Choosing a child’s name is one of the first highly important decisions that a parent will make in their baby’s life, because it will impact them in little and small ways throughout the rest of their life.
Choosing a name that’s hard to pronounce or spell, let alone can be easily associated with being a stripper, may not be the way to go, cringed the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor Impossible-Staff92 did not have many positive things to say about their sister, including how she had cared for her daughter so far in her two years of life.
When she had to go to jail for nearly a decade, the Original Poster (OP) made quick work of adopting their niece and setting her up for success with a more promising name.
They asked the sub:
“Am I the a**hole for changing my niece’s stripper name when I got custody of her?”
The OP did not have a good relationship with their sister.
“I think it will become obvious that my sister and I have taken very different paths in life. I love her very much, but she is not well.”
“I have had custody of my niece since she was six months old.”
“My sister is going to jail for at least the next seven years. She is ineligible for parole for that long. So that’s a minimum.”
The OP was quick to care for their niece when their sister had to go to jail.
“My niece’s name is a perfect example of my sister’s thought process. Honest to God, she named her Synnamin, pronounced cinnamon.”
“I have had my sister’s parental rights severed. She and my parents fought me on it. I don’t care. My parents have never contributed to her upbringing, but they have given lots of unwanted advice.”
The OP felt confident about the choices they were making for their adoptive daughter.
“I adopted my daughter and changed her name to Simone.”
“My parents think I’m being cruel to my sister. What my sister thinks is not allowed here, including calling me a lot of horrible names.”
“So I feel completely justified in changing her name. I do not think I’m wrong.”
“I am not looking for validation. I want to know if I’m missing something that my parents and sister can’t communicate coherently.”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some reassured the OP that Simone would thank them later.
“NTA. Your child’s gonna thank you later.” – ApartmentSpecial2025
“Cinnamon to Simone is such a respectful upgrade.”
“It’s not like OP renamed her to OP-Junior or something, eh?” – Stormtomcat
“As someone who changed their name because their birth name was a stripper name… you did well for this kid, OP.” – eleg0ry
“I grew up with a long, unusual, MISSPELLED name my mom thought was pretty. I have had ONE person guess the correct pronunciation, my whole life.”
“It sucked. Parents who use their babies as personal branding suck.”
“Naming a child something difficult to pronounce is one thing, but impossible to pronounce AND tacky as f**k once you do is another altogether.”
“You did good, OP.” – Sugar_Kowalczyk
“My name is a far less common variation on a very common name. (There were three with the common version in my graduating class. I work with two alternate spellings of the common name!)”
“It was picked because it sounds good with my maiden last name. But besides English teachers, only a couple of people have pronounced it correctly the first time. (The biggest problem is saying one vowel long instead of short.)”
“I don’t even want to think what that poor little girl would have gone through! NTA.” – StormBeyondTime
“NTA. I think you’ve made a really nice transition of her name that sounds great, is much easier to read and pronounce, and isn’t that different from the original name.”
“The courts do not terminate parental rights on a whim. You have stepped up and kept your niece in the family and are now her mom!”
“I wanted to update this to add that the courts also don’t typically sentence someone to a minimum of seven years in prison before the idea of parole even begins to be thrown around on a whim.”
“My dad had drug charges and a felony assault charge for beating up a minor, and only got a total of like two and a half years and was out on parole in a little over half a year.”
“I don’t want to belittle anyone’s mental health or potential addiction struggles because that s**t runs rampant in my family. I also don’t know the full story about whether there might also be some sort of systemic oppression/bias that maybe amplified legal actions taken against OP’s sister.”
“But the quick loss of custody, total severance of parental rights, and amount of time in prison before parole is even the smallest whiff of a possibility is really adding up to OP’s sister being an incredibly shitty person who should not be permitted to raise children.”
“My excellent grandma wasn’t able to get us away from my trashbag dad and addict mom until I was technically already legally an adult and my brother was a teenager.”
“OP, you have given your now daughter an immense gift. She has safety, stability, sanity, and love in her life with you. Every time your daughter’s birth giver and absent grandparents try to give you s**t or guilt you, just remind yourself of all of the awful things and toxic bulls**t she won’t have to go through because she’s got you in her corner and be proud of that you gave her that gift.” – anony-gurl
Others agreed and urged the OP and Simone not to live anywhere near the OP’s parents.
“I hope OP doesn’t live anywhere near her awful parents. You just know they’re going to take every opportunity to call that poor kid ‘Synnamin.’ OP needs to keep Simone far away from the toxic grandparents.” – NotACalligrapher-49
“Cinnamon is bad enough, but that atrocious spelling is what gets me.”
“You need to protect your child as best you can. And giving her a proper name is a good start.”
“Simone is a lovely name. As others have said, I hope you live far away from your parents and sister…” – BeautifulChaosEnergy
“NTA, there’s a reason you were granted custody. The court saw you are trustworthy and think of what is best for the child, regardless of the pressure and emotional manipulation you face from others.” – gojira86
“NTA.”
“What you’re missing is that your parents want to stay in your sister’s good books so they can have everyone come together when she gets out of the big house. That likely includes you giving her the child back, despite this being a very bad thing for the child. But that’s how they’ll get ‘peace,’ as they see it, so they’re going to needle you for infinity until you make that happen.”
“Including wanting the name changed back so your dumba** sister won’t flip out about that.”
“Because (and this is a guess), I bet they’ve spent most of your sister’s life ‘handling’ her to keep her happy and not make her kick off? Would I be right? While you’ve been left to get on because your emotional regulation actually works.”
“Either this, or they just plain don’t like you at all.” – Brainchild110
“I’ve seen a lot of adopted kids have their names changed. I won’t say it’s the norm, as I don’t know ratios, but it isn’t uncommon at all. Of course, that’s without family involved. Most likely, I haven’t seen that happen when it’s a family member adoption. For the obvious reasons, you are experiencing.”
“Aside from it being fairly common, you would also be in the right based on the name alone. I see so godd**n many f**ked up kids’ names these days, and ‘Synnamin’ is definitely one of them. Completely justified in changing that.”
“‘Cinnamon’ would suck on its own, but adding in that spelling means that not only would the poor girl be called cinnamon, but she would constantly have to announce it as adults in her life try to sound out ‘Synnamin’ and figure out what it is supposed to be.”
“I make it a point to put in extra effort to get kids’ names right the first time when I see a f**ked up spelling, and you wouldn’t believe the relief you see on their face when they anticipate having to explain it and don’t have to. And that’s just for relatively common names with strange spellings.”
“Plus, Simone is close enough not feel like a total slap in the face to the mother. You didn’t go from Synnamin to Michelle; you kept a thread to her birth name even if it didn’t deserve recognition.” – integral_red
“NTA. You just love that little girl as she deserves. Protecting her from bullying is important, and the name change is a valid part of that.” – Dull_Weakness1658
“NTA. Thank you. Thank you for giving your daughter a stable and loving life with someone who thinks about the future. She’s lucky to have you.” – Doggerdart
Though they were sure that the pressure was tremendous from the family, the subReddit was grateful that the OP was doing what it took to care for their adoptive daughter and to set her up for success in the future.