A mother and father-to-be say they’ve been left in an awkward position after friends called ‘dibs’ on choices from their baby name list – despite not even being pregnant
An excited mum-to-be recently shared her baby name list with pals – little knowing the drama it would cause.
As explained by her infuriated husband, they’ve been struggling to compromise on a name they both love for when their little boy arrives. When narrowing down their personal favourites, the mum was amused to find that while her list contained seven or eight choices, her husband had listed just two.
Tickled by the disparity, the pregnant woman posted the two very different lists to a group chat she’s in with some of her best friends, assuming they’d also find humour in the all-too-relatable difficulties of finding the perfect baby name.
Although she hadn’t been looking for feedback, the woman quickly received it in spades, with her ‘entitled’ friends calling ‘dibs’ on the names she’d so carefully selected…
Taking to Reddit, her ticked-off husband wrote: “She posted a list of names to her group of friends on Snapchat joking about how different (and how short) my current baby name list was.
“She proceeds to get multiple messages from her friends telling her that they’ve reserved some of these names so she can’t use them. These women are not pregnant, they may never have a son, and yet they’re telling us what we can and can’t name our child.”
The expectant father went on to explain that they are the first couple in their friendship group to get pregnant, while the women in the group are just beginning to try for families of their own. He’s found the situation ‘mind boggling’, emphasising that the friends’ responses had felt completely ‘out of character’.
Reaching out to fellow Reddit users for their thoughts on the matter, the fed-up dad continued: “Ultimately if we both love a name we’re going to name the child that regardless, it’s still really bothersome the situation her friends are putting her in though.
“I’m really shocked that the messages were sent to her at all, but now that they’ve been sent I worry my wife will subconsciously let it factor into the decision.”
One person advised: “Since you two are going to be parents soon you both have to learn to say ‘no’. No, you cannot stick a fork in the socket. No, you cannot play with matches. No, you cannot take something that doesn’t belong to you. Set boundaries now, whether they are your children or not.”
Another commented: “Yeah doesn’t work like that. You call your kid whatever you want. My wife and her friend both wanted to call our sons the same name. Both babies were born within about three months of each other, we both went for slight variations, with the same nickname and no one cares.”
A third agreed: “When my sister was pregnant with my eldest niece, Lily was in the lineup for names. I was upset because I wanted that name for my future daughter. She ended up choosing something else anyway, but here I am 15 years later with a boy and no plans to have any more kids. So tell your wife to ignore those friends.”
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