Woman horrified as brother reveals name for baby daughter: “Feel sorry”

A woman has urged her brother to reconsider his choice of baby name for his daughter amid concerns over what it could mean for the child at school.

Though baby names are a matter of personal preference, research has shown that a parent’s choice of moniker can have repercussions for their offspring, particularly when it comes to girls’ names.

In 2005, a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that girls with gender-neutral names were more likely to engage in higher levels of math and science education.

Maybe that’s why the woman behind the Reddit account /u/nightcana had such a strong reaction to her brother’s choice of name for his daughter: Areola. The user wrote in the post, “They plan to spell it Ariolla, and want it pronounced with a bogan Aussie accent, Air-ee-oh-la.”

The woman—Cana from Brisbane, Australia, who chose not to share her surname—told Newsweek she immediately thought something “didn’t sound right” about the name.

“Because of the slight difference in pronunciation, it was a couple of heartbeats before I figured out why it sounded so terrible,” she said.

Cana had immediate concerns about what might lie ahead for her niece if she went to school with a name that sounded a lot like the word that means pigmented area around the nipple. She wrote on Reddit, “I already feel sorry for this poor kid.”

“My biggest concern is the teasing this poor kid is going to endure,” Cana told Newsweek. “Kids are cruel. Give them an inch and they will tear you down. Give them a mile and they will tear you apart.”

The woman said that after overcoming the initial shock of his choice, she tried to persuade her brother to reconsider his pick, as it was “a bit too much like the body part.”

“That’s when he got defensive and started going on about how it sounds different and no one else knows what that is called,” she said.

Cana called her brother stubborn for sticking to his choice and said she wasn’t alone in thinking the name sounded a little off.

“I wasn’t the only person that night who didn’t like the name,” she said. “Everyone had a similar reaction of not liking it, I was just the only one who pointed out the similarity to the body part.”

When Cana shared the predicament on Reddit, it drew a similar response, with one user commenting: “They seriously couldn’t settle for Arielle, Ariel, or even Ariella??? It has to be nipple???”

“Honestly all they need is a classmate with an older sibling and the poor kid will be ‘Nipple’ from the kindergarten,” another added.

“Not even just kids. Imagine being an adult and you get introduced to someone named Areola. And imagine being Areola and having that be your name. Writing it down day in day out. Legal forms. Contracts. Licenses. It’s just nipple all day every day,” a commenter wrote.

Cana said she hadn’t spoken to her brother about the issue again and “finally admitted defeat” in trying to persuade him to change it. Instead, she came up with a work-around.

“I hope they like the nickname Ari,” she said, “because that’s what I’m calling her.”