That Fine Line of Name Thievery

General Name Discussion
1

So I’ve seen quite a few combinations on Nameberry (And I know many of you have!), that make me swoon! I’ve been wondering, is it considered name thievery if you take the name of someone you don’t know? Would you feel offended/slighted/flattered etc if another berry announced her babies name to be the exact same as yours? (First and Middle?) What if someone in your real life did the same? [name]How[/name] would you feel? Have you ever stolen a name?

When exactly is someone considered a name thief? When is it okay to “take” another persons name? Is it ever okay? [name]Feel[/name] free to elaborate on your opinions of name thievery and etc.

2

I had a girl “steal” one of my names on another website. A beloved name.

Now, I don’t post my faaavvvvveeee names anymore. I was piss.

3

Yes, it’s a horrible, awful crime to copy a name from an anonymous person on a worldwide website. All names and combinations are copyrighted by their specific posters and cannot be reused on any child, anywhere, without express written permission. :slight_smile:

There’s no “claiming” names. No one has a monopoly on one name combo or another. This site is designed for the specific purpose of exchanging ideas. Unsurprisingly, you’ll probably find several people who have similar tastes as you. “Stealing” a name is a “crime” that doesn’t exist. Unless you know the person who posted said name is a neighbor or friend or relative of yours, why would you ever worry about “stealing” a name? (And even in those cases, I still don’t consider it “stealing”, but that’s a whole other post…)

4

Unless you want to use [name]Blue[/name] [name]Ivy[/name] [name]Carter[/name]…all names are fair game.

5

This, unequivocally. Names cannot be stolen, no one owns a name.

6

Lol Miss [name]Pat[/name]…
Hmm it is a heinous and grievous offense but then again its online and you will never meet these people in real life…would I still be pissed off ? Yes absolutly!

7

I know this will probably upset some people but I dont think people can cry stolen name in these situations:

  1. you claimed every name under the sun and now a distant cousin, neighbor or high school friend you haven’t seen in 10 years has used your combo. My first and middle are pretty common for my generation and I have run into people with the same combo 3 times in my life. I thought it was really cool! I promise you your childs world will not collapse should they meet another person or god forbid, grow up with someone who has the exact combo.

  2. You mentioned it to a friend who didnt say anything at the time but ended up using it first. This is the worst but there is no absolute way you will ever know that they werent wearing a poker face because they planned on using and didnt want to get into an argument over it. There are obvious cases of name stealing, some people will outright say "thats a great name! Im going to use it and I get to do it first! That is a jerk move. [name]Just[/name] because they smiled at the mention of the name doesnt mean they’re a name thief

  3. Someone else wants to use mom/dad/grandma/grandpa etc, name. Who are you to say your connection to grandma is stronger than your brothers and therefor his wife cannot use the name? I know it sucks but if your brother wants to use is just as bad as you do then it’s fair game, same with cousins.

I wont lie though, [name]Ive[/name] seen [name]Athenais[/name] come up once and yes my heart jumped a little bit, turns out there has been more than one [name]Josephine[/name] [name]Athenais[/name] though so its not exactly all mine.

8

I would not steal or like stolen from me, names to be used by my sister or my oldest girlfriend. In my oldest girlfriend’s case we don’t have any shared grandmothers we both want to name for (obviously!) and we don’t have identical taste in any case. In my sister’s case, we tend to “call” names and know what each other want.

Anyone else I don’t really care what they do. Well, that’s a lie, I’d be peeved if my brother stole my names (first cousins having identical obscure names would be weird) but I trust the hypothetical mother of his children likely has different taste than I do anyway. :wink:

So my sister called 6 girls names and 6 boys names for a total of 3 FN/MN combos for each gender and that is all I have to steer clear of, which is fine by me.

9

I don’t care. Really. If you have a problem with someone you don’t know and will probably never meet “stealing” your name, you should just make up a jumble of letters and name your child that. I’ve never met anyone with the exact same name as me, but I guarantee you, they’re out there. And when ai met someone that had one of my names in common, I thought it was pretty cool. I put the names I am going to use in my signature because I love them. If someone else loves them as much as I do, and wants to use them, I have absolutely no problem with that. The ONLY time I would be upset is if my brother used the same name that I want. However, my [name]SIL[/name] love to talk about names and we decided long ago that if we really love a name, the first person to use it, gets dibs. [name]Even[/name] then, it would only be if we were going to usethe same first name.

10

I’d be honoured if someone liked a combo I came up with enough to use, especially as I’ll never have enough children to use all the combos I love. they deserve to be worn and loved by someone.

11

I am with malk. Not only would I not care if someone online stole/borrowed/was inspired by/ whatever a combo of mine, I would think it was pretty cool!

I have a very common first name for my age and a pretty unusual middle for my age (although it’s now fairly common as a first name for little girls). I would love to meet someone else with my exact combo, it would be a cool small world thing. I already get kind of excited when I meet woman my age with my middle as a first (which has happened twice in my life).

12

Now I really want to know what your middle name is!

13

If someone online that I didn’t know “stole” a name combo from me, I’d be flattered! If someone in “real life” that I actually knew did it, I would be pretty upset, because then I probably wouldn’t use the name - I wouldn’t want my child growing up with the exact same name as someone they actually knew. Knowing that there was another little person out in the world somewhere with the exact name, inspired by me, would be pretty cool though!

14

Online I don’t think it matters but if I met someone in real life who I knew I would probably be annoyed, or perhaps honoured! It kind of depends!

15

I think it depends. If you name your kid something in the top 10, and use a filler middle name, its foolish to be annoyed if someone copies it. [name]Isabella[/name] [name]Rose[/name]? [name]Emma[/name] [name]Grace[/name]? Those are fair game imo.
But if I had a little [name]Persephone[/name] [name]Dahlia[/name]? Yes I’d be extremely annoyed if someone in real life used that combo. It’d just show how unoriginal they are.
But if it were a fellow [name]Berry[/name]? I’d probably be flattered. I consider Berries to have impeccable taste, so for someone to use the same name as me would be a compliment.

16

No one owns a name.

In the situation where you have always planned to name your child a certain name, and you’ve told your sister or best friend, for example, numerous times that you are going to use that name, and then that person goes ahead and uses it before you do - I’d be mad, but nothing you can do. Seeing a name on a name board and using it is not stealing it… you don’t even know these people. If I posted favorite names on the web, I’d be happy for someone to use them ( I will not be naming any more future children).

17

This happened to me. It hurt very much at the time because the combo was to honor my father, who passed away when I was a baby, and my stepfather, who raised me from the age of 3. Still, there wasn’t anything I could do about it, and I didn’t have my first child until a few years after the “theft” occurred, by which time I’d gotten over it.

Online is another story. I’ve seen numerous people post combos (not in their siggies, and not popular names/combos by current standards) that we’re considering. It just means we berries all have great taste! :wink:

18

Edited for privacy.

19

Honestly, I don’t see it as such a big deal. If you were considering “stealing” a name, messaging the person and asking them how they feel about you using the name would be the obvious thing to do. If they were put off by it, you probably shouldn’t use it, but if you live no where near eachother, the person who made the name wouldn’t even know and there would be no harm done. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right? And if someone were to ask me if they could use one of my names, I would be happy to let them! It wouldn’t stop me from using it.

20

Petty or not, yes, I would definitely be offended. I post my top choice for each gender in my signature so people can get a bit of a sense of my style, and maybe they’ll understand where I’m coming from. I’m sure there might be an [name]Isabelle[/name] [name]Aurora[/name] [name]Grace[/name] or a [name]Caleb[/name] [name]Elias[/name] [name]Joseph[/name] out there somewhere, but none that I’ve met so far. I google my top choices fairly regularly and one thing about them I love is that despite the fact that at least one of the names is fairly common (and even [name]Isabelle[/name] [name]Grace[/name] and [name]Caleb[/name] [name]Joseph[/name] are fairly generic/popular as combos), the full names haven’t been posted or used by anyone else that I can find on a google search. I like that the full name is less expected. I could care less if someone else loves the FNs I’ve picked out (in fact, when I come across someone else on Nameberry that loves [name]Isabelle[/name] or [name]Caleb[/name], I’m rather pleasantly surprised, lol)–there are hundreds of Calebs and Isabelles in the world. But at least show me the common courtesy of saying, “Hey, [name]Ashley[/name], I really love your choice for a girl and I’ve absolutely fallen in love with it–would you mind if I added it to my own list?” I would do that for anyone’s combo I fell in love with–enough that I would actually use it–and I expect no less from anyone else.

Is it petty? Absolutely. But I’m quite attached to my name and I feel like it would be pretty ridiculous to never post about my names, never ask for advice, just because I don’t want someone to steal my name.

On another forum there was another poster who had fallen in love with [name]Isabella[/name] and [name]Aurora[/name], and she knew that another member of the site loved them both (me), and she wanted to make sure she wasn’t stealing if she added [name]Isabella[/name] [name]Aurora[/name] or [name]Aurora[/name] [name]Isabella[/name] to her list. I was quite honored that she’d asked (and I told her so), and I told her she was more than welcome to it, but that yes, I would be a little bit sad if she used it because it was practically my top choice and [name]Isabelle[/name] [name]Aurora[/name] [name]Grace[/name] wouldn’t be quite as special to me anymore, knowing that someone else might have the name. She ultimately decided to go for a family name with [name]Isabella[/name] ([name]Isabella[/name] [name]Raye[/name] or something, I think?), so it was all settled, but yeah, I was surprised to find myself so disappointed about it. I always thought I would be completely honored to have someone love my choice so much that they would want to use it (and I really was very honored), and I didn’t expect to feel how utterly special [name]Isabelle[/name] [name]Aurora[/name] [name]Grace[/name] has become to me.

Between relatives and friends and such, I’m not quite as fussed. I don’t tell family members or friends full combos (I doubt anyone really knows my top 10 besides my family, who knows I love [name]Isabelle[/name] and [name]Caleb[/name]). [name]Every[/name] time someone I know gets pregnant, I cross my fingers that they don’t use [name]Isabelle[/name]/[name]Isabella[/name], [name]Olivia[/name], [name]Avery[/name], or [name]Bailey[/name], which seem to be the most likely to get stolen, but it happens. My cousins have all used [name]Benjamin[/name], [name]Emma[/name], and [name]Lyla[/name], and [name]Benjamin[/name] and [name]Emmeline[/name] were my top two choices at one point, and [name]Lila[/name] was on my top 10 at one point, as well. It happens and I move on. It’s not like they knew and were trying to steal my favorites–they just really liked them.