A worried mother of a baby girl is considering changing her daughter's name amid fears she will be bullied by other children in the future. The concerned mum shared her worries with other parents on the forum Mumsnet.
While other parents on the forum said her two-month-old daughter's name was "beautiful" and that she was over-thinking, the mum couldn't help but worry that her baby girl would be targeted by bullies when she got to secondary school. She said she thinks her daughter's name could be changed to more "nasty" alternatives by other children.
The baby girl's name is Violet - a name that her husband loved from the beginning - but the mum said she has trouble pronouncing it because of her accent, which has led her to worry other children might change the name to 'vile' or 'violent' when she gets to secondary school, BirminghamLive reports.
Desperate for advice, the parent took to the popular Mumsnet forum to see what others thought about the situation - and whether she should change her baby daughter's name now to save her from potential bullying years down the line.
She wrote: "I have a baby girl called Violet who is two months old. My husband really loved the name from the start but I had some issues pronouncing it correctly, as I kept pronouncing it as 'vile-it' rather than 'vye-uh-let' due to me accent, which I worked on during the pregnancy and agreed to go ahead with the name.
""I love it when I look at the spelling and everyone has been very positive about it but I do find that when I'm introducing her or saying her name I am super careful about how I pronounce it so I’m not saying 'vile-it'. I've now started worrying about her coming home from secondary school and saying people are calling her 'vile' or 'violent', and how it'll be all our fault for giving her the name.
"I don't know if I'm just overreacting. The rational part of my brain is saying it's a totally normal nice name, the irrational part is saying what if she hates it and is bullied and we gave it to her and we should just have gone with something like Olivia."
But those responding to the post reassured the mum that the name was "lovely". One said: "It's a normal, beautiful name. Absolutely gorgeous. Right now you're massively overthinking it, so what if you say it differently sometimes?"
Another wrote: "You're overthinking it. It's a lovely name and will be fine. Teenagers in secondary are much more likely to shorten names so they may call her Vi or Lettie. Unlikely to call her Violent!"
