If your friend named their kid a unique name that no one else has, then obviously they wish for their kid to have a unique name that no one else has. To go out of your way to use a name they created is thwarting their wishes. The question isn’t whether they are right to be offended, its why would you go out of your way to potentially offend your friend in the first place?
All the names I thought of before I got married and actually had kids were nixed in the cold harsh light of reality (aka my wife). So, as far as I’m concerned, go ahead and “name-nap” (boy, is there a law that a new word has to be coined every week now?) the ones I had in mind, I’ll see how foolish I would have looked if my wife hadn’t been the sane voice of reason.
My mom mentioned in her pre-natal class what she was thinking of naming me.
Another woman in the class liked the name so much that she named her daughter that 2 weeks before I was born.
My mom didn’t want me to grow up having the same name as someone else all through all my classes, etc. so she changed it slightly.
I would tend to agree that if you went through a lot of thought to come up with a name for your child that had meaning, and then someone copied it just because they liked it, it might diminish the meaning.
I think I lucked out - because my name is more unique now than what I would have been called. Well, it was, until I gave permission for this writer to use it in this series she was writing. . . now when I google my name her book comes up first!
The take-home message is that if you think you have a very unique and special name for your future child and would be hurt if someone “napped” it, never utter the name until they’re asking you what to put on the kid’s birth certificate.
I think this falls into the broad category of, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Sure, a name is not someone’s private property, but “name-napping” on purpose is a bit of a dick move. Do your own homework - don’t copy off someone else’s paper.
New trend: preregistering your kids’ names on baby registries, like gift registries. “Look at the time stamp! I was there at 8:55 a.m.! You didn’t get there till noon!”
These people need to get lives- lives where the name of this person being the same as that person really doesn’t matter. Because it doesn’t.
That makes no sense to me. They can still use the name. What difference does it make if any other kid has it? They want their kid to be the only kid with that name? Why? How self-absorbed is that? How is that a “wish” worth respecting?
It’s not offensive. It’s offensive for THEM to be offended by it. The world does not owe their kid a “unique” name.
Is this part of the trend of having kids think that they’re special and unique little snowflakes, maybe? That cult of the child thing?
I vetted a couple of “unique” names on this board that Dopers basically talked me out of. I still went with something fairly unusual, but I wouldn’t be the least bit upset if someone else “stole” it or the other names I was thinking of. For the life of me, I can’t see any injury in it, or why anyone would think it was rude.
People keep saying this, but no one has been able to explain why. What exactly is the injury?
This is about the parents wanting people to see how clever and creative and “unique” that THEY are, not about the poor kid that has to go through life with that name.
If you’re open about the fact that you’ve chosen your child’s name specifically because it is unique, and someone else comes along and picks that name for their kid, then that’s slightly obnoxious. You’ve said you picked it due to its unique nature, and they’ve taken away that unique nature by choosing it for their own kid.
Now. I think the above is silly and no reason to get worked up, offended, or upset. But I don’t think the general concept here is really that hard to understand.
Edit: The one exception, IMO, is that I think people should think twice before giving their child a name that is identical to the name of a child likely to run in the same circles, e.g. a cousin or a close friend. I have a cousin, close in age, that has the exact same name as me, and it got really fucking old, when we were kids, having to constantly explain which one I was.
Since Mrs. Homie and I can’t have kids, I’m trying my darndest to find someone willing to sell me naming rights to their firstborn son.
Anyone wanna take $100 to name their boy Aaron Nicholas?
Exactly. If you mention the name, you are effectively giving permission for anyone else to use it. If you never mention it and someone else uses your name for their baby, dog, or cat then you don’t get to be mad either.
The thing is, once you name your child it becomes ‘their name’ to you. All other uses of that name fade into the background. All that hand-wringing that parents do avoiding names of exes, bosses, jerks, and smelly kids from third grade is a waste of effort. Those connotations are lost once you name your baby.
As you wish. Sure he is 13 years old now, but that shouldn’t matter. I’ll just accept a modest 20% finders fee. 
I think this just boils down to people being irritated at being copied in general. It’s not a new social phenomenon. Often, people don’t like it if someone copies their fashion choices, hairstyles, speech patterns, whatever. Naming is like that, except maybe to a higher degree. After all, choosing a name for another person is something that, on average, we get to do twice in our lifetimes. I never had wedding fantasies, but I thought about what I would name my kids for at least 20 years before they were born. When I was pregnant and baby-naming was immediately relevant, the names of family members and friends’ kids were all off the list of options.
(And then we went and named our son Jack, which is ridiculously common around here. I just didn’t know that before he was born!)
I do think that claiming a name as “your special name” for someone when you are not expecting is unreasonable.
My one SIL made sure it was known that “Jessica” was her name and not to be used by anyone else in our circle. She was not pregnant at the time.
When she did finally have a girl, she didn’t name her Jessica at all. Which was kinda obnoxious, because I think both of my other SIL’s had considered it until they heard that it was ‘taken.’
I think I would spit in someones face if they questioned why I gave my baby his/her name,none of their damn biz.
That is obnoxious.
My youngest has the name that was the number one girls’ name the year she was born (I think…it was at least in the top 5) and it was a name that her father had decided on long before it was popular and one that he considered “his” to name his daughter since he was young. Poor thing has at least 4 cousins, and a few step cousins with whom she is close and who are all within 2-3 years of her age that share the name. It makes it confusing at family gatherings (especially since several also have the same last name) but as popular of a name as it is, I can’t imagine anyone finding it offensive.
“Jessica” is in the same vein, your SIL should never have “claimed” that one. Now if we were talking about a name that was created just for the child by combining the parents’ names or something, or something particularly unique (that the parents chose due to its uniqueness) then I can see “offense” but not laying claim to a name for children who are only hypothetical at that point. The name “belongs” to no one until it is bestowed.