Comments on: Would you steal a friend’s baby name?

By: Why naming my baby was so hard

Why naming my baby was so hard — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:16:36 +0000

[...] Dad Alec and I started off with no ideas at all. When I asked if people thought it was ok to “steal” a baby name from a friend, you all weighed in. We ended up with lot of opinions on my original question, but [...]

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:27:38 +0000

How about if a co-worker announces a name for each sex as her favs (she is NOT pregnant), you get pregnant-FINALLY pick a boy name you both agree on, yet keep secret and then a month and a half later she says if you pick the two names AND mentions a third (your name) she will never talk to you again….does that count as stealing? I think no. What do you think?

By: Aj

Aj — Fri, 27 May 2011 23:11:24 +0000

I am pregnant for the 3rd time and we were out if names big time ! Just found out we will be having twins before my oldest sons 3rd birthday! 4 boys under three. The easiest thing suddenly was the names!

By: Yatima

Yatima — Thu, 26 May 2011 21:04:11 +0000

OK so embarrasingly enough, ever since I read this, I have been obsessed with finding more names that fit the Holden/Milo pattern: Australian consumer brand/literary reference. Here’s what I have so far:

Allen (lollies/Allen Quatermain)
Bond (underwear/James Bond)
Clayton (nonalcoholic whisky/War of the Worlds film’s Doctor Clayton Forrester)
Cooper (beer/Twin Peaks’ Dale Cooper)
Fletcher (Fletcher Jones clothes/Hill Street Blues’ Chief Fletcher Daniels)
Pascal(l) (lollies/philosopher Blaise Pascal)
Perkins (paste/superhero Neptune Perkins; Parks and Recreation’s Ann Perkins)
Rip (Rip Curl clothing brand/Rip van Winkle)
Rossi (boots/Titanic’s Fabrizio de Rossi)
Sao (cracker/Pirates of the Carribean’s Sao Feng)
Toby (Uncle Toby’s cereal/Sir Toby Belch)
Valiant (car/Prince Valiant)

I think you could also get away with Darwin In fact now I think of it, there’s a small town north of Sydney called Oberon…

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 26 May 2011 17:14:06 +0000

I seriously doubt any of our parents worried about such things, given all the Jeffs and Davids and Jennifers and Megans in our generation. Pick a name you can believe in, that fits your family culture, one where you can say for sure “That’s my kid’s name.” I have friends whose kids have names that are similar to each other and everyone seems to still get along.

By: Pam

Pam — Thu, 26 May 2011 02:33:41 +0000

IMO, its only “stealing” if you use the First and Middle names! Friends of ours (that we met through MOPS) have a daughter named Madelyn (Maddie for short) and our DD is Madeline. They just had a baby and named her Noelle. That has always been on our list. Our next baby girl will be named Olivia Noelle. I have always loved Olivia ever since our best family friends named their (now 19yold) daughter that. I think its flattering, not stealing. and with a first AND middle name…you get to be creative/inventive/different than your friend!!!

By: Kristina

Kristina — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:45:15 +0000

Depends on so much. If your friend is a BFF, then probably it’s off limits. Otherwise, probably agree. I can’t wait to find out what it will be.

By: Kiersten B

Kiersten B — Wed, 25 May 2011 23:23:01 +0000

This doesn’t answer your question about stealing names, but swiss-miss had a blog post last year in which she was crowd-sourcing name ideas for her yet to be born baby boy. There are tons of suggestions in the comments; many that fit your requirements. Just thought I’d post it to give you some more ideas: http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/11/extreme-crowdsourcing.html

By: Whitney

Whitney — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:49:52 +0000

@Heather GF, Good thing I said I liked “Milo” outloud so that you could prevent me from stealing it. Kind of a bummer if we both kept our names secret and then you used it and I was counting on it. (Although in this case, I would have had 4 months to recover.)

I feel for the folks who felt their name was stolen, but also agree that it’s likely that two folks living similar life stages will have similar tastes. Why can’t it just be a fun thing, like “Hey, we both bought blue Subaru wagons!”

(P.S. It sounds like cross-country name borrowing is unanimously approved.)

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:33:17 +0000

While name stealing is a silly idea, “picking the same name” can be an emotionally charged issue (see some of these comments!). I’ve always been against name stealing…until I had a similar issue happen to me.
I think it’s fine as long as you run it past the friend (if it is a close friend…if not, then I wouldn’t worry about running it by her). Just say, “I’ve been thinking about [name], and it is on our short list to name our baby. It is a great name [and I like the way it sounds with Milo and Holden/with our last name/etc.]”
When I was 6 months pg, I found out that a mom in my moms group had named her baby the same exact name that I was (secretly) considering. I was CRUSHED. I had a hard time choosing the name and then to find out that it had already been picked…argh! I really struggled with whether to keep the name…then decided I would, then I found out that the mom had actually named her baby a similar name (the friend who told me got the real name wrong…ha). So I was free to keep my name.
I say if you’re struggling and have found the one name that you like, then go with it! Good luck!

By: Emily

Emily — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:10:04 +0000

I think name stealing is a silly concept. You can’t have dibs on a name. Next year perhaps some other kid with the same name as your friend will move to the school… names are public domain. We used one I had never heard before, but if I wanted to name my child anything, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I guess you could give them a heads up, but your baby won’t even be in the same grade as them, so why does it matter?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:14:04 +0000

I also think it is fair game. We don’t own names! I would talk to the person beforehand first, just to give them a “heads up.”
If someone used the name of one of my children, I would be flattered – I must have good taste! I say go for it!