Mom Wonders If It Was Wrong To Give Her Daughter A Pun For A Name

Kasia Mikolajczak
little girl by the water
Unsplash | Caroline Hernandez

There are many different baby names out there. Some parents choose to give their kids funny or even odd monikers. So when this mom ended up naming her new baby with a pun name, she wondered how people would react to it.

As it turns out, some people get it, and others do not. So let's dive into this story further. Let's go.

A mom recently posted on Reddit.

Reddit logo
Unsplash | Brett Jordan

She wanted to know if people enjoyed some name play. She explained that she's a fan of name play choices as she grew up knowing a boy whose name was Justin Case. So she decided to give an unusual name to her daughter.

She went on to say that she'd used name play for her own daughter.

Alicia Silverstone grimacing
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"So, I admittedly love creative name play choices (and went with one for my daughter, Astoria Booker 'Stori Book')," she wrote.

Hmm, that's definitely different, no? I've never heard of this name combination. That's for sure.

She explained that it's meant to be subtle.

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Unsplash | 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič

"I don’t think it’s nearly as obvious as this subreddit seems to think it is," she wrote. "We have an uncommon last name and with the middle name being Booker, it won’t be used often either way. I’ve only had one person, a librarian, notice the correlation between the first and middle name."

Aha!

woman saying "oh I get it now."
Giphy | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

I get it now. I can see how that works. Well, as you may have guessed, people definitely had some opinions about this choice, though. Some were totally fine with naming kids with puns, but others weren't so sure.

Here's what one commenter said.

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Unsplash | CHUTTERSNAP

"Nah. This was the bane of my existence naming my kids. Their surname is a homophone for a common English word (like…very common…the word appears numerous times in this post/comment section) and it was very difficult to think of a name that we liked that didn’t sound like a phrase, sentence fragment, or vaguely like a threat."

And here's another take.

Rachel from Friends pondering
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"Astoria Booker is not an obvious name play to me at all - I‘m all for these 'if you know you know' kind of name plays. More obvious ones like Justin Case seem a little cruel toward the child. In terms of examples, I’ve seen a family whose last name is Greene name their kids Sterling & Clementine, i.e color inspired, but not super obvious (at least not to me)."

But then there's this to think about.

man laughing
Unsplash | Brian Lundquist

"I definitely wouldn't pat myself on the back for naming my kid a clumsy play on words like Astoria Booker for no reason," one commenter wrote. "If anything it would be a con that a name I loved had a lame pun in it."

I like what this lady said too.

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Unsplash | Colin Maynard

"Astoria Booker is cute/pretty sounding & not glaring obvious 'story book' - do you have other name play options for future kids?"

Oh, I would like to know that too. Haha! I guess after this exercise, this mom might continue this trend or just abandon it altogether, eh?

So what do you think about this?

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Are puns in kids' names yay or nay for you? Honestly, I think it's fun to do something like that, but then again, you need to think of your child. I don't know if I would want to go through my life having to explain the rationale behind my unusual name. But to each its own. Am I right?