Dear Annie on Baby Name Stealing

One of the letters in yesterday’s Annie’s Mailbox came from a woman whose favorite boy name, “Alex,” was basically stolen by her sister-in-law.

The response from Annie (who is actually two people) was quite good:

While it would have been nice for [your sister-in-law] to choose another name, the fact remains that you don’t have a monopoly on this one. [...] If you still want to call your child “Alex,” by all means, do so. Many cousins share a name. But we hope you will be open to other possibilities.

Wow… it’s pretty obnoxious that the sister-in-law would do such a thing.

Luckily, in this case, sharing isn’t such a bad option–Alexander can be shortened into a number of common nicknames (like Al, Alex, Lex, Lexie, Xan, Xander, Sandy and Ander).

The situation would have been much stickier if the original name had been something more obscure. (Two first cousins called Algernon? Or Aonghus? Probably not.)

[Related post: Dear Abby talked about baby names a few months back...]