Naming a baby is a deeply personal and usually well-thought-out process. Clandestine lists are made. Friends and family give advice, and some atrocious names are thrown out there, if we’re all being honest. It’s sometimes best not to reveal your top pick in the event that someone doesn’t like it and makes you reconsider choices you had your heart set on.
But to be honest, the safest answer is the truth: You’ll know the baby’s name when you see them. Ideally, you’ll also be clear-headed enough to fill out the paperwork. TikTok content creator Gabrielle Mayor, 24, found out her mom Ellyn’s little secret about her name when she was 15, and almost a decade later, she still can’t stop laughing about it.
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What do you mean 'Oh, no?'
“The guy asks for my social security number and I give it to him,” Gabrielle said, recalling that he inputted the data and said to the prospective driver and her mom, “‘I’m not seeing a Gabrielle Mayor,'” according to Today.
She shared her information again hoping there had been a mistake, but there was no match for her name.
There was a match, however, for "Babrielle Mayor."
Ellyn gasped and exclaimed “Oh, no!”
Bewildered, Gabrielle asked her mom “What do you mean, ‘Oh, no?'”
Apparently, Babrielle was a typo on her birth certificate. Mom Ellyn was given a strong combination of medicines to induce labor and was feeling it when she filled out the paperwork.
Her G looked like a B.
Ellyn shared with Today that the medicine left her shaking badly and that her G must have resembled a B. The new mom fixed the birth certificate when she saw her mistake. “But for some reason I didn’t think about the social security card … until I took Gabby for her learner's permit."
Two weeks later, when everything was sorted with the learner’s permit in hand, Gabrielle embraced the humor in the story. “I was really upset in the moment, but now it’s my fun fact.”
Through the magic of TikTok, she also found out that her mom was not alone in the typo department.
Name mistakes are extremely common.
One commenter found out that she had a misspelled name when she was 40. Another had a friend whose name was “Baby Girl” until she was 12.
A daughter shared, “My mom always spelled her name Darlene but her birth certificate spells Darline … never knew till she was 71 years old.”
Some families may have been in a hurry.
“One of my middle names was supposed to be isabelle but my mum forgot to spell and was in a rush, so it’s ‘Isoble,’” a commenter shared laughingly.
Another person shared that her friend Chloe’s name was spelled Chole on her birth certificate.
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