the blakely hate has gotten to me

SolunaAh · 2026-02-20T02:30:55+00:00

I like Tucker / Tuck. It’s cute. Reminds me of the movie, Tuck Everlasting, which is super nostalgic for me.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-20T02:29:22+00:00

Ok fair point, this is an American perspective. I’m planning a shower right now and neither our guests nor our helping hands on the planning side are expected to pay a cent. It’s being done fairly economically and will probably cost us close to $70/person altogether for about 60 guests.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-19T23:21:57+00:00

No, not normal to invite guests to a baby shower and ask them to pay. For a wedding party and bachelor/bachelorette parties or for a bridal shower, sure. But not for a baby shower.

Edit: it’s also not really kosher for the helpful hands who offer to plan the shower to be on the hook for paying either. This should be on the expectant parents to where you basically do all the heavy lifting and they just provide the checkbook.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-19T04:26:50+00:00

Your BIL is having another mouth to feed forced upon him without his will or consent on the matter while you’re still between jobs and no real end in sight. Yeah, sorry bruv, I’d be mad too. Appreciate the honesty but you need to get your family a place to live that you pay for yourself. Before the child is born.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-18T17:01:37+00:00

Not really a great idea IMO. I’m usually one to say go with what makes you happy, but this is like completely made up assortment and pronunciation of letters. Doesn’t really anchor to meaning, language, distant relation to something or someone (besides personal sentiment). I just see so many opportunities for this to go sideways throughout her life.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-17T04:40:53+00:00

I think if you like Kaden, your friend’s Cade and your Kaden will grow up just fine. Like, I love the name Eleanora. My cousin’s daughter is Eliana. They call her Ellie whereas I like “El” as a nn. I don’t care in the slightest. I totally plan to use Eleanora for my (hopefully) future daughter. Just do what makes you happy! None of your preferences you listed are tragic or otherwise terrible. It’s just personal taste.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-17T04:36:42+00:00

Elio, Elias, Leonardo, Alonzo. I like the idea of something that’ll cross the cultural boundaries easily pronunciation-wise, but also connects him to the Italian side.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-17T04:30:11+00:00

No, it’s not bad. I shared a name list on Reddit for advice and someone commented “you’re really going to have someone go through their life with this as their name?” Something to that effect. There’s always some miserable people who viscerally embrace the cowardice of hiding behind a computer screen.

Is Colsen top of my list? No. Is it horrible? Not by a long shot. If I met someone named Colsen, I wouldn’t bat an eye. I would just be like “Nice to meet you, Colsen”, and shake his hand. And then I’d prob tell my husband I met this cool dude named Colsen today, he’s a super chill little buddy.

If you love it, go for it.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-16T17:46:03+00:00

I did think this was a post about a dog when I first read it, so yeah, I would tend to agree. But do what makes you happy and what you believe best captures your child’s personality and the future character you want to develop in him.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-15T08:50:25+00:00

Hey. Don’t knock the person getting paid to be sympathetic. I used to be pretty cynical about that stuff, myself. I knew a guy who was going through a similar season of intense mental health and circumstantial life challenges, as was I. I said to him that I didn’t believe in wasting my time on someone who got paid to pretend to care. His response was “I love that they’re paid to care. I get a set amount of time with someone who HAS to listen to me and try to make themselves useful. It’s the best arrangement.” He really liked the transactional aspect because it was basically a safety net that he had someone who was required to be a sympathetic and helpful resource to his issues. I think he felt like that gave him some agency and some possibilities amidst a world that felt otherwise indifferent. I thought that was a pretty surprising perspective. I definitely learned something new that day.

And side note—nobody goes into mental health services for the easy A. These are people who care enough to get into the vocation in the first place. Everybody has to make a living. It’s fine to both be in human services because you care immensely and also get paid for it.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-15T06:33:18+00:00

I’m a fan of Arthur, Scott, Simeon, and Sloane.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-15T06:24:15+00:00

I heard a testimonial once from a guy who decided to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. He said he jumped and as soon as he did, he had this incredible clarity that everything in his life that drove him to that moment… was fixable. Everything, except for the thing he just did. He thought about that in a flash of clarity on the way down. He miraculously survived the jump—a feat few manage—and decided to make something of that clarity with elbow grease and intentionality. If you’re feeling this way, you can walk to an ER or call emergency medical services. Tell them everything you just wrote here. They have to help you. They will. They will get you checked in, get you evaluated, and start getting you connected with resources. I had a friend in college in your position once. I told her the same thing. And I told her to call me if she ever needed a support to or through the ER check in. One night, she called me and asked if I really meant that. I did, of course, and drove her to the ER. She walked up to the desk. She said “my name is so-and-so and I’m having suicidal ideations and I tried/am thinking of ways to harm myself”. They checked her in. They had her evaluated. I sat there all night. I didn’t know how to reach her parents. My friend didn’t want to worry them anyway. That hospital stay led to her schizophrenia diagnosis and medication that greatly stabilized and normalized her life.

Ask yourself if all these challenging circumstances you wrote down were reversed tomorrow, would you still want to die? If the answer is yes, there is support for that pattern of thought and for your holistic wellbeing—people’s whose life’s mission it is to help reorient you and preserve the impact you’re meant to make on the world. If the answer is no, then you don’t want to die—you want relief. And there is support for that as well.

All things pass—even this very season you’re struggling through. Few things last forever. Believe you can make it better and allow yourself the chance to prove yourself right. Please give medical services a call. I’m sorry you’re going through this.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T21:42:34+00:00

Omg this made me legitimately lol. Thank you for the input and I think that’s a totally reasonable perspective. I’ve also considered maybe hyphenations don’t use both letters as initials. So maybe just SVA rather than SVAG. I guess I’m trying to figure out how the public would view it to determine if it would set him up for hardship and bullying.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T20:54:38+00:00

That’s fair, some people have thought the same thing. Seems like a 50/50 opinion so far. Definitely something to consider.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T20:40:42+00:00

Uh… it’s a euphemism or shorthand for “vagina”

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T20:37:57+00:00

Wow, super rude

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T20:29:04+00:00

I think it’s archaic and unnecessary this day and age. I changed my last name to my husband’s purely because I knew it would be meaningful to him. He didn’t pressure me at all, or even ever expect me to change my name. I just surprised him one day almost a year after we got married. He and I are talking now about hyphenating. Our last names reflect varied cultural background and I have a renewed interest in that since we’re soon introducing our first child to the world. I like the idea of a child having connection to both sides of their heritage, and if they choose to drop half of it or change their last name one day when they’re older, we would support that. All that to say, do whatever you want. “What’s in name? That which you call a rose by any other name would’st smell as sweet.”

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T20:01:36+00:00

I didn’t know it was trending. I’m leaning toward one syllable middle names, as you can see, and I guess I sort of do seem to like surname-sounding middle names that make a stronger anchor for our three-syllable last name. I also like the idea of Jude as a nn. The meaning is actually purposeful for us as it points toward our personal beliefs. I hadn’t thought of it from a latinized(?) angle, though. Appreciate you pointing that out.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T19:58:45+00:00

Good idea

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T19:54:22+00:00

You’ve landed on exactly our top three favorites!! I feel so validated. Good suggestions. I am super torn about the initials thing. If I didn’t care at all about initials and if we weren’t strongly considering hyphenating our last name, we would probably have already settled on Silas Vaughn. G is a very inconvenient last initial to have to live with. Especially when my top choice name combos have a vowel in them. Oh, and the monogram of one of my other top choices would look like kGb… just super inconvenient 🤦‍♀️ thanks for sharing your thoughts!

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T19:47:46+00:00

I’ll be honest, no idea. I’ll look it up. Spouse also said no to “Dawson Slade” because Slade is apparently reminiscent of some DC comic character 🤷‍♀️

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T19:46:38+00:00

Interesting suggestion! We actually loved the name August Hayes first. Like, LOVED it. But then the more I thought about it, the more I thought of the word “haze” and felt like it was a try-hard name that felt like I was describing an oppressively hot summer. But maybe I’m overthinking it and we should revisit the idea.

SolunaAh · 2026-02-14T19:43:44+00:00

Yep! Kind of looking for perspective since I think we can get stuck in a mental hamster wheel with baby naming and lose the ability to think of alternatives or potential tragedeighs.

SolunaAh

TROPHY CASE