Mom Influencer Breaks Down Over Comments About Her Son's Unusual Name
"People — just fully grown adults — just sat there slandering my baby's name. I think it's quite cruel," she said
Baby names can be a sensitive subject, whether you go with the most popular name of the year (which some people find boring and uninspired) or with something completely unique (which some people find cruel and unusual).
This week, one baby name choice in particular hit the fan, and the internet is divided.
Here’s what happened: parenting influencers Matt & Abbey, who have a combined 8 million followers on TikTok and YouTube, had a conversation on their podcast, The Unplanned, about unusual baby names and posted it to their channels.
“I’m going to be honest with you, it does kind of bug me, some of the names that are out there nowadays,” Abby says in the clip. “They’re so off the wall. You know your child is going to be an adult, and potentially work in a professional setting...”
“If you name your kid something that’s really cute for a kid, but then they don’t have a name that can be an adult name, that is scary,” Matt agrees.
“And also some people are so proud that they are like, I don’t know anyone named this name, and I’m naming my kid that.’ That might not be the flex that you think it is,” Abby finishes. “That might be a red flag.”
Down in the comments, many of their followers piled onto totally different parenting influencers, Connor and Liana, who also have millions of followers. Many of the comments made fun of the pair for naming their baby Koazy (pronounced Cozy).
Matt and Abby took down the clip on TikTok and disabled the same clip on YouTube Shorts. But not before Liana got really, really upset over all of the criticism. She responded with a tearful video of her own, explaining her son’s unique name and how it came about.
“Basically, our baby is named Koazy. And I know it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, right? But people have pulled it out of context and said that we called him Koazy because he was cozy in the womb, but no, it was a name that we already had,” she says, crying. “But as I was staying so heavily pregnant, people were saying, ‘He was cozy in your belly,” and it kind of confirmed to us I think that’s what we should name him. It was almost like, “Oh my god, it was meant to be.’”
"I wasn't trying to name him anything for a flex," she continues. "And then to open the comments section to everyone who didn’t like our baby name, to just rip on it. It’s upsetting. I knew not everyone was going to like the name, so I’m not defending it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it's just different when there's this comment section open on such a big influencer's video."
Down in the comments, people were mostly supportive of the couple.
“All that matters is that you and your partner love the name,” one of the most popular comments reads.
“I honestly don’t know how people can attack babies!! I LOVE unusual names and I think Koazy is such an adorable name,” another wrote.
Although some others remained critical.
“Koazy is a cute name for a baby but not when they’re 30,” one person shared.
And so the baby name debate continues, perhaps forever. Is it worse to give your baby the same name as millions of others, or forge a completely new path? And if you do, should others have the right to comment on it? Maybe the take-home lesson is: Don’t give your baby an unusual name if you can’t take the public commentary that comes with it.
