14-Year-Old Demands Her Parents Let Her Change Her 'Embarrassing' Name So People Stop Making Fun Of Her
She doesn't want to be stuck with a name that'll cause her problems for the rest of her life.
DimaBerlin | Shutterstock A teenager admitted that she's not happy with the name her parents gave her because of the universal reaction that she gets whenever people hear or see it.
Posting to the subreddit r/AITA, she claimed that she's never liked her name, but since starting high school, it's become insufferable to hear what other people think of her name as well.
She demanded that her parents let her change her 'embarrassing' name so people stop making fun of her.
In her since-deleted Reddit post, the 14-year-old explained that her parents named her Candy, which has always been hard for her to accept. She claimed that whenever people hear her name, they almost always give her "weird looks," and the boys at her school will make innuendos about how she's going to become an adult dancer when she gets older.
"I've been telling my parents all year about all of that and that I want to change my name to Candace so that I have an actual name, but they can still call me Candy if they want to," she wrote.
Unfortunately, despite it sounding like a good compromise, her parents aren't as on board with changing her name as she'd like them to be. Whenever she brings it up, they just laugh it off and tell her she'll get over other people's reactions in time.
It's fairly common for kids to dislike their names, especially when they're in their adolescent years.
This can be for many reasons, including pronunciation, spelling, and how other people perceive their name as well. In this case, this 14-year-old girl has been experiencing bullying, ridicule, and teasing comments from her classmates and it's understandable that she'd be over it.
It's not like she's asking to change her name completely. I think wanting to be named Candace with the nickname "Candy" is more than reasonable. Even though her parents didn't approve, she still wanted to make the change anyway.
"I found the legal form to change your name, printed it out, and filled it in. Then gave it to them and said they can either submit that now or I'll do it the second I turn 18," she continued.
At the ultimatum, her parents were a bit sad about their daughter wanting to change her name.
Her parents attempted to argue that they never wanted her to have a "boring" name, which is why they went with Candy in the first place.
Michele Kerulis, an associate professor at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, told Good Housekeeping the first thing parents need to do when faced with a child who hates their name is "try to understand why."
In this case, it's not an identity issue, so it would be very easy for Candy to test the waters with Candace without making a full change until she's 18.
That certainly seems like a good compromise for this family.
Again, it's perfectly normal for parents to want to give their child a unique name, but it's also within her right to want to change it. In this case, she's not asking for a major change. If anything, she wants her parents to continue to call her Candy; she just wants Candace for more formal and professional settings.
If she feels strongly about her name at 14, chances are, that feeling will only intensify as she gets older. Her decision to change her name also has nothing to do with her parents or their wishes for the kind of name she would have, but rather her own personal feelings which should be respected at the end of the day.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.