A 30-year-old woman has told her pregnant sister she can’t use a baby name she’s loved for years — even though she might never have children herself.
In a post shared on Reddit, the woman explained that she has “always wanted kids” but faces fertility challenges and isn’t sure if pregnancy will ever be possible for her.
Her younger sister, now eight months pregnant with her first child — a girl — recently revealed the chosen name: Isla.
“I have always said if I ever have a daughter, her name will be Isla,” the woman wrote. “I’ve been saying this since I was a teenager, and everyone in our family knows it. So when she told me her name choice, I told her she cannot use it because it’s been my dream name forever. If she uses it, she’ll ruin my future experience if I ever get pregnant.”
According to the post, her sister initially laughed, then realized she was serious.
“She said, ‘You might never have kids. I am literally about to give birth.’ I told her that was cruel and, if she cared about me, she would pick a different name,” the woman wrote. “She said no, and now my family is split. My parents think she should keep the name because she’s the one having the baby, but some cousins agree with me that it’s messed up for her to take the name she knows I’ve wanted for years.”
The woman said she even offered her sister $500 to choose another name, but her sister accused her of being “controlling and weird.”
“I feel like no one understands how important this is to me. I am heartbroken,” she added.
Many Reddit users, however, pushed back against the idea of “claiming” a name.
“It’s always weird when people ‘claim’ a name,” one commenter wrote. “Isla is super common right now anyway — I know of several preschoolers and first graders named just that. And just because your family may have heard you say Isla, it doesn’t mean they retained it. It likely wasn’t important to them!”
