planning on calling her son the same name.
And while the woman assumed it was a joke at first, Amanda announced her son’s name two months later – and the mum was furious.
“Yes, I realise I don’t have copyright of the name. But when your child has an unusual name, you end up feeling like you ‘own’ it – just within your close circle of girlfriends,” she wrote.
The mum added that she wouldn’t have had an issue with it if her friend had given her son the same name as her other two children.
She said her issue with it was “only ever about ‘stealing’ my child’s unusual name.”
Two years have passed since then, and the mum recalled how Amanda had tried to reach out to her a few times since – however, she never returned her call.
Admitting that it “might sound petty,” she said:
“I can’t bring myself to talk to her again. Do I think she regrets losing a friendship over her decision to name her son the same as mine? Not at all.
“For, if she’d feared losing my friendship, she would have read my initial horrified reaction to her telling me what she planned on calling her baby, and she’d have changed her mind.”
