A woman is upset after discovering her best friend plans to use her chosen baby name – though after finding out its meaning, she may be feeling relieved.
When it comes to baby names, people have very different tastes, so choosing one both parents agree on can be quite the minefield. It can be a high-pressure decision, with family members and friends often keen to weigh in with their opinions.
One couple thought they’d avoided all issues after agreeing on the name Zadie for their future child many years ago. Now, they’re expecting a daughter and had their hearts set on using their favourite name.
However, one of their friends – who is also pregnant but several months further along – has shared their chosen name, and it also happens to be Zadie. The couple are crestfallen but didn’t want to say anything to their friend as it was a harmless coincidence, but now they feel obliged to change their chosen name.
On Reddit, under a post titled “Help, they stole our name!” the pregnant woman explained: “We can’t tell them and we’re so close, we can’t name our baby the same thing. We need a replacement.”
Of their choice of Zadie as a name, she said: “We liked that it is literary, sounds cool but not too hip, unique but not too out there. Short and sweet. Our last name is a noun, so we have to be careful with names. For example, we also liked the name Iona, but with our last name, it would sound like ‘I Own A’ [then our last name].”
She then asked for suggestions. People were keen to share their thoughts in the comment section – with several revealing an alternative meaning to the name Zadie.
One person said: “Zadie means grandpa in Yiddish. I would find it to be a really weird name.” Agreeing, another penned: “There’s a girl at my kids’ elementary school named Zadie and I’m so super amused people are naming their young girls ‘Grandpa’.
“Personally, I think any non-Jew should go for it if they like the name. There’s only so many two-syllable sounds out there, and it’s hard to pick a name that doesn’t somehow mean something negative in another language.”
A third simply said: “Zadie sounds like a Sadie wanting to be spicy”, while another echoed previous sentiments about the name’s other meaning: “I feel like near any Jewish community and people will be thinking about her name being grandfather.
“It’s what I called my great grandfather. My dad’s side of the family is Jewish and I was raised Catholic so I didn’t even learn much Hebrew or Yiddish.”
But another added: “I never quite get comments like this because lots of names mean different things in different languages. It feels like you’re unable to see a name outside the context of yourself which is wild given how many people you’d meet in a lifetime.”
Get email updates with the day’s biggest stories
