Crowdsourcing Gone Too Far? Canadian Couple Lets the Internet Name Their Baby Girl. Shucks. 'Streetlamp of-the-sea' didn't make the final cut. What did? We know you're dying to know the lucky newby's winning web name, so come find out.
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Yana Don't-Blink. Chalupa Batman. Megatron Salad. Streetlamp of-the-sea.
Nope, those aren't tonight's freaky fusion sushi specials. They're but a tame slice of the nuttier names you get when you ask the Internet to name your unborn child.
Probably because live-tweeting your childbirth is so yesterday, Stephen McLaughlin, a software programmer in Kelowna, Canada, left it up to the geeky social media Pandora's box that is Reddit to choose a first and middle name for his unborn baby girl.
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Yes, you read right. This guy asked everyone on Reddit -- basically all 2.89 million redditors and everyone else on the Internet, too -- to name his kid.
Internet Help me http://t.co/P32JUzPeqk... You can vote once per name per day. Feel free to retweet!
— Stephen McLaughlin (@digitalgecko) January 10, 2014Well, they almost did, in a way, but McLaughlin and his wife, Alysha, who he said was "in disbelief" over his strange ask, spared their child the most-voted-on name. And thank "WackyTaco692" goodness they did.
Instead the software developer and his wife were good parents and chickened out on Reddit's number one baby name choice (out of 150,000 votes in all), which was "Cthulhu." Right, Cthulhu, you know, that mythical evil winged beast that has an octopus for a face. Make that "Cthulhu all-spark," actually, as "all-spark" was the most upvoted middle name choice.
That doesn't mean the babe's parents won't call her Cthulhu from time to time, probably when she's not "behaving." Her mom reportedly already did in her birth announcement status update on Facebook, commanding "All bow down to the great and powerful Cthulhu."
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"Kids'R'Gross," "Not Zelda," "LOL" and "13" are some of the other lovely front runner names the couple shafted in favor of a somewhat disappointingly normal name for their little bundle of joy. They picked a safe suggestion, the number two top-voted choice, one that won't make their daughter hate them: Amelia Savannah Joy McLaughlin. She introduced herself to the world "happy and healthy" at 3:42 a.m. on April 7 after "five anxious days," her dad wrote on his rose-colored website namemydaughter.com.
Hi, My name is Stephen and much to the disbelief of my wife, I have decided to let the internet name* my daughter.
Yeah that is an asterisk, Unfortunately internet I know better than to trust you. We will ultimately be making the final decision, Alas my daughter shall not be named WackyTaco692. Sorry guys the wife wouldn't go for a free for all.
Just in case you were wondering, and we can't imagine why you would, Stephen says he's not crazy. "As for the obvious question -- No I am not crazy. I have been tested!" he declared on his original reddit IAmA subreddit post, in which redditors were ask to suggest and then vote on potential baby names.
(Ok, good. Glad we got that whole not-crazy business cleared up, Stephen. If you weren't already crazy, having a kid will drive you crazy several times day and when you attempt to sleep at night. I know. I have three.)
Oh, and probably no big surprise here, McLaughlin's apparently into Bitcoin, too. He posted his Bitcoin address for all to see on namemydaughter.com.
Also, a redditor asked the proud new papa to create a Dogecoin tip web address to collect a few Shiba Inu-themed virtual coins for "entertaining us so." To the moon, beautiful bouncing baby girl of the interwebs, to the moon!
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