My surfer hippie friend picked a ‘different’ name for her kid – I told her its real meaning, now she says I ‘ruined’ it
A CONCERNED woman’s worries about a friend’s unique baby name were met with an unexpected response.
Her friend was furious that she spoke up and said that she ruined her cherished baby name.
Redditor ParticularCats shared the unique baby name in a post.
She explained that while she normally was “pretty judgemental” when it came to names, she tended to keep her thoughts to herself and her husband.
“I’ll probably make a vaguely positive comment and then tell my husband how I really feel later. But I felt like I had to make a comment in this situation,” she admitted.
Her friend chose an androgynous name for her third child because she and her partner don’t know the baby’s gender.
“They aren’t finding out the sex until birth. I was kind of expecting her to come out with something that’s not too common, but not weird,” she explained.
“Her family [is] big surfer hippie people and their first two kids have uncommon but recognizable nature names.”
During a hangout, her friend revealed the baby name they had settled on for her expectant baby to be Coaster.
“She then proceeded to tell me that she’s ‘so happy with the name, nobody else has a name like that, and it’s super cool and different, and sounds like a surfer name,'” she said.
ParticularCats, however, felt that she had to speak up on the name the parents had settled on.
“Like… the mat you put glasses on to protect the table?” she asked.
Her friend, she said, had no idea what a coaster was.
“She looked really confused and said no, she’d never heard of that. I then put ‘coaster’ into Google and showed her,” she said.
“She got a bit defensive and said that if she’d never heard of a coaster, then other people wouldn’t either, so it probably wouldn’t matter that much.
“I said no, literally everybody knows what a coaster is. Honestly, I’m surprised she went through 30+ years of life without knowing what a coaster is, as everyone I know uses the word constantly.”
She then proceeded to tell me that she’s so happy with the name, nobody else has a name like that, and it’s super cool and different, and sounds like a surfer name.
Redditor ParticularCats
Her friend, she said, doubled down on sticking with the name. Or so she thought until the Redditor received a text later that night.
“I got a text from her partner saying, ‘Hey, you really upset her earlier, she’s been crying because she loved the name and you ruined it for her,'” she said.
“I responded and said that someone else was going to make the association sooner or later and it’s better she knows what a coaster is before the kid is born.”
Though the Redditor worried about whether or not her response was appropriate, viewers said the coast was clear.
“I don’t think I could have come up with a different response in the moment tbh! I would have been stunned. You have done the child a favor,” said one commenter.
“I successfully talked my friend out of naming her kid Kiwi. Sometimes people just need to get out of the baby name bubble in their head and come to their senses,” said another.
Many were equally as confused as she was that her friend didn’t know what a coaster was.
“Her tables must have so many water rings,” joked one.
“Water Ring was going to be the name of her second child you insensitive f**k,” quipped another.
In a follow-up update, she revealed that the friend had changed her mind on the controversial name.
“She’s said that she’s not going to go through with Coaster and will probably just go with their backup name, which is a pretty nice gender-neutral nature name,” she wrote.
“To everyone wondering why she didn’t know what a coaster was, in her family they apparently just use napkins lol, and she’s never really thought about what a coaster actually is, as it’s not something you think about on a daily basis,” she added.
“Still bizarre to me, but I didn’t say that.”