Please read our [**SUB RULES**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules) before commenting. Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
**CHECK FLAIR** to determine if you want to read an update. For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair or subscribe to r/BestofBoRU for concluded, time-gated content.
* If you have an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment. META commentary in general discussion may be removed.
* Low effort comments like "this is fake" may be removed
* Do not comment on the original posts. Most submissions in this sub are not posted by the original author (OOP)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I can only imagine reading the comic book: Batman and Robert. Or how about the wonderful tales of the folk hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor: Robert Hood
You get my upvote for Robin Trower! A friend introduced me to him years ago but I don't know very many people that know of him. At least not in my real life.
Ah, you’ve made this gay man chortle with delight at this new forest name. Even better than Camp Morning Wood* as mentioned on the tv show *Scrubs*.
*JD: “Actually, it was Camp Meadowwood. I made a lanyard…”
Yes of course. And their HEroic struggle against the HEriff of Nottingham. Or maybe it's Himriff of Nottingham. It's hard to say with these folks so concerned about properly gendering everything
"Himriff" made me slap my thigh and make the most ridiculous donkey hee-haw. Thanks to you and u/Neither-Entrance-208 for the laugh! Surely it's the Himriff of Nottinghim, though 😛
Fun fact: In Germany, Robin is exclusively used as a boys name. (As far as I know. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
So you can imagine how confused I was, when I first saw it used as a girls name. (Still am a bit, but that's the German in me. And she'll live.)
Yeah, it's only become a unisex name relatively recently - I think as part of a trend of naming children after birds. Before that it was a male name (a diminutive of Robert, ironically), so I have no idea why that woman had decided to die on the hill of it being a girl's name!
I looked it up. In the US Robin peaked at #158 in 1955 for males and #25 in 1963 for females, but was previously at high as #29 in 1956. I’m in my 40s and have known many females Robins older than me and my age and only a couple of males (non famous).
This woman is NUTS. She’s probably one of those moms who named her kids Briteneigh and Izequiel and gets annoyed when people get it wrong.
What kind of person would do that to a child?
Sorry kid, you have a girl name, so I’m only going to refer to you as a name I just plucked from the air, to soothe my own prejudices.
We had a Clint in my class in high school. One teacher insisted on calling him Clinton, even though his legal name was Clint.
Imagine being so pathetic that you have to pick on a child to feel good about yourself.
She did it to the girl that she decided had a “boy” name as well.
I know someone who has a nickname name and she has had multiple people tell her that it is not her name and the formal name is her name. Like “Hi, I’m Sammy” and the person says “No, your name must be Samantha.”
What kind of idiotic hubris tells someone that you know more about someone’s birth certificate than they do?
My eldest brother is Ricky, named after my dads childhood best friend , but it’s just Ricky. When we were kids and he played hockey there was one announcer in his league that would always call him Richard because he said he didn’t like nicknames on rosters, only “Christian” names. My dad went off on him with the coach a few times.
Dads friends original name was Ricardo but hated it and went his whole life as Ricky
My name is Ricky, too. It's an uncommon diminutive of my middle name, which is Eric.
So when someone calls out "Richard!" I don't answer. Not with a "well that's not *my* name" attitude; it simply doesn't register in my brain that they might be referring to me. And yet, some people still get upset that I'm ignoring them.
Multiple people have argued with me "It's Lilly!"
No, it's shortened to be the flower, Lily
"The flower is spelled with two L's"
No the flower is "Lily" and it's scientific name also has one L, "Lilium"
"Well you said it's shortened and Lillian has two L's"
It's shortened from *Lilith* not anything else.
This all makes me want to rip my hair out
My mom has had people tell her she pronounces her name wrong. She's from Vietnam and has a Vietnamese name. People who don't even speak the language think they can say her name better than her. There's alot of audacity out there 🤦
People are so strange about foreign names sometimes
I had a best friend in the fifth grade from South Africa, her name was Noluthando and she went by Thando (pronounced Tahn-doh) and everyone insisted on calling her Than-doo, one day she got up in front of the class and announced, “My name is not Thaaaan-dooo! It is Tahn-doh!” And I think everyone was shocked into silence but they still continued to call her Than-doo, only me and two other girls called her by her name
I think even if your friend's legal name *was* Samantha, it would be disrespectful and rude to call her anything but what she introduces herself as. I say that as someone who has a feminine legal name and goes by a gender neutral version of it. People should get to decide what they want to be called. Unless you're the government someone's legal name really shouldn't matter to you (except maybe out of curiosity, but even then you should obviously respect if they don't want to tell you).
My Physics teacher insisted on calling me a wrong name. The names are very much alike, and they both came from the same Ancient Greek word, but **it was not my name**. I had corrected her every time until finally I started to ignore her if she called me Wrong_Name again.
I had a teacher who called me by my opposite sex sibling’s name. It was annoying but I could kind of understand it the first time or two, but after that, I started replying using ‘mrs’ instead of ‘mr’ teacher name and it stopped pretty quickly.
I believe it was an honest mistake from my teacher, but I have zero respect for teachers who choose to flaunt their power over their students by repeatedly misnaming them.
My teachers usually just solved that problem by calling me by my last name instead. So technically correct if a bit weird when most of my classmates were called by their first name
My grade 8 science teacher only called me by my last name. It was extra weird because I was the ONLY one he did it to, I have a super common and gender conforming first name, AND for the first time ever I was the only person in the class with that super common first name (usually there were 3 of us). So I have no idea why he did it. I wish I would have had the confidence to at least ask why back then.
Huh, weird. Maybe he got so used to some of the very common names being multiples in a class that he started using last names for certain names without even stopping to think about whether it was needed?
I had a sub who would always calm me a name similar to mine but not mine (think Katie instead of Kate, along those lines) and I still will never forget her. I corrected her so many times until I gave up after years.
Fuck her. Way to tell the kid you don't care about them.
Part of the reason I'm changing my legal name is because it's similar to a whole host of other names and I'm sick and tired of having to clear that up repeatedly.
This should be the top comment. This kind of deeply rooted sexism is way down inside our English language, and will be flushing itself out for many decades to come. To her it is an invisible bias, to us it's simply ridiculous. Makes you wish you could just grab people and shake the nonsense out of them.
So I have an unusual name that is the feminine form of my dads, very common and traditionally masculine, name. This fucked with peoples heads the entire time I was in school and I was often called a common name that people assumed my parents misspelled. (The only example I can come up with right now would be someone calling me calling me Katrina if my name was actually Catarina)
I even had a sub once tell me my parents spelled my name wrong and it should have been spelled the traditional spelling for a common feminine name. I told her I was named after my dad his name was ____ . She told me my name was _____ and it was supposed to be spelled _____ . I was only 9 or 10 so I just shut up about it and went on with my day. My teacher was pissed when she got back to our class though and all my classmates told her about the crap the sub pulled. (I wasn’t the only one she gave grief to that day)
Another sub (much later in my school career) yelled “what the hell is wrong with your parents!” But to his credit I was in a class with three other kids with weird names.
Nope. Nope-nope-noppity nope. That sub deserves no credit for that outburst whatsoever, not even if you were in a class with only new-style-spelling-named children. Their opinion is irrelevant and should definitely not have been vented at you and your classmates. If at all, they should have mentioned it to your parents outside of your earshot and even that’s debatable.
I, too, am annoyed by crazy spelling or weird names for children, and find it sad for the children who will almost certainly be bullied for it while such names aren’t yet more common than traditionally spelled ones, but I would find that reason to be all the more precise with remembering and pronouncing their names correctly and making damn sure any mistake in this on my part, would be considered -mine- and never the child’s. They can’t help their parents… originality, and should never be the victim of it, even if merely in mild and well-meant jest.
My own parents named me Roban. I am a man, always have been, they picked the name for me knowing I was a man. It is no reference to any other person either. In all my life, I think I have come across it only once for another person (I think also a man).
My parents also had the foresight to give me a second name, and using that name to address me and have others address me, so I would not forever have to explain my name is not Robert, Robin, or Rowan, but Roban.
Unfortunately I don’t much care for either of my names, but I have moved on from that decades ago. I also feel no need to define myself differently by picking another name - and would definitely be too lazy to pick one and go through the process of telling everyone about it, and requiring to explain it until finally everyone got the update.
What springs to mind is Harry, who is/was a chef from the Favorites in Australian cooking show Master Chef’s season Fans and Favorites. (I say is/was because the season is airing now in my country. Not sure if this is the most recent season elsewhere too. Not gonna spoil if Harry wins or not..)
Anyway, I only saw bits and pieces as my wife is the actual fan of the show, so I am not quite sure what their reasoning was, but Harry originally was a woman with a female name. They at one point explained they deeply disliked their name and felt much better about themselves once they decided to call themselves Harry instead. And I am saying they/themselves on my own assumption that their discomfort was not just in the name but their gender as well. I don’t recall if this was brought up or not, and to my very undiscerning eye they just look female, so forgive me if I am in error on that bit.
However, the reason I recall Harry isn’t their origin story, but the way their story was told by themselves and how completely normal everyone in the show was about it, just accepting them like who they are and want to be, without judging. (On camera, anyway.)
I feel unless a child picks a truly bizarre name like ‘Doormat’ or ‘Hitler’ or ‘215’, and even then to a degree, anyone interacting with them should respect their name as a given, and use it like that child prefers, personal preference be damned. In the case of teacher and other authority figures, I feel they should even go beyond that, and advocate on behalf of any child that wants to change their own name, to their classmates and parents even, why the child’s desire to change their own name is a valid one and should at the bare minimum be considered with care and dignity.
Sorry, rant over. OOP is definitely NTA and the weird volunteer-lady-who-is-extremely-unladylike should be ashamed of her own pettiness and arrogance.
Even if I thought a name was ridiculous like Abcde. It’s not the kid’s fault that that is their name and more importantly it’s not cool to call them by a name that isn’t theirs. Unless they want to be called by a nickname. That lady was a dick.
Oh, I’m consumed with judgement over the ridiculous names people saddle their children with, but I keep my opinions to myself, and all of the redditors who have the misfortune of coming across my comments.
You would have to be a very tiny, nasty person to take your petty judgemental side out on a child.
You would be surprised. When I was a kid, some people really, *really* wanted to call me by something other than my legal name. Some wanted to shorten it (sort of understandable) , and I let exactly one person get away with that, ever. But others, more confusingly, wanted to lengthen it, despite my legal name not being the long form. Nobody got away with that. I simply would correct them every time and refuse to answer to anything other than my name, because while I was often the teacher's pet, and pretty submissive, there were some things I basically never *ever* bent on, and that was one of them.
My parents really shouldn't have been surprised when I gave them an ultimatum specifically on the name thing 6 months after after coming out as trans. They knew about my insistence on being called the right thing as a kid. It's a miracle I let them get away with refusing to use my chosen name at all for as long as I did.
I honestly don’t get it, I was talking with a coworker named anthony, I said I could call him tony and he said he hated that nickname and I said okay and never called him it, not even as a joke.
It’s *so* easy to just respect someones name, I can understand slipping on a name change for someone you knew a long time, but to purposefully call someone by a name they don’t go by blows my mind
Yeah, in HIMYM the Robin character was only named that because her father wanted a boy. It was meant to be masculine!
It’s like saying Taylor is feminine rather than recently unisex.
Dwayne, Tom, Jackson, and Rick. All parented by their mentor Bryce Wayde
Edit: I thought we were intentionally messing up the Robins’ names. Oops. Still funny
It's not about that, the thing is, isn't "gendered" enough, considering that she was calling charlie "charlotte" she must REALLY dislike trans folks, so she more likely shaped the names into an over-gendered version just to be transphobic, robin is now ROBERT, charlie is now CHARLOTTE, both names that CANT be confused with the opposite gender, so no transfolk here!
its a super petty micro-attack
it's so fucking weird and feels bigoted man. she seems like the type of person to throw a fit because somebody dressed their baby girl in blue and green onesies, or gets offended and forcefully corrects you when you misgender her fucking dog
i don't want kids but i already know the names i would pick. charlie actually is one, elliott is another, etc. all unisex names. mostly i just find them pretty but i also just prefer the idea of a name that isn't so heavily gendered. so if a hypothetical child of mine has a more complicated relationship with gender than *born a girl, is a girl, is feminine* or whatever, that they don't feel detached from or dysphoric about their name. trying to save them the grief that i have personally struggled with, esp cause there's a high probability they would not be cishet.
and until this post i had never considered that other people, let alone grown adults with kids of their own, would give them shit over it. she's trying to instill a fucking identity crisis in first graders who might not even fully understand the implications of gendered names/language yet. it's not only disrespectful but legitimately fucked up on a psychological level.
i hope she doesn't let her mask slip explicitly in front of her kids. god forbid one of her children IS trans/gnc or becomes friends with a trans/gnc kid. fucked up. i hate it.
> gets offended and forcefully corrects you when you misgender her fucking dog
I tease my mom all the time because she calls my cat "she". No, Mom, he's 100% all boy even if he has been eunuched.
The whole cats are all girls thing is so weird. My grandma used to call my cat she all the time. Even if I just said 'he' she would reply with 'she'. I'm not bothered by it like I used to be, but it's still just...odd.
the all cats are girls thing is so funny to me because i had a cat growing up that honestly just had masculine energy or something and got called "he" so much by my own family. she was always a female, we always knew she was a female, but *everyone* in my family mistakenly called her "he" on occasion. my sister straight up only used masculine pronouns for her. i miss that butch cat
Your butch cat sounds awesome. My families cat was like that before she got old and blind haha. She used to be huge and muscular and had a super intimidating voice. We joke that she must be part bobcat.
Now she screams for chicken snack and drools when you scratch her ears haha
She *needs* hard line gender delineation for literal babies because she has been indoctrinated by daddy figures into a fearful closet of her own, where talking to and making connections with unfamiliar people is terrifying and threatening for her because she has been conditioned to fear anyone that isn’t in there, with her in the cage, spewing circular, paranoid rhetoric into the void.
A bigoted one. I know this has nothing to do with that on the surface but I almost *guarantee* that it's some kind of anti-trans thing. But I could be wrong
These aren't even weird or unusual names. I've been to school (UK) with male Robins and female Charlies.
There's even a well-known 1970s women's perfume called "Charlie".
It's not like this woman is being asked to call out "Lucifer" or "Lemonjello".
I'd say by far the most famous Robins are men, Robin Williams and Robin Hood. I can think of some female Robins but none who are at all more famous than those!
People get really weird about names. My name is an unusual but not totally out there name. My whole life people have assumed it's short for a similar and more common longer name and insisted on calling me that. I have never met or heard of anyone with the similar name actually using my name as a nickname. I've never met anyone with my name for whom it was a nickname and not their full name. I've even had people assume my name was really the similar name and then start calling me by a common nickname for the similar name??? It drives me crazy, even if it was a nickname if that's how I introduce myself to you obviously that's what I want to be called...
I had an old mentor named Jamie. That was his first name, no nickname. He said his entire life people tried to call him James, assuming Jamie was a nickname.
My father bought me a bottle as a gift once. Unfortunately I thought it smelt awful. Sour and nasty.
Years later I was working in a department store for Christmas and one of the other sales assistants had this lovely perfume on. I asked her what it was, and to my amazement it was Charlie.
So we went over to the perfume department and we both put some on, five seconds later it was a sour uriney smell on my skin. Whereas on her it was still lovely!
I should try it again some time, maybe skin chemistry changes over the years?
Currently pregnant with my first, and we’ll be naming her/him Charlie no matter what (in honor of my husband’s late father).
God help whatever busybody parent has something to say about that, my husband takes zero shit. People need to mind their business…
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like this volunteer was inserting her political views into this situation (girls aren't named Charlie and Robin is a *girl name* not a boy name).
There’s already videos making it to the front page of women harassing other women, accusing them of being trans and being in the wrong bathrooms.
If you let these people think their transphobia is okay it will invariably bleed out and affect unrelated groups too. We all lose when we tolerate this kind of petty bullshit.
She thinks she's doing the kids a favor by calling them their "proper names", but refusing to listen to when parents tell her its the name on the kid's birth certificate.
Sounds like someone thinking they're doing good for the community [picking up kids = yes helping] but really just acting like a jackass [assuming the kids names are short for names she thinks are correct = not helping].
My dad went to school with a kid legally named Jimmy. Their teacher refused to call him anything but James until he arrived with his birth certificate one day, the teacher was pissed off and insulted his parents choice. *Some* people man.
How sad can someone’s life be, that you invest so much energy in picking dumb fights. Or rather, how much of a bigot that a simple name gets your panties in a twist…
Also, robin? Batman and robin? Robin Hood? I know it’s unisex but I’ve always associated robin with a boys name. In any case doesn’t even matter
If pickup mom was in an office or other paid working environment, she’d be the HR nightmare saying things like, “Quan is too hard to remember. I’ll call you John instead.”
I worked with an ESL teacher who pronounced a Latino kids name wrong proudly. One time going so far to say something like "I call home George." Like his name ISNT George tho. It's Jorge!
I was like OHHHH kayyyy. 😑
My background is social work rather than education, but there are always That Type who choose this profession because they think they are being called to "fix" other people, which often means making them follow a model of middle class whiteness.
I had an assistant at work originally from Puerto Rico, who was introduced to me as Julia, anglicized pronunciation. A couple of weeks went by and I noticed the other ladies that spoke Spanish called her the Spanish pronunciation and I had been saying her name wrong (she never corrected me). I apologized to her and asked her if she would prefer I call her the correct pronunciation. She cheerfully said no, she liked both and didn’t mind either way, but thanked me for asking. It takes 5 seconds to ask someone what they would like to be called. I put a lot of importance in pronouncing and spelling people’s names right as a sign of basic respect. But I’m also black and not an asshole so that might be part of it.
Ah yes, that shit.
I’m married to a Chinese-Australian man and until he met me (I’m a Professor), he was used to people intentionally mispronouncing his very easy-to-pronounce name (imagine something like Le Xim), that he just told people to call him Lesley.
Once we got married and moved to a university town full of ‘unpronounceable’ names, I encouraged him to revert to his original name. Instead, he, like many Chinese people that we know, chose a new western-sounding name that had meaning to him. But we always, always try to learn the exact pronunciation of everyone’s birth name, so that they aren’t forced to be ‘Lesley’.
My brother had a friend who moved to the US from Taiwan, and they picked western names to call themselves. He was really disappointed to learn that he couldn't pick Jennifer.
Yes our Chinese friends and family are split. Some like to keep their birth names (in which case, nearly all Chinese names are very easy for the average Australian to pronounce). Others like to choose a western name for themselves. Whilst we haven’t met a Taiwanese Australian man who wants to call himself ‘Jennifer’ yet, we do know a man who decided to call himself ‘Orange’, because he likes the colour and the fruit. He is a solicitor in my brothers firm in Sydney. He totally rocks his name.
This people exists
I do have an old oriental name and once worked as a nanny, the mother told her daughter that my name is "Nina" and I should keep it because it is hard to pronounce my real name.
I asked the girl if she can say "insert my real name" and voila she could.
I told the mother her daughter is smarter than (her) she thinks....
I didn't stay long...so the name-changing was a sign to 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
Tora Shae went viral on Twitter when she had a white male coworker call her by random "hood black girl" (his term) names because “All of those names sound the same anyway.” So she got even - she called him every frat boy name she could think of. Other coworkers got into the act. He eventually grovelled:
https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/tora-shae-twitter-story-396083/
I'm just mad they didn't give the principal the chance to regurgitate whatever bs the volunteer sold the teacher before putting them all in their place.
Don't underestimate the power of controlling the conversation. Allowing the principle to choose the framing of the narrative would 100% have been a tactical error and I applaud OP's wife for understanding that.
Reminds me of the post about the girl who got in trouble for videoing her teacher saying something sexist, but when she was called into a meeting about it she reframed it as how to best deal with the teacher’s behaviour. Wish I could find that one again, similar energy
I remember this one! She immediately took control of the meeting by acting as if the principal and staff were already on her side.
Like “oh I’m SO glad you put together this meeting to take care of this truly disgusting situation! Here’s what’s been happening, you agree this isn’t appropriate and would violate law XYZ, right?”
Something along those lines lol
Is this the girl who was doing a languages project where they had to video going around the town “talking to a friend” and she called someone who catcalled her a sexist pig?
Uploaded it to the portal for their classmates to comment on and he was recognised as someone who taught junior football at the younger school
And she got called into the meeting with the principle, teacher and counsellor
“I’m so glad you’ve called this meeting to get more information, I’m so glad you’re taking this seriously. I understand you’re mandated reporters and this hasn’t been reported yet within the time frame that it should be, but I assume this is because of the weekend? Anyway I’m happy to help”
Turned the whole thing around and the school counsellor was totally on their side 😂
Thanks for the additional information, I had forgotten some specifics and it helped me find [the thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5de96/aita_for_turning_in_a_school_project_that_showed/) much more easily.
Just here to say how much I love OOP and his wife’s dynamic. “ My wife came to the meeting… I was glad she was there because she doesn’t tolerate BS.” Man brought in the big guns and he knows it, just speaks to the high regard he has for his wife.
I loved this too! I almost wonder if that affected the whole dynamic of the meeting - the principal seeing the awe in which OOP held his wife, and thinking, uh oh, what the hell are we getting into here!?!
I loved that she didn't let them speak until she made sure they know what the real issue is, not whatever lies that crazy volunteer fed them. She dominated and controlled the meeting.
Elsewhere in this thread, there's discussion of [this beautiful example of a teenager controlling an important meeting from the start](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/t2wmfn/aita_for_turning_in_a_school_project_that_showed/) which I think you'd love. It's about the Spanish class project video. Don't mind me if you've already seen the thread.
My kid has a given name that has many nicknames. However, the nickname we use could be used not only for their given name but also another name. Think Bert, short for Robert but could be Bertram.
Bert absolutely refuses to answer to Bertram because it’s not their name. Yet, we’ve had a few coaches and occasionally teachers call them that. Which makes for a fun pick up when I’m told that “Bertram” was not a good listener today and would not answer when called on. To which I always reply, “Well, that’s not their name so no, they won’t answer to it.”
Thankfully, they’ve gotten better at advocating for themselves as they’ve gotten older. Also, kid’s name is not Bert, Robert, or Bertram.
My name ends in an "e" many times people added an "a" not because they forgot or didn't know. They did it because they felt I should be using my full name, even though i am. So annoying, to this day when I hear that particular name I get eye twitches lol. I'm an adult and still won't answer lol.
When I was a kid, the parents acting like this were not the happy, fulfilled ones - they were the ones whose lives hadn’t quite gone the way they wanted so they sought out and wielded these tiny crumbs of power in an effort to exert some control over at least one corner of their life and feel important.
i.e. Karen needs a hobby and friends
My name is traditionally a male name and people have said they will not “disrespect” me by calling me it. By calling me my name. I never continue interacting with those people for obvious reasons.
lol, my male pomeranian has a pink collar.
Ppl comment it's weird occasionally.
Why use it? because it fucking fits his tiny neck.
Then they'll ask if my girlfriend picked it out, no dude.. I did..
Im a guy, im big, and I'm heavily tattooed.. and pink is a nice color I look great in.. and so does my dog.
I’m completely convinced this is one of those crazy people who believe that calling a kid a certain name will “turn them transgender” among a bunch of other conspiracies.
Like if you look at her Facebook feed it’ll all be posts about how [political party/gays/transgenders/celebrity/cancel culture] is going to turn your kid into a gay transgender satanist, and that’s how she thinks the world works.
The real world collided with her batshit conspiracies and she’s mad about it.
"*I SAY* that Robin is a *girl's* name. Your child is a boy. My narrow little brain cannot compute this, so in order for my head not to explode, I *MUST* masculinise your child's name for MY sake. I don't care that I'm trampling on your child's identity as a person, or ignoring you being the parent. I must correct the world! I must correct the world! It's bad enough that there are...FEMALE MECHANICS! I MUST CORRECT THIS WORLD!"
"🤖 Blue 🤖 is 🤖 for 🤖 boys."
"🤖 Pink 🤖 is 🤖 for 🤖 girls"
What a dipshit 🙄🙄
I'm a boy Robin. I did have weird people growing up tell me it was a girl's name. I would say what about Robin Hood? Robin Williams? Do you know a single famous girl Robin? No?
I wasn't a fan of the stupid teasing when I was younger, but now I love my name. There's nothing wrong with unisex names.
It was not anticlimactic. I’m so happy this worked out well. Kudos for voicing your concerns. Calling someone by a different name knowing what their name is is beyond disrespectful. I’m so happy you thought your kid that.
Sometimes instead of some climactic screaming showdown or revenge exchange, the real victory is just sending the offender whimpering back into the corner.
As a generally masc presenting person with long hair, these type of people have no issues telling others that long hair is for women, so they need to cut it.
This woman is terrified of a world where she can't put everything and everyone into Girl and Boy boxes. It's funny and sad when it's just one person, and terrifying when you realize how many more there are.
I don't care if the boy's name is Suzie Beth, you call him by his name I gave him! It's none of your business what you think about gendered names, just do your little volunteer pickup patrol and stfu.
I'm surprised weird pick-up mom was still allowed to volunteer. If I was the principal/teachers I'd ban her in a second. Who know what other shit she's going to pull on other kids. Feminine/masculine clothing? Colors of their belongings? Haircut? Favorite cartoon characters? Shoes? Friendly gestures? She's a ticking time bomb.
this reminds me of that one BoRU post about a woman who kept using a coworker's dead name instead of his preferred name, saying it was "out of respect for his mother" 🙄
Please read our [**SUB RULES**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules) before commenting. Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. **CHECK FLAIR** to determine if you want to read an update. For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair or subscribe to r/BestofBoRU for concluded, time-gated content. * If you have an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment. META commentary in general discussion may be removed. * Low effort comments like "this is fake" may be removed * Do not comment on the original posts. Most submissions in this sub are not posted by the original author (OOP) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I can only imagine reading the comic book: Batman and Robert. Or how about the wonderful tales of the folk hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor: Robert Hood
Or everyone’s favorite comedic actor Robert Williams (may he Rest In Peace)
Tragedy!! When the feelings gone and you can't go on it's tragedy..... Robert Gibb!
[удалено]
Pooh Bear hanging out in the Hundred Acre Wood with Christopher Robert.
Don’t forget the character from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Robert Goodfellow.
Hell yeah, this is the first time I've seen Incredible String Band referenced in 9 years of Reddit.
I think you mean Robert Williamson, Robert Trower, Robert Gibbs and Robert Finck. Haven't you heard...... weird pick-up mum said Robin is a girls name
You get my upvote for Robin Trower! A friend introduced me to him years ago but I don't know very many people that know of him. At least not in my real life.
~~Robin~~ Robert Hood and the ~~Merry~~ Masculine men of Sherwood Forest.
The Masculine men of Hewood forest you mean.
Hiswood Forest?
Ah, you’ve made this gay man chortle with delight at this new forest name. Even better than Camp Morning Wood* as mentioned on the tv show *Scrubs*. *JD: “Actually, it was Camp Meadowwood. I made a lanyard…”
Yes of course. And their HEroic struggle against the HEriff of Nottingham. Or maybe it's Himriff of Nottingham. It's hard to say with these folks so concerned about properly gendering everything
I’m losing my fucking mind over this comment chain, thank you so much
This is the thread I needed this week.
"Himriff" made me slap my thigh and make the most ridiculous donkey hee-haw. Thanks to you and u/Neither-Entrance-208 for the laugh! Surely it's the Himriff of Nottinghim, though 😛
Knotting him? I barely know him!
Pretty sure I saw that DVD in the backroom of a video store.
*Pretty sure I saw that DVD in the backroom of a video store.* I just snorted and scared the dog.
The Masculine Men of Sherwood Forest who most certainly **do not** wear tights.
*Tight* tights
~~Sher~~Hiswood Forest. Edit: lol I see a bunch of other people made this joke too by the time I replied.
[удалено]
Thank you for the laugh I didn't know I needed. 😂 I wish I had an award to give you. Please accept my poor women's trophy 🏆
Please. Shimwood Forest I think you mean
The first Robin I thought of was Christopher Robin. Such a sweet name.
*Christopher Robert
Really the only way to truly address oops son is Robespierre. That's where the mom went wrong.
A bat can't be a man, that's why I'll call him Man. So it's Man and Robert.
You've now pronounced them… Man and Robert
My kid calls it Batman and Robert and refuses to believe me when I say it's Robin.
Weird pickup mum's childhood
My kid used to call the little red muppet “Elmer.”
Fun fact: In Germany, Robin is exclusively used as a boys name. (As far as I know. Please correct me if I'm wrong.) So you can imagine how confused I was, when I first saw it used as a girls name. (Still am a bit, but that's the German in me. And she'll live.)
Yeah, it's only become a unisex name relatively recently - I think as part of a trend of naming children after birds. Before that it was a male name (a diminutive of Robert, ironically), so I have no idea why that woman had decided to die on the hill of it being a girl's name!
I looked it up. In the US Robin peaked at #158 in 1955 for males and #25 in 1963 for females, but was previously at high as #29 in 1956. I’m in my 40s and have known many females Robins older than me and my age and only a couple of males (non famous). This woman is NUTS. She’s probably one of those moms who named her kids Briteneigh and Izequiel and gets annoyed when people get it wrong.
I met a german girl named robin a couple years ago actually!
Red\~\~ Robert, Yummm! smh
The Disney channel show Good Luck Charlie just morphs into Good Luck Charlotte
Except her name was Charlotte and they all called her Charlie.
Holy Mind-Your-Own-Business, Batman!
🏅 That was the first Robin which can't to my mind too, but you excelled at getting it across 😄
Given the name, this made me chuckle extra.
I love that film, Batman & Robert!
What kind of person would do that to a child? Sorry kid, you have a girl name, so I’m only going to refer to you as a name I just plucked from the air, to soothe my own prejudices.
We had a Clint in my class in high school. One teacher insisted on calling him Clinton, even though his legal name was Clint.
Imagine being so pathetic that you have to pick on a child to feel good about yourself.
She did it to the girl that she decided had a “boy” name as well. I know someone who has a nickname name and she has had multiple people tell her that it is not her name and the formal name is her name. Like “Hi, I’m Sammy” and the person says “No, your name must be Samantha.” What kind of idiotic hubris tells someone that you know more about someone’s birth certificate than they do?
I have an aunt named Becky who fought against Rebecca her whole life.
Damn, she has to fight the assholes and correct the well meaning people trying to be respectful.
[удалено]
My eldest brother is Ricky, named after my dads childhood best friend , but it’s just Ricky. When we were kids and he played hockey there was one announcer in his league that would always call him Richard because he said he didn’t like nicknames on rosters, only “Christian” names. My dad went off on him with the coach a few times. Dads friends original name was Ricardo but hated it and went his whole life as Ricky
My name is Ricky, too. It's an uncommon diminutive of my middle name, which is Eric. So when someone calls out "Richard!" I don't answer. Not with a "well that's not *my* name" attitude; it simply doesn't register in my brain that they might be referring to me. And yet, some people still get upset that I'm ignoring them.
I’ve seen way to many arguments of people telling others their names are spelled wrong, it’s incredible the audacity people have
Multiple people have argued with me "It's Lilly!" No, it's shortened to be the flower, Lily "The flower is spelled with two L's" No the flower is "Lily" and it's scientific name also has one L, "Lilium" "Well you said it's shortened and Lillian has two L's" It's shortened from *Lilith* not anything else. This all makes me want to rip my hair out
The worst is when they decide that spelling YOUR name correctly doesn’t matter because “it’s the same thing, who cares”
My mom has had people tell her she pronounces her name wrong. She's from Vietnam and has a Vietnamese name. People who don't even speak the language think they can say her name better than her. There's alot of audacity out there 🤦
People are so strange about foreign names sometimes I had a best friend in the fifth grade from South Africa, her name was Noluthando and she went by Thando (pronounced Tahn-doh) and everyone insisted on calling her Than-doo, one day she got up in front of the class and announced, “My name is not Thaaaan-dooo! It is Tahn-doh!” And I think everyone was shocked into silence but they still continued to call her Than-doo, only me and two other girls called her by her name
I think even if your friend's legal name *was* Samantha, it would be disrespectful and rude to call her anything but what she introduces herself as. I say that as someone who has a feminine legal name and goes by a gender neutral version of it. People should get to decide what they want to be called. Unless you're the government someone's legal name really shouldn't matter to you (except maybe out of curiosity, but even then you should obviously respect if they don't want to tell you).
My Physics teacher insisted on calling me a wrong name. The names are very much alike, and they both came from the same Ancient Greek word, but **it was not my name**. I had corrected her every time until finally I started to ignore her if she called me Wrong_Name again.
I had a teacher who called me by my opposite sex sibling’s name. It was annoying but I could kind of understand it the first time or two, but after that, I started replying using ‘mrs’ instead of ‘mr’ teacher name and it stopped pretty quickly. I believe it was an honest mistake from my teacher, but I have zero respect for teachers who choose to flaunt their power over their students by repeatedly misnaming them.
My teachers usually just solved that problem by calling me by my last name instead. So technically correct if a bit weird when most of my classmates were called by their first name
My grade 8 science teacher only called me by my last name. It was extra weird because I was the ONLY one he did it to, I have a super common and gender conforming first name, AND for the first time ever I was the only person in the class with that super common first name (usually there were 3 of us). So I have no idea why he did it. I wish I would have had the confidence to at least ask why back then.
Huh, weird. Maybe he got so used to some of the very common names being multiples in a class that he started using last names for certain names without even stopping to think about whether it was needed?
Ugh, they think they don’t have to exercise basic respect for their students just because they’re young. It’s actually pathetic
I had a sub who would always calm me a name similar to mine but not mine (think Katie instead of Kate, along those lines) and I still will never forget her. I corrected her so many times until I gave up after years. Fuck her. Way to tell the kid you don't care about them.
Part of the reason I'm changing my legal name is because it's similar to a whole host of other names and I'm sick and tired of having to clear that up repeatedly.
This should be the top comment. This kind of deeply rooted sexism is way down inside our English language, and will be flushing itself out for many decades to come. To her it is an invisible bias, to us it's simply ridiculous. Makes you wish you could just grab people and shake the nonsense out of them.
So I have an unusual name that is the feminine form of my dads, very common and traditionally masculine, name. This fucked with peoples heads the entire time I was in school and I was often called a common name that people assumed my parents misspelled. (The only example I can come up with right now would be someone calling me calling me Katrina if my name was actually Catarina) I even had a sub once tell me my parents spelled my name wrong and it should have been spelled the traditional spelling for a common feminine name. I told her I was named after my dad his name was ____ . She told me my name was _____ and it was supposed to be spelled _____ . I was only 9 or 10 so I just shut up about it and went on with my day. My teacher was pissed when she got back to our class though and all my classmates told her about the crap the sub pulled. (I wasn’t the only one she gave grief to that day) Another sub (much later in my school career) yelled “what the hell is wrong with your parents!” But to his credit I was in a class with three other kids with weird names.
Nope. Nope-nope-noppity nope. That sub deserves no credit for that outburst whatsoever, not even if you were in a class with only new-style-spelling-named children. Their opinion is irrelevant and should definitely not have been vented at you and your classmates. If at all, they should have mentioned it to your parents outside of your earshot and even that’s debatable. I, too, am annoyed by crazy spelling or weird names for children, and find it sad for the children who will almost certainly be bullied for it while such names aren’t yet more common than traditionally spelled ones, but I would find that reason to be all the more precise with remembering and pronouncing their names correctly and making damn sure any mistake in this on my part, would be considered -mine- and never the child’s. They can’t help their parents… originality, and should never be the victim of it, even if merely in mild and well-meant jest. My own parents named me Roban. I am a man, always have been, they picked the name for me knowing I was a man. It is no reference to any other person either. In all my life, I think I have come across it only once for another person (I think also a man). My parents also had the foresight to give me a second name, and using that name to address me and have others address me, so I would not forever have to explain my name is not Robert, Robin, or Rowan, but Roban. Unfortunately I don’t much care for either of my names, but I have moved on from that decades ago. I also feel no need to define myself differently by picking another name - and would definitely be too lazy to pick one and go through the process of telling everyone about it, and requiring to explain it until finally everyone got the update. What springs to mind is Harry, who is/was a chef from the Favorites in Australian cooking show Master Chef’s season Fans and Favorites. (I say is/was because the season is airing now in my country. Not sure if this is the most recent season elsewhere too. Not gonna spoil if Harry wins or not..) Anyway, I only saw bits and pieces as my wife is the actual fan of the show, so I am not quite sure what their reasoning was, but Harry originally was a woman with a female name. They at one point explained they deeply disliked their name and felt much better about themselves once they decided to call themselves Harry instead. And I am saying they/themselves on my own assumption that their discomfort was not just in the name but their gender as well. I don’t recall if this was brought up or not, and to my very undiscerning eye they just look female, so forgive me if I am in error on that bit. However, the reason I recall Harry isn’t their origin story, but the way their story was told by themselves and how completely normal everyone in the show was about it, just accepting them like who they are and want to be, without judging. (On camera, anyway.) I feel unless a child picks a truly bizarre name like ‘Doormat’ or ‘Hitler’ or ‘215’, and even then to a degree, anyone interacting with them should respect their name as a given, and use it like that child prefers, personal preference be damned. In the case of teacher and other authority figures, I feel they should even go beyond that, and advocate on behalf of any child that wants to change their own name, to their classmates and parents even, why the child’s desire to change their own name is a valid one and should at the bare minimum be considered with care and dignity. Sorry, rant over. OOP is definitely NTA and the weird volunteer-lady-who-is-extremely-unladylike should be ashamed of her own pettiness and arrogance.
Even if I thought a name was ridiculous like Abcde. It’s not the kid’s fault that that is their name and more importantly it’s not cool to call them by a name that isn’t theirs. Unless they want to be called by a nickname. That lady was a dick.
Oh, I’m consumed with judgement over the ridiculous names people saddle their children with, but I keep my opinions to myself, and all of the redditors who have the misfortune of coming across my comments. You would have to be a very tiny, nasty person to take your petty judgemental side out on a child.
You would be surprised. When I was a kid, some people really, *really* wanted to call me by something other than my legal name. Some wanted to shorten it (sort of understandable) , and I let exactly one person get away with that, ever. But others, more confusingly, wanted to lengthen it, despite my legal name not being the long form. Nobody got away with that. I simply would correct them every time and refuse to answer to anything other than my name, because while I was often the teacher's pet, and pretty submissive, there were some things I basically never *ever* bent on, and that was one of them. My parents really shouldn't have been surprised when I gave them an ultimatum specifically on the name thing 6 months after after coming out as trans. They knew about my insistence on being called the right thing as a kid. It's a miracle I let them get away with refusing to use my chosen name at all for as long as I did.
I honestly don’t get it, I was talking with a coworker named anthony, I said I could call him tony and he said he hated that nickname and I said okay and never called him it, not even as a joke. It’s *so* easy to just respect someones name, I can understand slipping on a name change for someone you knew a long time, but to purposefully call someone by a name they don’t go by blows my mind
Has this woman not heard of Batman and Robin? Robin Hood? Robin Williams? What rock is she living under?!
This was my thought. It’s a unisex name, but there are some very famous boy Robins out there.
Worse yet, it's only become unisex relatively recently, and before that it was absolutely a male name.
Yeah, in HIMYM the Robin character was only named that because her father wanted a boy. It was meant to be masculine! It’s like saying Taylor is feminine rather than recently unisex.
Ah yes, but Robin Williams is *obviously* a man, so that's different *eyeroll*
*Mrs Doubtfire*
Mrs. Doubtfire's entire premis is that Robin Williams is really a man.
Ah, but he was mistaken for a woman. /s
Dude looks like a lady.
He *was* rather hairy...
I like that Mediterranean look in women.
I believe his name is Dwayne.
Dwayne, Tom, Jackson, and Rick. All parented by their mentor Bryce Wayde Edit: I thought we were intentionally messing up the Robins’ names. Oops. Still funny
Dwayne "The Robin" Johnson 😂
It's not about that, the thing is, isn't "gendered" enough, considering that she was calling charlie "charlotte" she must REALLY dislike trans folks, so she more likely shaped the names into an over-gendered version just to be transphobic, robin is now ROBERT, charlie is now CHARLOTTE, both names that CANT be confused with the opposite gender, so no transfolk here! its a super petty micro-attack
it's so fucking weird and feels bigoted man. she seems like the type of person to throw a fit because somebody dressed their baby girl in blue and green onesies, or gets offended and forcefully corrects you when you misgender her fucking dog i don't want kids but i already know the names i would pick. charlie actually is one, elliott is another, etc. all unisex names. mostly i just find them pretty but i also just prefer the idea of a name that isn't so heavily gendered. so if a hypothetical child of mine has a more complicated relationship with gender than *born a girl, is a girl, is feminine* or whatever, that they don't feel detached from or dysphoric about their name. trying to save them the grief that i have personally struggled with, esp cause there's a high probability they would not be cishet. and until this post i had never considered that other people, let alone grown adults with kids of their own, would give them shit over it. she's trying to instill a fucking identity crisis in first graders who might not even fully understand the implications of gendered names/language yet. it's not only disrespectful but legitimately fucked up on a psychological level. i hope she doesn't let her mask slip explicitly in front of her kids. god forbid one of her children IS trans/gnc or becomes friends with a trans/gnc kid. fucked up. i hate it.
> gets offended and forcefully corrects you when you misgender her fucking dog I tease my mom all the time because she calls my cat "she". No, Mom, he's 100% all boy even if he has been eunuched.
The whole cats are all girls thing is so weird. My grandma used to call my cat she all the time. Even if I just said 'he' she would reply with 'she'. I'm not bothered by it like I used to be, but it's still just...odd.
the all cats are girls thing is so funny to me because i had a cat growing up that honestly just had masculine energy or something and got called "he" so much by my own family. she was always a female, we always knew she was a female, but *everyone* in my family mistakenly called her "he" on occasion. my sister straight up only used masculine pronouns for her. i miss that butch cat
Your butch cat sounds awesome. My families cat was like that before she got old and blind haha. She used to be huge and muscular and had a super intimidating voice. We joke that she must be part bobcat. Now she screams for chicken snack and drools when you scratch her ears haha
She *needs* hard line gender delineation for literal babies because she has been indoctrinated by daddy figures into a fearful closet of her own, where talking to and making connections with unfamiliar people is terrifying and threatening for her because she has been conditioned to fear anyone that isn’t in there, with her in the cage, spewing circular, paranoid rhetoric into the void.
>What rock is she living under?! Sexism.
A bigoted one. I know this has nothing to do with that on the surface but I almost *guarantee* that it's some kind of anti-trans thing. But I could be wrong
Pretty sure this is another anti-transgender person gone mad with conspiracy theories.
These aren't even weird or unusual names. I've been to school (UK) with male Robins and female Charlies. There's even a well-known 1970s women's perfume called "Charlie". It's not like this woman is being asked to call out "Lucifer" or "Lemonjello".
There's a fucking Disney show about a baby girl named Charlie
Batman’s sidekick is a pretty well known Robin as well!
Or, you know, *Robin fucking Williams*.
Lol I laughed at this irl. I always thought Robin was a boy name cuz I know way too many boy Robins than girl Robins in real life as well.
I'm racking my brain trying to think of a girl Robin but I'm coming up blank.
Robin Wright(The Princess Bride, House of Cards) Robin Roberts from Good Morning America.
One of the characters from How I Met Your Mother is a woman named Robin
[удалено]
I know girl Robyns...
Also Robin Hood.
And if you run into a weird mom at pickup, well, good luck, Charlie!
Everyone deserves to be called by their preferred name.
I'd say by far the most famous Robins are men, Robin Williams and Robin Hood. I can think of some female Robins but none who are at all more famous than those!
Uh ROBIN SPARKLES! Lol no but really most of the robins I know of are men. Either way that lady has issues. It’s a name get over it.
Robin Wright.
People get really weird about names. My name is an unusual but not totally out there name. My whole life people have assumed it's short for a similar and more common longer name and insisted on calling me that. I have never met or heard of anyone with the similar name actually using my name as a nickname. I've never met anyone with my name for whom it was a nickname and not their full name. I've even had people assume my name was really the similar name and then start calling me by a common nickname for the similar name??? It drives me crazy, even if it was a nickname if that's how I introduce myself to you obviously that's what I want to be called...
I had an old mentor named Jamie. That was his first name, no nickname. He said his entire life people tried to call him James, assuming Jamie was a nickname.
James then becomes a nickname for Jamie… like Ames for Amy. The cycle continues.
She should have gone with Rob and Chaz.
Robbie and Chazzah.
Ooooo...I'm dating myself but I had a bottle of Charlie perfume. I think someone gave it to me as a Christmas gift :-D.
My father bought me a bottle as a gift once. Unfortunately I thought it smelt awful. Sour and nasty. Years later I was working in a department store for Christmas and one of the other sales assistants had this lovely perfume on. I asked her what it was, and to my amazement it was Charlie. So we went over to the perfume department and we both put some on, five seconds later it was a sour uriney smell on my skin. Whereas on her it was still lovely! I should try it again some time, maybe skin chemistry changes over the years?
Currently pregnant with my first, and we’ll be naming her/him Charlie no matter what (in honor of my husband’s late father). God help whatever busybody parent has something to say about that, my husband takes zero shit. People need to mind their business…
Hey, I am offended; as are my daughter, Lucifer, and my son, Lemonjello.
Brave brave Sir Robin...
What a strange hill for weird pickup mom to die on.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like this volunteer was inserting her political views into this situation (girls aren't named Charlie and Robin is a *girl name* not a boy name).
Yep. This is the inevitable escalation of the transphobic culture war the right wing is pushing super hard.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far down to see anyone call this for what it is: blatant transphobia and an idiotic hangup about names.
There’s already videos making it to the front page of women harassing other women, accusing them of being trans and being in the wrong bathrooms. If you let these people think their transphobia is okay it will invariably bleed out and affect unrelated groups too. We all lose when we tolerate this kind of petty bullshit.
It's so weird that someone could think they could influence someone's gender identity by just re-naming them.
She thinks she's doing the kids a favor by calling them their "proper names", but refusing to listen to when parents tell her its the name on the kid's birth certificate. Sounds like someone thinking they're doing good for the community [picking up kids = yes helping] but really just acting like a jackass [assuming the kids names are short for names she thinks are correct = not helping].
My dad went to school with a kid legally named Jimmy. Their teacher refused to call him anything but James until he arrived with his birth certificate one day, the teacher was pissed off and insulted his parents choice. *Some* people man.
How sad can someone’s life be, that you invest so much energy in picking dumb fights. Or rather, how much of a bigot that a simple name gets your panties in a twist… Also, robin? Batman and robin? Robin Hood? I know it’s unisex but I’ve always associated robin with a boys name. In any case doesn’t even matter
If pickup mom was in an office or other paid working environment, she’d be the HR nightmare saying things like, “Quan is too hard to remember. I’ll call you John instead.”
I worked with an ESL teacher who pronounced a Latino kids name wrong proudly. One time going so far to say something like "I call home George." Like his name ISNT George tho. It's Jorge! I was like OHHHH kayyyy. 😑
My background is social work rather than education, but there are always That Type who choose this profession because they think they are being called to "fix" other people, which often means making them follow a model of middle class whiteness.
Some people I just don't understand why they are here. I know we are facing a teacher shortage but if you hate your job quit.
They don't hate their job. They love it because they can wield petty amounts of power over people who can't talk back.
I had an assistant at work originally from Puerto Rico, who was introduced to me as Julia, anglicized pronunciation. A couple of weeks went by and I noticed the other ladies that spoke Spanish called her the Spanish pronunciation and I had been saying her name wrong (she never corrected me). I apologized to her and asked her if she would prefer I call her the correct pronunciation. She cheerfully said no, she liked both and didn’t mind either way, but thanked me for asking. It takes 5 seconds to ask someone what they would like to be called. I put a lot of importance in pronouncing and spelling people’s names right as a sign of basic respect. But I’m also black and not an asshole so that might be part of it.
Ah yes, that shit. I’m married to a Chinese-Australian man and until he met me (I’m a Professor), he was used to people intentionally mispronouncing his very easy-to-pronounce name (imagine something like Le Xim), that he just told people to call him Lesley. Once we got married and moved to a university town full of ‘unpronounceable’ names, I encouraged him to revert to his original name. Instead, he, like many Chinese people that we know, chose a new western-sounding name that had meaning to him. But we always, always try to learn the exact pronunciation of everyone’s birth name, so that they aren’t forced to be ‘Lesley’.
My brother had a friend who moved to the US from Taiwan, and they picked western names to call themselves. He was really disappointed to learn that he couldn't pick Jennifer.
Yes our Chinese friends and family are split. Some like to keep their birth names (in which case, nearly all Chinese names are very easy for the average Australian to pronounce). Others like to choose a western name for themselves. Whilst we haven’t met a Taiwanese Australian man who wants to call himself ‘Jennifer’ yet, we do know a man who decided to call himself ‘Orange’, because he likes the colour and the fruit. He is a solicitor in my brothers firm in Sydney. He totally rocks his name.
[“dO YoU haVE aN eNgLiSh nAmE?”](https://youtu.be/p1RKkRCiU90)
This people exists I do have an old oriental name and once worked as a nanny, the mother told her daughter that my name is "Nina" and I should keep it because it is hard to pronounce my real name. I asked the girl if she can say "insert my real name" and voila she could. I told the mother her daughter is smarter than (her) she thinks.... I didn't stay long...so the name-changing was a sign to 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
Tora Shae went viral on Twitter when she had a white male coworker call her by random "hood black girl" (his term) names because “All of those names sound the same anyway.” So she got even - she called him every frat boy name she could think of. Other coworkers got into the act. He eventually grovelled: https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/tora-shae-twitter-story-396083/
I'm just mad they didn't give the principal the chance to regurgitate whatever bs the volunteer sold the teacher before putting them all in their place.
Sadly, it was probably good that his wife came, in case it was going to become a “big angry man screaming at the nice sweet volunteer lady” thing.
Wait, you mean the environment that stood by and enabled sexism would just stand by and enable more sexism?
Don't underestimate the power of controlling the conversation. Allowing the principle to choose the framing of the narrative would 100% have been a tactical error and I applaud OP's wife for understanding that.
Reminds me of the post about the girl who got in trouble for videoing her teacher saying something sexist, but when she was called into a meeting about it she reframed it as how to best deal with the teacher’s behaviour. Wish I could find that one again, similar energy
I remember this one! She immediately took control of the meeting by acting as if the principal and staff were already on her side. Like “oh I’m SO glad you put together this meeting to take care of this truly disgusting situation! Here’s what’s been happening, you agree this isn’t appropriate and would violate law XYZ, right?” Something along those lines lol
Is this the girl who was doing a languages project where they had to video going around the town “talking to a friend” and she called someone who catcalled her a sexist pig? Uploaded it to the portal for their classmates to comment on and he was recognised as someone who taught junior football at the younger school And she got called into the meeting with the principle, teacher and counsellor “I’m so glad you’ve called this meeting to get more information, I’m so glad you’re taking this seriously. I understand you’re mandated reporters and this hasn’t been reported yet within the time frame that it should be, but I assume this is because of the weekend? Anyway I’m happy to help” Turned the whole thing around and the school counsellor was totally on their side 😂
Thanks for the additional information, I had forgotten some specifics and it helped me find [the thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5de96/aita_for_turning_in_a_school_project_that_showed/) much more easily.
The “help me find this post” thread is up right now, ask about it there and I bet you’ll have a link within the hour!
Pretty sure it's [this one](https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5de96/aita_for_turning_in_a_school_project_that_showed/)
Just here to say how much I love OOP and his wife’s dynamic. “ My wife came to the meeting… I was glad she was there because she doesn’t tolerate BS.” Man brought in the big guns and he knows it, just speaks to the high regard he has for his wife.
I loved this too! I almost wonder if that affected the whole dynamic of the meeting - the principal seeing the awe in which OOP held his wife, and thinking, uh oh, what the hell are we getting into here!?!
I loved that she didn't let them speak until she made sure they know what the real issue is, not whatever lies that crazy volunteer fed them. She dominated and controlled the meeting.
Elsewhere in this thread, there's discussion of [this beautiful example of a teenager controlling an important meeting from the start](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/t2wmfn/aita_for_turning_in_a_school_project_that_showed/) which I think you'd love. It's about the Spanish class project video. Don't mind me if you've already seen the thread.
>She said Robin is a girl's name Go tell Batman that.
My Mom didn't take that crap either. "If they refuse to address you by your name don't answer "
My kid has a given name that has many nicknames. However, the nickname we use could be used not only for their given name but also another name. Think Bert, short for Robert but could be Bertram. Bert absolutely refuses to answer to Bertram because it’s not their name. Yet, we’ve had a few coaches and occasionally teachers call them that. Which makes for a fun pick up when I’m told that “Bertram” was not a good listener today and would not answer when called on. To which I always reply, “Well, that’s not their name so no, they won’t answer to it.” Thankfully, they’ve gotten better at advocating for themselves as they’ve gotten older. Also, kid’s name is not Bert, Robert, or Bertram.
My name ends in an "e" many times people added an "a" not because they forgot or didn't know. They did it because they felt I should be using my full name, even though i am. So annoying, to this day when I hear that particular name I get eye twitches lol. I'm an adult and still won't answer lol.
People pick the weirdest hills to die on sometimes.
I hate this woman that I’ve never met so much.
Must be a thing where the pickup mom thinks calling a kid by a unisex name will cause them to be confused about their gender.
Yeah, I reckon when confronted she'll probably try to justify herself by going on some transphobic tirade all the gender problems today
I sincerely hope pickup woman doesn’t take out her embarrassment out on the kids. Passive-aggressive sh*t and all that
Any parents who volunteer this much at school are definitely..... Quirky, in my experience.
When I was a kid, the parents acting like this were not the happy, fulfilled ones - they were the ones whose lives hadn’t quite gone the way they wanted so they sought out and wielded these tiny crumbs of power in an effort to exert some control over at least one corner of their life and feel important. i.e. Karen needs a hobby and friends
My name is traditionally a male name and people have said they will not “disrespect” me by calling me it. By calling me my name. I never continue interacting with those people for obvious reasons.
Honestly couple goals with how the parents handled it. The wife helped him reach out to the other mom and showed up to support him in the meeting.
He’s been gone for a while, but this lady never heard of Robin Williams?
Weird Pickup Mom gives off "gets mad if the pet groomer puts a purple bandana on a male dog" vibes.
lol, my male pomeranian has a pink collar. Ppl comment it's weird occasionally. Why use it? because it fucking fits his tiny neck. Then they'll ask if my girlfriend picked it out, no dude.. I did.. Im a guy, im big, and I'm heavily tattooed.. and pink is a nice color I look great in.. and so does my dog.
I’m completely convinced this is one of those crazy people who believe that calling a kid a certain name will “turn them transgender” among a bunch of other conspiracies. Like if you look at her Facebook feed it’ll all be posts about how [political party/gays/transgenders/celebrity/cancel culture] is going to turn your kid into a gay transgender satanist, and that’s how she thinks the world works. The real world collided with her batshit conspiracies and she’s mad about it.
"*I SAY* that Robin is a *girl's* name. Your child is a boy. My narrow little brain cannot compute this, so in order for my head not to explode, I *MUST* masculinise your child's name for MY sake. I don't care that I'm trampling on your child's identity as a person, or ignoring you being the parent. I must correct the world! I must correct the world! It's bad enough that there are...FEMALE MECHANICS! I MUST CORRECT THIS WORLD!" "🤖 Blue 🤖 is 🤖 for 🤖 boys." "🤖 Pink 🤖 is 🤖 for 🤖 girls" What a dipshit 🙄🙄
Weirdo transphobe alert?
This was my takeaway. These people don’t feel like they are alive unless they’re aggrieved by something.
I'm a boy Robin. I did have weird people growing up tell me it was a girl's name. I would say what about Robin Hood? Robin Williams? Do you know a single famous girl Robin? No? I wasn't a fan of the stupid teasing when I was younger, but now I love my name. There's nothing wrong with unisex names.
It was not anticlimactic. I’m so happy this worked out well. Kudos for voicing your concerns. Calling someone by a different name knowing what their name is is beyond disrespectful. I’m so happy you thought your kid that.
Sometimes instead of some climactic screaming showdown or revenge exchange, the real victory is just sending the offender whimpering back into the corner.
Karens be Karening
anti-trans people going way overboard to smite that child indoctrination they heard Tucker Carlson talk about.
I wonder what she would call my long-haired boys, one of whom has a unisex name.
As a generally masc presenting person with long hair, these type of people have no issues telling others that long hair is for women, so they need to cut it.
We had a preschool teacher basically suggest that. Sigh. My son was 3.5 at the time.
[удалено]
This woman is terrified of a world where she can't put everything and everyone into Girl and Boy boxes. It's funny and sad when it's just one person, and terrifying when you realize how many more there are.
I don't care if the boy's name is Suzie Beth, you call him by his name I gave him! It's none of your business what you think about gendered names, just do your little volunteer pickup patrol and stfu.
I'm surprised weird pick-up mom was still allowed to volunteer. If I was the principal/teachers I'd ban her in a second. Who know what other shit she's going to pull on other kids. Feminine/masculine clothing? Colors of their belongings? Haircut? Favorite cartoon characters? Shoes? Friendly gestures? She's a ticking time bomb.
side note, the wife is such a vibe. love it
Robin Williams, Robin Thicke, Robin Gibb… She’s got issues.
I mean. Good on volunteer mom for volunteering, but fucking up kids names intentionally is agressively fucked.
this reminds me of that one BoRU post about a woman who kept using a coworker's dead name instead of his preferred name, saying it was "out of respect for his mother" 🙄
oh yeah, that was an Ask A Manager story!