When it comes to naming a baby, inspiration can come from many sources. Parents-to-be often like to honor family members when choosing a moniker for their little ones. Some prefer to stick with baby names with deep personal meaning. Still others compromise with a partner or land on an option that just feels right after meeting their newborn.
One expecting mom, however, went with an unconventional way to find baby name inspiration. Haley Hodge recently took her husband and their kids to a cemetery to peruse names written on the headstones and see if any stuck. The TikTok video of their outing has now been widely circulated on the social media platform.
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Haley's video of searching for a baby name at a cemetery has gone viral.
Haley posted a video via TikTok on May 19 of her family visiting a local graveyard. The clip has attracted more than 2.3 million views and over 134,000 likes thus far. "When cemeteries hold the prettiest names, so you take the family to look for baby girl's name," she captioned the video.
The names they came across were lovely.
"We're trying to find sissie's name," Haley says in the video as she walks in the cemetery. "Then we can show her when we found her name."
The clip shows the expecting mom, her son, and her daughter looking around and reading names aloud. Some of the gorgeous options they discovered included Vienna, James, Julian, Winnie, Ella, Olympus, Salem, Bunny, and Galloway.
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She also pointed out old benches and their use.
As Hodge and her family strolled past the headstones to search for a baby girl name, she paused to share an interesting fact. "Did you know families used to come to cemeteries to have a picnic with their loved ones?" she wrote in overlaid text, showing the old stone structure. "These are even made to be a table."
In the comments, TikTok users reacted to her unorthodox way of choosing a baby name for her unborn child.
Many commenters not only loved the cemetery walk but also the names they saw.
One person wrote, "This is honestly beautiful. What a way to honor those that have passed."
Another TikTok user declared, "Winnie and Salem are lovely!" and another person shared, "Vienna James sounds really pretty."
"It keeps them alive you saying their names ," someone else commented.
Still, others weren't so sure.
One person wrote, "I've heard that pregnancies attract ghosts. I feel like this is like picking up a ghost at the rescue shelter ."
Another joked, "Rigor mortis sounds kinda cute."
"✨ Carrying a brand new soul thru a garden of the past. What a clever way to find a beautiful name ," someone else shared.
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Haley opened up about her video's popularity during a recent interview.
In an interview with Newsweek, Haley reacted to her TikTok video going viral, admitting she thought it might be popular "solely because I know it's weird."
As she explained, "Seeing a pregnant lady in a place that is usually known for death seems morbid to most. However, I ended up getting a really positive reaction from people. It allowed many to see the beauty of graveyards and letting a name live on."
