A woman has admitted she made her friend cry when she gave her honest opinion on her choice of baby name – because the mum-to-be is naming her son after a household item
Sometimes being supportive of your friends’ choices is hard.
We all know how important it is to be there for our friends when they need us, but a huge part of friendship also lies in the ability to trust your mates to tell you the truth – even if it hurts. However, one woman has said she made her friend cry when she gave her honest opinion on her choice of baby name because she pointed out her friend had chosen to name her son after a common household item.
The woman explained she was expecting her friend to choose an uncommon name for her third child because her family are “big surfer hippy people” and her other two kids have “uncommon but recognisable nature names”. But nothing could have prepared her for the name her friend had picked – Coaster.
In a post on Reddit, the woman said: “I asked her if she had a name for her third kid. She said yes. She then proceeded to tell me that she’s ‘So happy with the name, nobody else has a name like that, and it’s super cool and different and sounds like a surfer name.’ Hearing this, I was sort of internally bracing myself for what was to come, but I just had to ask what the name was. It’s Coaster.”
The woman then asked her friend to clarify if she meant “the mat you put glasses on to protect the table” – which is when her friend began to get offended. The mum-to-be claimed she had “never heard” of a coaster as a household item, and thought that “other people wouldn’t either”, so accused her friend of making an issue out of nothing.
However, the woman doubled down and insisted “everybody knows what a coaster is”. She continued: “Later that night, I got a text from her partner saying ‘Hey, you really upset her earlier, she’s been crying because she loved the name and you ruined it for her.’ I responded and said that someone else was going to make the association sooner or later, and it’s better she knows what a coaster is before the kid is born. I haven’t received a reply.”
Commenters on the post were equally as baffled by the mum’s choice of baby name, with many saying she did the right thing by letting her know about the association early. One person said: “I don’t think you did anything wrong. In fact, you did them all a favour. Hopefully, you and your friend can laugh about this in a few years.”
In a later update, the woman said she and her friend have talked and made amends, and her friend has now decided not to name her son Coaster. She wrote: “My friend called me earlier, and said she was sorry for being overly defensive about the name, and that she now understands I wasn’t trying to ruin the name. I also apologised for being so blunt. She’s said that she’s not going to go through with Coaster, and will probably just go with their backup name, which is a pretty nice gender-neutral nature name.”
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