Man says he was uninvited from pregnant sister’s wedding after criticising ‘ridiculous’ baby names

A man has claimed that he was uninvited from his pregnant sister’s wedding after he criticised the names that she chose for her twins.

In a recent post shared on the popular “Am I The A**hole?” Reddit forum, Reddit user u/nfjs74839 asked if he was in the wrong for sharing his opinion on the “ridiculous” baby names. In the title of the post, the 34-year-old revealed the expected baby names for the boys: Stanford and Yale.

After noting that he has two older siblings, Katie and Ian, the man claimed that his bigger sister feels like she’s the one who’s “made it” in life. He then explained the meaning behind her chosen baby names, which are two prestigious universities in the United States.

“She attended Yale law school and is engaged to a neurosurgeon (Daniel) who attended Stanford medical school,” he wrote, before adding that “over the years,” Katie has looked down on him and Ian for not being as “successful as she is”.

The original poster proceeded to describe how he’s felt belittled by his sister, before expanding on how he’s been successful in his own way.

“Katie has expressed her astonishment that the family business is profitable even though someone who got C’s in high school and never went to college (aka me) has been running the day-to-day operations for 10+ years,” he wrote.

He also criticised the way that his sister treated her other brother, adding: “Katie also once told Ian to his face that he ‘wasted his potential’ (context: Ian was the valedictorian of his high school class, just like Katie) by dropping out of college to help Mom run the family business after Dad passed away.”

According to the original poster, when Katie and Daniel first posted online about expecting “twin boys, and [that] their names would be Stanford and Yale,” he just commented: “Congratulations”. He then noted that he later reached out to his sister, and told her why he thought her sons would not be fans of their names, throughout their childhood.

“I texted her to say that it wasn’t right to give the boys ridiculous names that would put them under immense pressure to succeed from a very young age,” he wrote. “I also asked her about what would happen if one or both of them weren’t as successful/perfect as she hoped.”

However, he explained that his sister “didn’t like the points [he] made”, before recalling how she then told him that he wouldn’t be invited to her wedding, unless he “apologised”. He also noted that prior to receiving the message, he was a bit sceptical about attending the nuptials.

“She texted back [saying]: ‘I wasn’t asking for opinions, especially from someone like you. Consider yourself uninvited from our wedding until you sincerely apologise,’” he wrote. “[To be honest], I was already leaning towards not attending due to Katie’s condescending attitude towards me, but the ‘someone like you’ comment sealed the deal.”  He concluded his post by noting that Ian felt like his brother “should’ve kept [his] thoughts to [himself]”.

The Reddit post has quickly gone viral, as it has more than 13,800 upvotes. In the comments, many people defended the OP, and claimed that they would not want to grow up with names like Yale and Stanford. Other people also criticised Katie for not only her name choices, but also her apparent attitude towards her siblings.

“Parents should be steered away from giving their children highly bully-able names,” one wrote, while another added: “I would have a HARD time forgiving my parents if they named Stanford or Yale omg.”

“I am glad she has ‘made it’ because she’s going to need to pay for therapy when those kids are bullied. You do not turn your children into status symbols. Could she have triplets and name them Phi m, Beta and Kappa?” a third claimed, referring to common terms used in sorority names.

One person emphasised this point, as they praised the original poster for the way in which he discussed the topic with Katie. They claimed they’d feel bad for the two boys if they had these names.

“You brought this up in private (the way such things should be, especially when first broaching a subject like this), and, frankly, someone needs to tell her that kids are meant to be their own people,” they wrote. “She’s about to give birth to two trophies to her career accomplishments, and I feel very, very bad for the kids. Given her attitude, I’m not surprised this didn’t change anything, but good on you for trying.”

The Independent has contacted u/nfjs74839 for comment.

This isn’t the first time that a mother’s name choice for a baby has sparked a debate online. During an episode of The Unplanned Podcast in February, YouTuber Abby Howard said that some of the baby names “out there nowadays” kind of “bug her”, which her husband, Matt, agreed with. Abby also claimed that giving a child a name that hasn’t been used before “might not be the flex that [people] think it is” and could be “a red flag”.

After their comments quickly went viral, Influencer Liana Jade shared a video on TikTok to note that she had been facing online criticism over her son’s uncommon name, Koazy, which is pronounced like “Cosy”. She tearfully claimed that Matt and Abby’s remarks were “cruel”, before highlighting what she’d  considered when sharing her thoughts about baby names.

“And if I posted that video personally and I was going to express that opinion that I had, I think I would be very mindful of who was being named and how that could have an effect on other people,” she said.

She also addressed how her child’s name came to be, explaining: “Basically, our baby is called Koazy, and I know it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. But people have kind of pulled our context that we called him Koazy because he was cosy in the womb.”