Parents asked the Internet to help name their baby
Would you let a bunch of strangers on the Internet help you name you child? For Canadian dad Stephen McLaughlin, the answer was yes.
In January, the father-to-be set up a website NameMyDaughter.com, asking Internet users to vote on his daughter's first and middle names. Still, there was a catch -- he and his wife would have the final say to avoid any future embarrassment of their daughter being named something as ridiculous as WackyTaco692.
A self-described web developer by day and a geeky father by night, McLaughlin often looks to the Internet for inspiration and answers. When he posted a link to his website to the "Ask Me Anything" Reddit page, it opened the door to some pretty strange suggestions.
Luckily, his wife, Alysha, was supportive. She didn't really think he was going to do it, he says, but once the site was up, "she was on board."
According to the Reddit thread, some of the proposed names were Xnorlaz, Pond, Megatron, Slagathor, Streetlamp Salad, and the much more traditional Amelia -- or "Amelia Of-House McLaughlin," an apparent reference to "Game of Thrones."
The top vote-getter was Cthulhu All-Spark, a nod to the fictional creature created by American writer H.P. Lovecraft.
But in the end, the McLaughlins went their own way. The baby, born earlier this month, was named Amelia Savannah Joy McLaughlin.
McLaughlin told CBS News that when he first set up the site, he anticipated his family and friends voting, adding that it "definitely helped with the number of 'You should name her this' conversations." Still, he knew that once he put something on the Internet, he would have no control over what other users did with it. For the most part, the suggestions he received were respectful -- McLaughlin only had to moderate some names that he felt were inappropriate."I was quite surprised by the number of good quality submissions that came in...We got a lot of nice comments and support from all sorts of people all around the world," he told CBS News in an email.
Still, what exactly made them finally decide on the name Amelia Savannah Joy? Apparently, some of the names had already been in mind long before McLaughlin started the online project.
"Amelia was a name that had been discussed before we had even thought of this idea. Savannah is the name of a friend that helped support my wife after the baby was born... Joy is the name of my wife's grandmother," he explained.
The McLaughlin family plan to tell their newborn daughter some day about how the Internet helped to choose her name.
"We have kept copies of every article we could get our hands on. We plan on putting together some kind of keepsake for her," the proud father told CBS News.