Mom Demands To Know Why Another Random Mom Chose The Same Middle Name As Her For Her Baby — And It's A Super Common Name
Even if it weren't common…. Who cares?!
Creatista / Shutterstock | Africa Images | Canva Pro In our era of unique babeigh — er, sorry, baby — names, it's not exactly surprising that some moms get a little possessive over their baby's moniker.
But a first name is one thing. Is a middle name really that serious? For one mom online, it definitely was, and her downright bizarre claim has raised tons of eyebrows online.
The mom got angry that another mom chose the same middle name for her baby.
We are living in something of a golden age of baby name hysteria as many of today's parents seem to view naming their kid as an extension of their own identity — and its uniqueness needs to be guarded at all costs.
But this particular baby name story is even more absurd on several levels. As shown in a viral screenshot, one mom messaged the other — it appears on Facebook messenger — to demand an explanation for the middle name she chose.
Photo: Reddit
It's not known how the two women were even in contact, but presumably, they were in one of the myriad Facebook groups devoted to every aspect of motherhood, including baby name choices.
"May I ask why you chose Kay for your daughter's middle name?" the first mom asked in her message, and you can practically hear the rage emanating from her pores as she typed out the message. "That's also my daughter's middle name."
"That's my mom's middle name," the other mom answered. Simple enough, right? Wrong. When that answer didn't seem to satisfy the first mom, she further explained that she was suspicious this mom was trying to copy her.
"I was just wondering because nobody started naming their daughter's middle name Kay until after Kenzie was born," the mom wrote, apparently convinced that she is the first person to ever choose the name Kay in the entire history of motherhood and the other mom had stolen it out from under her.
The two moms didn't even know each other, and Kay is an incredibly common name.
"I don't even know you or your daughter," the other mom responded, along with a laughing emoji to underline the absurdity of the premise of this conversation. The first mom could only reply with a thumbs-up emoji, probably because this whole thing was so ridiculous in the first place. She kind of backed herself into a corner.
Now, before we go on, let's address the elephant in the room: "Kenzie Kay" is a terrible name for a child, and it might be time we have a law in the U.S. that baby names have to be approved by the government, like in Australia — though that system famously failed to notice when a woman named her baby "Methamphetamine Rules," so perhaps it's a moot point.
In any case, what's more important is that Kay is an incredibly common name both as a middle and first name, though not in our current times. It fell out of favor almost entirely in the mid-1980s, according to baby name tracker Nameberry.
But for boomers and the older end of Gen X? Social Security Administration data shows Kay was consistently ranked in the top 10 most common middle names for girls from 1940 until 1970, when everyone started middle-naming their daughters Marie for some reason, as Xers and millennials will know all too well because all girls born in the '70s and '80s were named Jennifer, Jessica or Melissa and middle-named Marie, ask anyone.
Anyway! Thinking Kay is a unique middle name is absolutely insane, but not as insane as being so possessive of a name you message a stranger apropos of nothing to interrogate them about their middle name choice. But Miss "Kenzie Kay" is far from the only one who is this weird about it.
It's not just perception. Parents are really more obsessed with baby names than ever before, and experts attribute this to social media.
If you're old enough to remember a pre-internet existence, you likely remember that baby names used to be a totally mundane part of life. Basically, everyone was named Erika or Jason, and nobody really cared, and that was the end of it.
Times have absolutely changed, though — so much so that Baby Name Consultant is a literal job now.
No, that's not a bit: One such consultant, Taylor Humphrey of What's In A Baby Name, charges anywhere from $350 for baby name suggestions to $30,000. Yes, 30,000 actual pieces of legal U.S. tender from the Federal Reserve of the United States for her "baby name branding services," a phrase that makes me want to walk out into the nearest body of water with a brick in my pocket like Virginia Woolf.
I digress. Why does this service exist, and why are people willing to pay ludicrous sums of money to obtain it? We live in an era where nearly all of us are engaging in personal branding of some sort because of the internet. Our social media profiles are all carefully curated and bespoke, so why wouldn't our baby names be too?
Which is all fine and good. Develop an entire marketing brief for little Brÿhnnleîghy's moniker. Who's it hurting? But attacking other moms for horning in on your name territory — over a name so common it's fallen out of favor for being boring? Respectfully, grab a babysitter for little Kenzie Kay and go spend some quality time getting several grips!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.