‘Can’t be serious’, people cry over baby name, others say it’s ‘like a troll’
A mother has been criticised after revealing the unique name she gave her daughter.
People couldn’t understand the nickname and joked that it sounded like someone you would call a troll.
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The name was shared in a after on a Reddit group dedicated to spreading name shaming.
Reddit user Pnknbby explained that she came across the unusual nickname when her former classmate posted about her newborn baby.
“[I] I decided to check Facebook for the first time in a while and the first thing I saw was that a girl I went to high school with named her daughter Creeklee,” the poster wrote.
“I think that’s the worst name I’ve heard so far.”
She pointed out that people seem to follow the same trend when naming their children after them.
“You can’t put ‘ly,’ ‘lee,’ or ‘leigh’ after a word and make it a name,” she said.
She gave examples of other names inspired by waters that would have been more appropriate.
“I don’t like these names, but they would have been much better: River, Rivery, Lake, Lakey, Ocean,” she explained.
Creeklee is an example of what Redit users call a tragedy name.
The term is used to describe ‘a first name that is deliberately misspelled or completely made up to appear more unique than it actually is’.
Reddit users shared their thoughts on the unusual name in the comments.
“I’m picturing a cartoonish river troll. ‘Oh, your shovel’s gone? Must have been Ole Creeklee,’” one reader joked.
“This is a really typical example of a ‘girl I knew in high school whose birth announcement I happened to see on Facebook’ type of name for a child,” another commenter said.
“This sounds more like sounds birds might make. Cree! Klee! Cree! Klee!” wrote a third person.
“My arthritis makes my joints move all kinds of weird,” another Redditor wrote.
Are Unique Baby Names Worth It?
You may think that a unique name will make you stand out, but is it really?
Josie Griffiths, deputy editor of Fabulous, talks about the problems she had with her name as a child.
As a child, I wanted nothing more than a personalized keychain with my name on it.
But it wasn’t. The closest I could get were Rosie, Joseph (not so nice for such a little girl) and Joanne.
Josie is short for Josephine, a French first name, and I’ve been in my twenties without ever meeting anyone with the same first name.
When I try to introduce myself to people I get called all sorts of random names like Tracey and Stacey and it can be quite annoying.
Although I’ve met a few Josies in the past year (there are a few around my age), it’s still a much rarer name than most of my friends’ names.
Overall I don’t mind it, at least it’s not crude or spelled weird.
And that means I can get away with ‘doing a Cheryl’ and just calling myself Josie.
I’m getting married this year and some friends are shocked that I’m changing my last name. It’s not considered cool or feminist these days. I explain to them that I’m not that attached to Griffiths because I always just say ‘Hi, I’m Josie’ when I call a friend.
I like being unique and I will definitely try to achieve this when naming my own children.
You have to watch out for the crude names, so after nine years as a lifestyle journalist I will definitely avoid them.
“When I read that name, I closed my eyes for a moment in pure resignation,” said one person.
“Creeklee sounds like, ‘That’s a really old chair. It’s kind of creeklee,'” another reader noted.
“I know someone with a son named Creek. I still don’t know how I feel about it,” wrote one commenter.
“It reminds me of Pleakley from Lilo & Stitch,” said another Reddit user.
“So sick of the ‘ly’ endings on made-up names. Can’t we start the ‘bert’ trend? Can we use Kaybert instead of Kaylee?” one viewer asked.
