Woman's mum tells her she's picked a 'dog's name' for her baby

Choosing baby names is tricky enough for expectant parents, so it doesn’t help when other people weigh in with their opinions.

Of course, sometimes a soon-to-be mum or dad might ask loved ones what they think of their preferred options. But when this happens, please note: they’re just looking for approval – if you don’t like it, keep it to yourself.

One mother apparently missed this memo, however, when her daughter told her about the name she “loved” for her baby boy.

Rather than support her pregnant daughter’s choice, the mum told her it was “weird” and sounded “like a dog’s name”.

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The furious mum-to-be vented her fury about their exchange on the Subreddit ‘namenerds’, in a post asking fellow Reddit users for their thoughts on the name.

She wrote: “I have been endlessly stressing about picking a boy name and I finally found one I like. I love Beau because the word itself means like lover,admirer, it’s another word for boyfriend but an older slang. But the name itself is French, meaning handsome or beautiful and I just feel like that’s very sweet. It gives me strong lover boy vibes, very romantic.

“I liked it until I told my mom about it and her exact words were ‘it sounds like a dog name’. I told her that I liked it and why and she continued ‘I don’t know it’s just weird’.”

The Redditor continued: “I can’t explain how enraged those words have made me. (Pregnancy hormones are not helping at all.) I feel like there’s so many nicer ways she could’ve went [sic] about saying she didn’t love it. Especially knowing how hard this process has been for me.

“I have spent so many hours looking at names and I’m honestly on the verge of tears out of pure anger that she would say something so rude about a name that literally exists? There were so many nicer ways to deliver that?? And to make it even better his father's middle name is literally Bo, I just want to change the spelling to one I liked more.”

Ending her post, she asked the forum: “Is she right? Is [it] a bad name that people will think is a dog name?”

The expectant mum was enraged by her mother's take on her favourite baby nameTight_Faithlessness7/Reddit

The responses were encouraging but not necessarily reassuring, with one user commenting: “It’s a common dog's name but it’s not bad.

“This is why I’ll never tell anyone their name until their born,” they added.

Another wrote: “Yeah it’s my old dog’s name, and I’ve met many other people who have dogs with the same name (most notably, the Obama family).

“But if you like it [...], go for it!!! It’s cute. People name their kids common ‘dog names’ (Bella, Luna, etc) alllllll the time, I don’t think it’s avoidable.”

But a third said supportively: “I really like Beau. Please use it if you like. It's a perfectly normal male name and I guarantee [your] mum will grow to love it when he's here.”

In a footnote, the pregnant woman said that she and her mum had since spoken about the name and she was now starting to get behind it.

“She said she likes the spelling I’m picking more than the spelling she originally thought of,” the Redditor explained.

“And knowing it’s his dad's middle name made her like it more because she didn’t originally know that.”

She admitted that she was still feeling a “little salty” about her mother’s behaviour, but conceded: “At least she’s on board now”.

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