Most people try to withhold judgment when they hear an unusual baby name. At least, they don’t typically shoot it down right to the parent’s face. Because as one woman on Reddit recently learned, it will definitely not go over well if you tell the new mom or dad that their baby’s name is … well, kind of terrible. (Or, in her exact words, totally “idiotic.”)
The anonymous poster first shared their story in 2021
But that's when Reddit poster was apparently thrown for a loop
“She told me that she was naming them ‘Sean,'” they explained in the post.
That’s right — both of them.
“When I asked about the other baby, she said ‘No, they are both Sean, one with an ‘A’ and one with an ‘E’ so Sean and Seen,” the new mom explained.
Needless to say, the poster was confused
But not just because their coworker had decided to name her twins nearly identical names. There was another factor that made the name choice even more peculiar.
“This co-workers last name is also ‘Sean,'” the Redditor shared.
In other words, the brothers’ first names wouldn’t just sound the same — they would also sound exactly like their last name.
At this point, the Reddit poster couldn't help but state the obvious
Things only got more tense from there
“I immediately and without thinking said, ‘That is the most idiotic thing I’ve heard, and it’s going to be so confusing,'” the poster recalled.
If the whole thing wasn’t super uncomfortable before, it sure was now.
“A bunch of people laughed and a bunch immediately looked away,” the poster wrote. “After she left, I got a few text messages saying it’s not my place to comment on people’s choice of name.”
Now, the Reddit poster is hoping to get some unbiased opinions
“Am I the a–hole for saying that that is a terrible naming idea?” she asked, before providing a few extra details for background info.
Apparently, neither of the kids have a middle name to balance out the identical first and last names, and this isn’t the first round of “negative feedback” the mom has gotten. She also added that normally, the two are on good terms at work — which is presumably why she thought she could give the woman her honest opinion.
But in response, the new mom simply told her, “It’ll grow on you.”
The poster might have expected to get dragged in the comments …
… but to her (pleasant) surprise, she wasn’t.
In fact, a lot of people agreed with her that the new mom’s choice of baby names was seriously weird.
“Matching names is probably the cruelest thing you could do to a person,” wrote one commenter, who identified themselves as an identical twin. “It’s not just confusing. It would keep the twins from developing identities outside their twin-ness. You know what happens to twins that can’t establish independent identities? At best they need years of family therapy to work through their relationship problems. At worst they hate each other. Twins have it hard enough working through what it means to be a twin. Why make that harder?”
