'AITA for telling my friend she is ruining her child’s life with the name she gave her?' UPDATED

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but it might get bullied depending on the name.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for telling her friend her true thoughts about her friend's baby name. She wrote:

"AITA for telling my friend she is ruining her child’s life with the name she gave her?"

So I (21F) have been friends with Loreen (22F) for 17 years now and we’re really close. She recently gave birth to her daughter and her and her husband recently told us the name.

They decided to name their daughter Ghiuliyette (pronounced Juliet) and her middle name is Mahriya. I thought the spelling was a joke, until she told me they are serious. I told her, that with that spelling of a simple but beautiful name is just going to ruin that little girls life. She got mad and told me to stop „ruining“ her mood and that I’m being mean. I’m completely honest. The spelling is just bad.

Nothing else can explain it. Why ruin such a beautiful name by including letters that don’t belong there? I texted her yesterday and told her that the little girl will try to change her name or at least go by her middle name since it’s normal. She told me to stop texting her, that I’m a bad friend and that I’m being the AH for making fun of the name.

I don’t think I am. When I told her that the spelling is just bad, she went crazy. She told me that I’m the worst friend ever and that I would never be able to see her daughter again. After that, her husband sent me an email, telling me to stop being so disrespectful. He thinks the spelling is cute and it just makes her unique.

Unique-yes. But that’s just going to make that little girl suffer and she will probably be bullied for that spelling. I haven’t replied and honestly I don’t think I’m the AH here, but I thought I’d ask Reddit since y’all are the best to judge. So, am I the AH for telling my friend that the name she gave her daughter is bad and will ruin her life?

People shared a lot of opinions in the comment section.

ariesgal11 wrote:

I would say ESH. You shared your opinion once and should have left it at that. No need to continually text her about it, that will get you nowhere. Obviously the parents as AH for giving her the terrible spelling. Poor girl will never find her name on a magnet or cup.

I actually don't think it will reflect poorly on the child but the parents themselves. When people go out of their way to give a perfectly normal name a bizarre spelling it screams we're of lower intelligence.

Izzy_the_penguin wrote:

NTA, but your delivery could have been a little better perhaps? I have a very common name, it's been used in literature and popular culture, and it's still spelled wrong when I give people my name. If I have that problem, what's going to happen for this little girl?! It's one thing to create an entirely new name.

New creations are subject to their own spellings because you made them up, and they didn't exist before. It's also common to take a name and spell it in a way that is common in a different language, but maybe not the language of whatever country you are from. All of that seems pretty common.

But it's another thing to take a name that's already popular in literature and popular culture and just make up your own spelling, that isn't even common in a different language. This is one of those things where you are very clearly NTA, but it's obvious your friends are not able to see the logic here.

Being blunt or direct in pointing this out then makes you appear as the asshole, even though you are making solid points. Kindness, anecdotal evidence, and crowd sourcing information might be a better way to get them to see your point of view. But at the end of the day, that's all you can do.

Astute_Primate wrote:

Hi. I'm a high school teacher. I'll tell you up front that you're right. Kids with f#$ked up spellings of their names are miserable about 3/4 of the time. It's difficult to spell, people mispronounce them, and official documents? Fuggedaboutit. And we definitely judge parents.

We don't think their kids' names, looking like they just picked 10 random scrabble tiles out of the box, are cute and unique; we think their parents are stupid and immature, like contestants on an early 2000's reality show like Flavor of Love or something. It's one of the ways we clock parents as potentially difficult.

I keep in touch with 3 students who changed their names from their parents' spelling to the actual conventional spelling the minute they turned 18. That kid will be "Juliet Maria" as soon as she possibly can. NTA.

theworldisonfire8377 wrote:

NTA, what people don't seem to think about is that these little babies grow up to become adults. First, imagine having to put Ghiulieyette whatever on her resume. Then some poor soul has to figure out how to pronounce it if they want to pursue her for employment.

She will spend literally the rest of her life listen to people struggle to pronounce it and she will either have to get used to explaining "it sounds just like Juliet" or she will legally change it. She is setting her kid up for a life of teasing, judgment and frustration on her part.

wackyvorlon wrote:

That’s just extraordinary. People are sensitive about names. But this child is basically immediately going to end up going by Juliet, and the only thing that uses that bizarre spelling will be official documents. She’ll get tired of people spelling it wrong and mispronouncing it so she’ll just simplify it to save on the effort. I’m going to go with NTA, but I get why the parents are sensitive.

After receiving lots of comments, OP jumped on with an update.

UPDATE: Alright, I get it. I’m an AH for going after the Name more than once. Sorry for that lmao. I just send her an apology text for doing it, yet I did write how she should try to look at it from another perspective. I also send a few screenshots of the comments just for her to see what other people think of it. FYI I’m supposed to be the godmother, which is why I was extra worried lmao my bad.

The comments kept rolling in.

mifflewhat wrote:

NTA. You're not supposed to criticize a friend's baby name, but maybe we'd stop seeing some of this if we did recognize extreme "unique and special me" names as attention grabbing behavior.

NoNumbersNoNations wrote:

No. No. Just No. I can't. It's not. No. Does she know that there's a reason (and even rules) why we spell things a certain way? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I cannot remember/imagine any language where Ghi=/ʤ/ (J). I don't care for the last part, so let her do Juliyette if she must...but as it is right now, it's an abomination. NTA for righting this outrageous wrong-doing to an innocent child!

jetttward wrote:

As someone with a ridiculous made up name that my parents thought was cool, let me say that it will be a pain in the a** for the rest of this little kids life. I resent my parents for it daily.

What they thought was cool is something I have to spell every single time somebody needs my name for anything. Had every single teacher in my life say and spell my name wrong and did not know one other person with this dumb name. NTA.

Recent_Data_305 wrote:

First - I hate the name also. Second - NTA for telling her it was a bad idea to mess with the name. Third - You have to stop now. She has already named the kid. She’s dug in on her position, and her husband agrees with her. You’ve probably already lost your friend. If you reply, be kind and say that you would want someone to tell you if they thought you’d made a mistake.

Tell them that now that you’ve said it, it’ll never be mentioned again by you as you love them and their baby still the same. Fourth - Never say I told you so. I have a friend that named her son a name with feminine spelling. I asked if she knew, and she did. He’s over 30 now and we are still friends.

He has changed his name spelling. She knows - I don’t need to tell her. Women are fierce and protective over their babies. It’s best to stay out of their way sometimes.

Ilumidora_Fae wrote:

FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK:

CHANGING 👏🏻 THE 👏🏻 SPELLING 👏🏻 OF A 👏🏻 👏🏻 TRADITIONAL 👏🏻 NAME 👏🏻 DOES NOT 👏🏻 👏🏻 MAKE IT 👏🏻 UNIQUE 👏🏻

StacyB125 wrote:

As a kindergartner teacher who has had to clean up these kind of messes when trying to teach kids how to read and sound out words, you’re NTA. Everything that child is going to learn in PreK and kindergarten will make her name hard for her to understand, read, or write.

Everything she learns about phonics in her earliest education will be challenged when she tries to read her own name. For those who say she’ll just recognize it’s her name- she will absolutely. But once she’s learning pre-reading skills, she will definitely try to apply her new knowledge to her name and it won’t work for her at all. Every single student I ever had does this.

This isn’t as simple as the silent E in Kate, for example. She will get past it eventually, but it’s completely unnecessary when Juliet is perfectly lovely. I also agree that the child will grow to resent her name. She’ll either just decide to start spelling it in the standard way at school, perhaps legally changing it later or she’ll use her middle name as you said.

Hopefully, OP and Loreen are able to smooth things over.