Mom Upset Her Sister Stole Her Baby Name Twice, and She Kind of Has a Point

Normally the idea of someone “stealing” a baby name is patently ridiculous. Nobody owns a name–except Beyonce, who trademarked her baby names–and if your friend from college also names her kid Aidan, you  just have to deal with it.

Even if two kids in the same family wind up with the same name, it’s not a big deal. You can have two cousins named George, and nobody will be confused. George Foreman has five sons, all named George Edward Foreman. If they can make that work, your family can deal with two Sarahs.

That said, one U.K. mom is a bit put out that her sister just had a baby and gave it the same name as her sister’s son, and she’s mostly annoyed because it’s the second time her sister has done this.

According to The Mirror, she went on Mumsnet to tell the story.

“I have two sons: Hayden and Oliver,” she said.

After she had her son Hayden, her younger sister got pregnant and had a little girl. She named the little girl Hayden. The original writer did not care. Two Haydens was a little unusual, but nothing to get upset about. Two cousins with the same name is not a big deal. They didn’t even have to deal with nicknames, because one was girl Hayden and one was boy Hayden.

Later, though, the letter writer had another son, whom she named Oliver. A couple months after Oliver was born, however, the younger sister announced that she was pregnant with a boy, and that boy was also going to be named Oliver.

This is weird, right? Should we crowdfund a Nameberry subscription for this younger sister? She seems to be having some trouble coming up with names on her own.

Twist: The younger sister says they were her names first

The letter writer said she and her sister actually have a pretty great relationship, and they get on well.  The younger sister is still pregnant and could change her mind about the name if she wanted to. But when the writer told her sister she thought it was weird for her to give her kid the same baby name for the second time in a row, the sister actually accused the letter writer of stealing her baby names.

The younger sister maintains that she had picked out the names Hayden and Oliver first and not told anybody, and then her sister got pregnant first and took her baby names.

“We get on and everything,” the older sister wrote. “It’s a pretty good relationship. She says I was fortunate enough to fall pregnant first and took her name.”

The grandmother thinks this is all very sweet. The grandfather thinks it’s pretty weird. The rest of the family just laughs about it, probably because it doesn’t have much to do with them.

Honestly, laughing about it is pretty much the only option available, if the younger sister can’t be talked into picking a name besides Oliver. On the scale of bizarre and terrible things people’s relatives do, this barely registers as a blip. (There are some really awful people out there who are throwing off the averages.) It’s still pretty weird, though.

There’s not much the older sister can do if her sister insists on keeping the second baby name. Perhaps it will be some small comfort to know that when people hear about it and think it’s weird, they’ll all just think her sister is the weird one.

What do you think, is this weird or totally reasonable? Let us know in the comments.

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(Image: iStockPhoto / Image_Source_)

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