Apparently a mother and her five-year-old daughter, whose name is “Abcde,” were boarding a Southwest flight and one of the staff made fun of the name.
While I question the advisability of saddling an innocent child with a name that is sure to cause inconvenience, the employee certainly should have kept his feelings to himself.
I sympathize with the employee a little, though. Years ago I dropped my son at a hotel daycare facility, and I overhead a mom calling her small daughter “Dallas,” which for some reason struck me as a funny name. Standing in the taxi queue with my husband so we could go off to do grown-up sight-seeing, I reported my amusement. “Do you think she has a brother named ‘Houston’?” I sniggered.
The woman in front of us in line whirled around and shot me a withering look. Oopsy, I guess that was Dallas’s mom. I had not known she was right there, and I certainly didn’t intend for her to overhear me. My bad.
In retrospect I don’t even know why I thought the name was so amusing. It’s a lot less of a burden than the name “Abcde,” that’s for sure.
The employee shouldn’t have mocked the kid’s name, but I would also argue that deliberately giving a kid a name that is sure to invite mockery is something that borders on negligence or child abuse.
Reminds me of the kid named Tatula Does the Hula. Poor kid didn’t dare reveal her name to classmates.
Houston is actually a name in my family. A G-grandfather was named that so alot of boys ( and girls, now) are named Houston. Place names are real popular.
The lil’wrekker had a teacher whose husband was named Rocky. Her kids were Stony and Boulder. Talk of the school, let me tell you.
People who go name their kids “abcde” should have the kid taken away and be sterilized. Burdening a kid with a messed up name is cruel and unusual punishment.
Aye; that is a name that you can hold your head high with. Much props. It’s fun to say , too. (Although I always pronounced it “zih-zee” in my head, just like I say “whis-ee-wig” for WYSIWYG.)
My baby is named Xanithor the Destroyer of All Things.
However, he is a cat, and no one can forget the fluffiest, cutest, smartest, completely clumsy little furball with the memorable name.
Somehow the name suits him even though he only destroys what he has been trained to, ironically the only one of our cats that does not randomly scratch up furniture or carpets (trained him a couple times as a kitten and it stuck since he is very observant for a cat).
Although for my brilliance I have negotiated full naming rights for all cats, but I have no say on human baby names (other than a veto to prevent them being named abcde or stripper names).
Wow. That’s way worse than I thought. Before I read the story, I was thinking maybe the employee just thought it was a typo and he was making fun of that.
The mother has a legitimate complaint regarding any information posted by the airline employee that could cause problems not related to the name. That seems to be a big part of her complaint in the video linked by the op.
She has no legitimate complaint about people’s opinion of the name Abcde. she may not like their opinion but that’s life. They’re doing her a favor saying it aloud. For every person who comments on it publicly there are many more people thinking it.