A woman has shared her heartbreak after her friends and family started picking apart of chosen baby name without considering her reasons for it – and it forced her to take drastic measures
A woman has sparked a debate after naming her son Harry Potter – but she says there’s nothing magical about the name for her. She explained how she took her husband’s surname at the altar 10 years ago and originally planned to name her son Louis Michael but shortly before his birth, her dad tragically died.
She said on Reddit: “Michael, my husband’s middle name being Michael, Louis being a name we both liked. However, during my pregnancy my dad passed away tragically and unexpectedly. He had been having abdominal pain and fatigue for some months and we begged him to get treatment but he didn’t. He ended up having an aortic aneurism behind the wheel of his car. He made impact with a traffic pole but he was dead before impact.”
She says her dad’s death “destroyed her” – and caused her ‘easy’ pregnancy to turn into ‘high-risk’. She said: “I’m still mourning him. It’s been four and a half months and I’m still not over it.
“My dad’s name was Harry, and conveniently his middle name was also Michael. I wanted to honour my father by calling my son after him. But that would mean his name is Harry Potter.
“Anyway, I decided to not let the book series and movies rule my emotions and decision, and my lovely little boy with big blue eyes and bright-red hair is called Harry Michael Potter.”
The mum jokingly added: “He’s only about three weeks old and we’re totally in love and he’s a decent little dude, we’ll probably end up keeping him.”
She announced her son’s birth with a professional photoshoot, sending the snaps to her close friends and family members in the post.
However, she wasn’t at all expecting them to inundate her with their thoughts on his name.
She added: “Being a birth announcement Harry’s full name is on the announcement. I’ve been getting an unending amount of ridicule and shaming from people for calling my son Harry.
“To add insult to injury one of my so-called ‘friends’ shared the birth announcement with a meme page and now I’m getting it from everywhere.
“My husband and I love the name, there’s no question of keeping it, but I’m at the point where I’m considering asking my husband if he would mind if we change Harry’s last name to my maiden name, so he’d be Harry Michael Vaughn. I’m pretty sure he’d agree since he’s getting annoyed too.
“The worst is the shaming online. Y’all know the toxic culture of Facebook and mum-groups, I’m having people accuse me of child-abuse, people saying I need to have the authorities, CPS, whatever, called on me.”
Commenting on her post, one user said: “If you think you get ridiculed it’s nothing compared to what your son is going to get.”
Another user added: “Firstly, I’m sorry to hear about your dad. You can name your kid whatever you want but be aware that, even though the name has tremendous meaning to you, the average person (and future employers) will only think of it as the book character and not a homage to your late father.
A third user said: “Even if this is real, this is terrible. You’re going to honour your father by having your son be constantly ridiculed. Smart.”
One more user said: “The people who are mocking you are — but you, your husband and your son will have to deal with this literally for the rest of his life.
“You need to come up with some strategies to address it in real life (‘he’s named for my late father’ accompanied by a cold stare should work) and to handle the online hate (which may just be ignoring it).
“Then you’ll have to teach those strategies to your son. Congrats on the baby, and I’m sorry about your dad.”
