DEAR ABBY: My longtime friend — let’s call her “Cindy” — is six months pregnant and expecting a baby girl. Lately, she’s been sharing her name ideas with me, and Abby, they are out there.
Cindy tends to pick words she thinks sound pretty without bothering to check what they actually mean. I had to practically beg her not to name her daughter “Chlamydia.” She finally dropped it after I pointed out, several times, the kind of teasing her poor child would face.
Unfortunately, she’s now fallen in love with the name “Cliché.” Her logic seems to be that as long as the name isn’t an STD, it’s a winner. She’s also seriously considered “Bidet” and “Chalet.”
When I try to steer her away from these ideas, she calls me “hypercritical.” To make matters worse, her family isn’t helping — they actually told her “Chlamydia” sounds beautiful and that she should go for it!
I’m just trying to save this baby from a lifetime of mockery, but nothing I say gets through. How do I help my friend realize she’s setting her child up for embarrassment without ruining our friendship?
— NORMALLY NAMED IN NEW YORK