In today’s story, a mom names her son after her husband, but then her sister-in-law gives her son the exact same name.
This bothered her, but now she’s even more upset when she finds out what her sister-in-law wants to name her baby.
Let’s see how this weird story unfolds…
AITAH for calling my SIL crazy for stealing my baby names
So I really would like some advice just to know if I am really overreacting or if this whole situation is as aggravating as I find it to be.
So I (F 42) and my husband, Oliver (M 44) got married when we were 26 and 24 and we have four children, together.
My husband has a little brother, Mason (M 39) who married Jane (F 34), they have three children together but are expecting a baby.
There’s only one thing that bothers her about Jane.
Me and Jane get along pretty well, her and her kids come over to my house a lot while our husbands are at work so we spend a lot of time together.
However there has been one thing that has always bothered me about Jane.
A couple years ago when Jane’s son was being born, she told me that she wanted to name her son Oliver after my husband.
Here’s the problem, my son, who was two years old at the time, was already named Oliver after my husband.
I expressed this to her, and she then acted like she understood but when her son was born she named him Oliver.
Jane and Mason didn’t tell the truth about what they would call their son.
Mason told me and my husband that they would only call their son by his middle name or by the initials of his first and middle name (ex/ OJ). However for the past ten years, Jane and her kids have only called their son by Oliver.
Jane also tries to get her son and my husband to be really close, going as far as to just bring him over to the house by himself a lot, even when she knows my husband and son are trying to spend quality time together.
This has always rubbed me and my husband the wrong way, but for the sake of his family we chose to just not make it a big deal.
Her daughter goes by her middle name, Lilly.
But flash forward to now, a couple of days ago Jane and me were talking about baby names for her and Mason’s new baby.
For more context, my daughter Annabelle actually doesn’t get called Annabelle and instead goes by her middle name Lilly. And everyone has been calling her Lilly since childhood not Annabelle.
Well when me and Jane were talking about girl baby names, she said she was already set on a name for a girl and said Lilly.
She and Jane got into an argument about the name Lilly.
I asked her the reason why, and she stated it’s the only name that she liked for a girl and that she genuinely didn’t like any other name.
I said to her that she knows my daughter goes by Lilly and that that is basically her name.
She instantly got very defensive and tried to say that Lilly wasn’t my daughters actual name so it didn’t matter and that I was being ridiculous.
I then said, “you’re the ridiculous one and crazy at that.”
She wonders if she overreacted.
This got Jane really mad and she immediately said she couldn’t believe I called her crazy, and then she rounded up her kids and left.
Honestly I feel like if Jane hadn’t already done this before, I wouldn’t have minded her wanting to name her daughter Lilly as much.
But twice? It just feels intentional at this point.
However I have been thinking about how I might be overdramatizing this whole situation.
I am hesitant because I don’t want to ruin my husband and children’s familial relationships with their cousins and brother with this issue.
But AITAH?
This would bother me too.
Either Jane is really uncreative when it comes to baby names, or she is deliberately copying the names for some reason.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted…
This reader thinks that Jane’s behavior is “weird.”
Another reader calls Jane’s behavior “odd.”
This person wonders how Jane’s husband is okay with her baby name ideas.
This person calls Jane’s behavior “creepy.”
Another person offers a theory about why Jane is choosing these baby names.
I like the idea of both couples sitting down and discussing the baby names.
The husbands really need to weigh in.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.