How To Cope When Someone Introduces Their New Baby With A Stupid Fucking Name

VISITING the parents of a newborn baby is tough at the best of times; once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. It’s the standard ‘isn’t he/she so cute’ spiel that you’ve always used.

One thing to be more and more aware of is how to conduct yourself when you ask what the child’s name is and the new parents tell you something utterly ridiculous like Rihanna or Leonardo… your instinct might be to say ‘you called it whaaat?’, but this will basically write you out of their lives forever. To stay friends with everyone, here’s a few tips…

1) Prepare for the worst

Never assume that these people will have called their kid something normal. Those parents are in the minority. Have yourself braced for them to say Spongebob or Heatshield or something ridiculous, so when they turn round and say Etian or whatever, it’s a pleasant surprise. Relief will show on your face, and this can easily be passed off as delight.

2) Bawl

If you can’t hold it in, then don’t hold it in. Just roar your face off crying at the tragedy that is a baby in 2016 called Macauley or whatever, and then pass it off as sorrow because you knew a Macauley who died years ago and it all just came flooding back.

3) Ask if it’s a family name

You don’t have to ask anything about the child’s name, you can just say ‘aw that’s nice’ and hand the kid back and then go home and never see these people again… but it’s nice to show some interest, even if you’re horrified. So, ‘Hermione’ is it? Which side of the family does that come from? Oh you got it from a book? Isn’t that original.