I named my daughter after a piece of furniture and have major regrets
A mom is having major regrets after confessing to her adult daughter the uninspiring inspiration behind her unusual first name.
“I feel like I made bad choices because I just told my daughter how we came up with her name, and now she hates me,” the woman says on the Tragedeigh Reddit thread.
“When I was 22, her dad and I were laying in bed right after we found out we were having a girl. We were trying to think of names. I looked over at a lamp and jokingly said, ‘What about Shade?,’ and for some reason, he loved it.
“It kinda stuck”
“It kind of stuck, so I named her that, except I spelled it ‘Shaide’.”
After 25 years of assuming there was a more romantic story to her unique name, the daughter found out whilst in labor that she was in fact named after bedroom furniture and she was not happy.
Now that it is too late to go back on the name’s origins, the OP asks the forum whether she made a mistake and most people in the hundreds of comments agree that yes, maybe she did.
“Well, telling a kid they’re named after something totally mundane does kinda remove the mystique from an unusual name,“ says one commenter.
“You might want to follow up with something like it’s a beautiful sounding word with a lot of mystery and depth, it’s just that the lamp brought that word to your mind.”
While this might be too little too late for poor Shaide, others’ couldn’t help but have a bit of fun with the whole bedroom furniture idea and suggest more.
“My mom saw my name on a toilet paper dispenser at work”
One cheeky poster wrote: “Curtains would have been a good name: That would have given her closure.”
“And whenever she had a tough time, she could just pull herself together,” another joker added.
One woman commented to share her equally mundane and funny name ‘origin story’.
“For what it’s worth, my mom told me she saw my name on a toilet paper dispenser at work and thought it was pretty, shared it with Dad and he liked it because it has a single syllable nickname that I go by.
“I think it’s hilarious and love my name: Kimberly [Kimberley Clark] I mostly go by Kim!”
Another woman made a fair point that just because her partner liked the name ‘Shade’, it didn’t mean they had to go with it.
“When my husband’s ex was pregnant with their second child they asked their son what the baby should be named. He said ‘Table’. They didn’t name him Table. He was four. You were 22. He had an excuse.
“You had no common sense. How you came up with the name is ridiculous. Why you stuck with it is perplexing.”
“Yes, you messed up”
But another poster felt that all things considered, the name could have been worse suggesting it was lucky they were in the bedroom and not elsewhere in the house when deciding on the name.
“If they had this conversation during supper, she might have ended up with ‘Gravy’. Or ‘Asparagus’. ‘Potato’ or ‘Salt Shaker’!”
One person felt that while it was a mistake to be too honest there might be a way of making amends.
“Yes, you messed up, but since you commented that your daughter dislikes being called Shady and wants to change names, I feel like if you help with the costs/bureaucracy she may forgive you more easily.”
“They laugh it off now”
Finally, one kind soul said she hoped they might one day laugh about it, like her mare Keri does.
“I have a friend named Keri because her mom saw a bottle of Keri lotion in the hospital after she gave birth. Is it stupid? Yes. But it’s still a pretty name and they laugh it off now.
“This may be an unpopular opinion, but I dont think this kind of thing is terrible enough to change your name or hate your mom forever over it.”
