Woman Says She's Won't Rename Her Dog After Sister Gives Baby the Same Name

Mar. 15, 2025

Women arguing in a stock photo.Photo:Getty

Getty

In a post shared toReddit, the anonymous 26-year-old writes: “I have a dog named Charlie. Charlie is a golden retriever I adopted four years ago, and he’s my best buddy.”

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“At first, I thought it was funny and didn’t really think much of it,” she continues in the Reddit post. “But then Emily pulled me aside during a family gathering and said it was ‘confusing and disrespectful’ for me to keep calling my dog Charlie now that her son has the same name. She asked me to rename my dog.”

But the woman answered an unequivocal “no.”

“Charlie has been his name for four years; he knows it, responds to it, and it’s on all his paperwork,” she writes. “Changing it would be weird for him (and for me).”

Her sister, meanwhile, did not respond well to the news that she wouldn’t be renaming her dog.

“She got really upset and said it’s not fair for her son to ‘share’ a name with a dog, especially in family settings. She thinks it’ll lead to jokes and confusion as her son grows up,” she writes.

She continues: “My parents have weighed in, and while my dad says it’s ridiculous to expect me to change my dog’s name, my mom says I should ‘just consider it’ to keep the peace.”

A golden retriever puppy in a stock photo.Maya Karkalicheva/ Getty Images

Maya Karkalicheva/ Getty Images

Now, the woman’s sister is “barely speaking” to her, and a few family members have told her she’s being “stubborn.”

“I have no idea how I am in the wrong here. The world’s gone crazy,” she writes.

Commenters have argued that the poster is not at all in the wrong, with one writing: “I would start calling her kid Charlie 2. Her request is absurd. No rational person would ask that.”

Another offered more blunt advice: “Suggest that she changes her son’s name to Spot or Rover.”

source: people.com