A woman was left gobsmacked after her friend detailed her cousin’s baby name plans. At first, she thought it would be fairly straightforward, but she was so wrong…
A woman was horrified when she found out the hidden meaning behind her friend’s baby name choice. Everybody wants to use an adorable and unique moniker for their little one, but sometimes, they can overegg the pudding and end up with something totally random-sounding. Yes, they may end up not having the same name as another kid on the school register, but it also leaves them open to bullying when kids realise how ‘unusual’ the name is.
One woman shared a name her friend’s family member used, saying it “takes the cake,” posting it on Reddit’s baby name forum for quirky monikers.
“Years ago, a friend of mine told me her cousin was having a baby boy,” she penned, quickly asking whether they had any names in mind for their bundle of joy.
“She replied yes, he’ll be named after his father, James. Easy enough, right?” But she was so wrong.
Often, when a boy is named after their father, they will go by ‘Junior’ to mark the significance of being named the same thing as their dad.
So James Junior would’ve worked, and the boy could’ve potentially gone by JJ to friends – a commonly used name.
But the woman had other ideas for the name of her little one.
“Until she added: She’s naming him Semaj. Yep you guessed it JAMES spelled backwards,” she wrote, explaining this was in 1997, so the name Semaj was not frequently used.
Semaj is still considered “uncommon” according to baby name data.
Baby Centre shares Semaj means “a place of great happiness,” which is a sweet baby name meaning.
In the UK in 2012, Semaj ranked as the 1238th most popular boys’ name of the year.
In the comments, someone asked: “Why not just name the kid Seamus of any of the countless other derivatives/translations of James?”
Another said they didn’t understand “honour” names anyway, and didn’t get why people wanted to use a similar but different name to mark the life of someone else.
“You just give them their middle name. I assume it’s common elsewhere in the world, but at least in Scotland, it’s pretty common to just have the middle name be after your father or grandfather – myself included,” a Redditor explained.
One man said it was in the “top names” some years, writing: “I hate to share this terrible news with you, but Semaj has been in the top 1,000 names many times. There were over 300 born in 2011.”
However, in the grand scheme of baby names, that isn’t a huge amount.
According to The Bump, the most popular baby names for boys are currently:
1. Liam
2. Noah
3. Oliver
4. Theodore
5. James
6. Henry
7. Mateo
8. Elijah
9. Lucas
10. William