Despite the plethora of lovely names for newborns, there is no shortage of questionable, downright mind-boggling monikers that fully grown adults decide to bestow upon their unsuspecting offspring.
You'd think as long as you weren't naming an innocent child something truly ridiculous like Potato or Pilot Inspektor (oh wait, that's been done) or after a mathematical equation (oops, X Æ A-12 Musk) or a curse word, you'd be in the safe zone. Unfortunately, that's far from the case - you only need to scan your eyes over the list of forenames that were rejected by the Registrar-General in New Zealand last year to see that when it comes to baby names, some people seem to want to subject their child to a lifetime of strange looks and snickers.
But even this year's most bogan baby names from across the ditch (Miraccle, Roar and… Salmon?) pale in comparison to one woman's pick for her unborn child.
Sharing the predicament to the popular subreddit 'Am I The Asshole' - a space for people to anonymously seek strangers' advice on their moral conundrums - a woman explained that her colleague is planning to name her baby Mackoneum, an alternative spelling of the word 'meconium'.
For the uninitiated, meconium is the first faeces or stool of a newborn. Unlike later poops, meconium is composed of materials ingested during the time the infant spends in the uterus such as mucus, amniotic fluid, bile and water. Apologies if you're currently eating.
In her post to the forum, the woman implored Redditors for advice on whether or not to break the news to her coworker that her name of choice is basically a glorified term for baby poo.
For context, the woman explained that both she and her colleague are currently expecting, but struggle to see eye-to-eye on their approaches to pregnancy and motherhood.
"I am 37 weeks pregnant, a girl I work with is 36 weeks pregnant. We work from home but she messages me a lot on Slack to 'commiserate'. I'll admit though, there isn't a lot of camaraderie. We have very different birth plans and child-rearing plans, which is fine on its own, but she mocks pretty much every choice of mine that doesn't match up with hers," the woman said.
"I'm reading lots of books about birth and child rearing so I'm 'a helicopter parent', I want to breastfeed so I'm 'a crunchy hippy mom', etc."
The user said she often feels as if she has to "walk on eggshells" around her coworker, who can be quick to snap if she is told something she doesn't want to hear or that may cause her to worry, putting her trust in "God and doctors" rather than Google or listening to the experiences of others.
"The big point relevant to this, I want all the information I can get about labour, birth, what to expect, possible complications, interventions etc - and she doesn't want to know anything because she just wants... not [to] worry," the woman continued.
"Unfortunately she messaged me Friday saying she picked a name out for her baby. She wants to name him (no, I'm not kidding) Mackoneum (Meconium).
"She said she heard a doctor say it about her baby's first moments (it's the first poo) and she liked the sound of it. I told her she should Google it 'to see if it had any cool meanings' - she said she wasn't going to and she hated Google and Googling names ruins them because there's always someone who doesn't like it."
The woman went on to say that her colleague lives a "very sheltered" life and due to their somewhat complicated relationship, she doesn't want to overstep her bounds.
"I really hope there is someone in her life who will let her know... I don't feel it's my place to because I feel [like] telling her that's the medical term for baby's first poo will probably be breaching the boundary she's set of never wanting to hear anything.
"Getting her to look it up would be going against her wishes to not know anything bad that could happen, which I don't want to do.
"I also feel that knowing she's planning on naming her baby after poop maybe warrants an intervention? Would I be the asshole if I told her? Should I just mind my business? I feel like maybe if we were better friends it would be okay but as stated our relationship is not very friendly."
The Reddit community was quick to urge the woman to speak up, at least for the sake of the unborn baby. The general consensus was that piping up was the right thing to do - and doing so wouldn't make her an asshole.
"I hope you do for the sake of the kid... that kid should not suffer," one pitched in.
"If she wants to name her foetus after faecal matter after that, then it's on her," a second weighed in, while a third added: "School-age kids are 100 percent gonna be bullying a kid for that name, whether they know what it means or not."
"Whelp, in a couple more years he will have his little sister Placentah to keep him company," another quipped.
"You would be [not the asshole]. And there might be a great side effect. It's possible she'll get mad enough at you to stop talking to you… Win win," another pointed out.
In an update to her original post, the woman thanked the community for their input and said she had come to the conclusion that despite the advice, she will stay out of it.
"I've read through most of the comments and it really seems like either a nurse, doctor, family member, actual friend etc at some point before a birth certificate is involved is going to let her know," she wrote.
"So I think even though most people are saying I wouldn't be the asshole for telling her, I am actually going to stay out of it unless she brings it up again before I go on my [maternity] leave."
