A woman has slammed her cousin for wanting to give her daughter a ‘tragedeigh’ name that could cause her to be bullied on the playground throughout her school years
A woman is desperately seeking advice after trying and failing to get through to her cousin about her ‘atrocious’ baby name. With an aim to convince her to change the spelling of her daughter’s name before she’s born, she has taken to Reddit’s tragedeigh thread as a last resort for advice.
The term tragedeigh is given to names “deliberately misspelled or completely made up to appear more unique than it actually is”. She explained how her cousin really likes the name Phoebe – but wanting to add a ‘unique’ spin to it, she has decided to spell it Feabe.
She said: “I’ve tried to convince her that people won’t understand how to say it, and the traditional spelling looks a lot prettier, but she has her mind set. She says nobody will read it differently, and uses the names Lia and Lea as examples. I just don’t think it’s the same thing. But tell me, is it a tragedeigh like I think it is? Will the kid get bullied?”
The woman says she has spent weeks trying to convince her to keep the original spelling – but as the due date draws closer, she’s starting to fear for the newborn more and more. She added: “I’m struggling here on trying to find ways to convince her to change it. I texted her about the Phineas and Ferb reference the kid is going to get, and she just said that she loved the show as a kid.
“My cousin and I are super close, like sisters, so any suggestions? It also doesn’t help that her middle name will be spelt Feiey, like Fae for Fairy. So Feabe Feiey.” Commenting on her post, one user said: “Wouldn’t Fea be a feminine form of feo, Spanish for ugly? Even if not, any chance you can convince your cousin of that?”
Another user added: “I would pronounce Feabe as Feeb. Maybe Fabe as a distant second guess.” A third user said: “Any elementary teacher will tell you that Phoebe spelled as Feabe is going to get teased as Flea be and when she’s older? Even worse, Fee is for sale to the highest bidder. Kids are Cruel. Girls are crueler.”
One more user said: “It is more than a tragedy. The poor kid will be called Feeble or Febreeze, and even well-intentioned people will say it incorrectly. It also entirely hides its Greek meaning of ‘bright’ or ‘shining’ (as in Phoebus Apollo), and it disconnects it from any of the characters in mythology, or the woman in the Bible, who have the name Phoebe.”
