The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- Sarah Marshal
A woman has been criticised for wanting to name her son after her late brother because of her surname.
A Reddit user using an anonymous “throwaway” account posted about his and his wife’s dilemma over her wanting to name their unborn child Charles.
Seeking the opinion of other users, the 31-year-old explained that his wife, Melissa, is eight months pregnant with their son and that they share his last name, Manson.
He said that the surname “sucks”, but added “ it’s what I have”. “Neither of us have ever had a problem with that until now,” he continued. “A few weeks ago, her brother [Charles] unexpectedly passed away of a heart attack at the age of 35.”
The husband said both he and Melissa have been “shocked and devastated”, describing his late brother-in-law as a “great man who was always healthy”.
But here lies the dilemma. “Melissa now wants to name our son after her brother,” he wrote. “I would not have any issue with this, if her brother’s name wasn’t Charles.”
This would mean their son’s name would be Charles Manson when he is born, which the husband said he was “not OK with”.
However, Melissa is insisting “that nobody would notice or care” that their son would appear to be named after the notorious cult leader Charles Manson, who was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder following the deaths of seven people in 1971.
Melissa’s husband claimed that she labelled him an “a**hole for disrespecting her brother”.
“So, should I let this go and just name our son after a guy who has been so important in Melissa’s life?” he asked Reddit. “I really do not want our kid to have to go through life having the same name as a serial killer. Imagine how hard it would be to get a job.”
While many respondents to the post were sympathetic to Melissa’s grief, the majority agreed with her husband that they should not name their son Charles Manson.
“Not the a**hole – you are truly protecting the kid,” one person commented. “Use Charles as a middle name if you must, or maybe honour her brother using his middle name? Or a nickname she used to call him?
“But seriously, don’t call your kid Charles Manson. Or after any particularly well-documented serial killer.”
Another person said: “I don’t know why wife thinks people won’t notice the name Charles Manson… They’re 100 per cent gonna notice it for sure.”
A third commenter, who claimed to have the same name as a different serial killer, weighed in on the dilemma and shared their “first-hand experience”.
“It really does suck most of the time,” they said. “I hear something about my name every day that I am not in the house and even in my own home at times. I learned to deal with it since I no longer get overly teased about it as an adult, but it was constant since there are always movies or TV shows surrounding the serial killer as a kid.
“What I am trying to say is naming a child after a serial killer will definitely get him made fun of, and he will hear about it almost every day of his life. It gets old.”
