Nearly 1/5 of All Parents Regret Their Baby Names

(Via Giphy)

Picking a baby name is a big responsibility. I still can’t really believe I was allowed to pick the name that another human being will be running around with for the rest of her life. I mean, I named my pet turtle Pony because he lived in a box that used to contain My Little Ponies, and I couldn’t get the “My Little Pony” sticker off the box, so I just left it there, named the turtle Pony, and ran with it. After something like that, I think you give up your right to name anything more complicated than a plant.

Naming a baby is a lot of responsibility, and apparently a lot of parents are second-guessing themselves, because according to a new survey, nearly 1/5 of parents regret the name they picked for their offspring.

According to the BBC, a survey of over 1,000 parents on Mumsnet revealed that 18 percent of parents regretted the names they picked for their babies. Only 2 percent of the surveyed parents actually changed their baby’s name, though.

If parents really regret the name they give their baby, they can change it sometimes. Earlier this year a couple regretted having named their baby Ottilie because nobody could pronounce it, so after a bit of agonizing they changed her name to Margot and now everyone is happier.

Oddly, though, only about 11 percent of the parents who regretted their baby name said they did so because of spelling or pronunciation issues. The main reason was actually how often the name was used. 25 percent of parents regretted their names because they wound up being too popular. One mother said she’d named her daughter Elsa just before Frozen came out. I can see that one. Now not only are there 400 million Elsas running around, everyone would think they named their daughter after the Disney character, which is a tiny bit embarrassing.

Some of the Mumsnet commenters had pretty logical reasons for regretting their baby names. One said her baby name “was taken by a terrorist group, soon after she was born.”

Oh dear. We’re well familiar with the saga of all the little girls named Isis.

If nearly a fifth of Mumsnet users regret their baby names, let’s see how the numbers stack up among Mommyish users. Do you regret your baby name at all?

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