Daughter's Name Changed Three Months After Birth Because No One Could Pronounce It

A mother has changed her name three months after the baby was born because no one could pronounce it. 

Carri Kessler from the US and her husband, Will, named their newborn baby girl Ottilie.

Carri says she fell in love with the name after hearing it from a friend in the UK.

But instantly the name caused confusion. The couple regretted the name and Google more names to see if they could find anything else they liked as much - but they couldn't - so they stuck with it.

They told friends and family struggling with the pronunciation that if they said it with a British accent, it ‘sounds really good’, according to an interview with TODAY.

But because Carri and her family are American, it seemed silly to adopt a British accent whenever the girl's name was said. 

Then, six weeks after Carri and Will had brought Ottilie home, Carri’s grandmother revealed to her that she was unable to remember her new granddaughter’s name – and that she had Post-it notes all over the house in order to help.

Carri says every time people were saying her baby's name, they were butchering it and she 'cringed' when she heard the mispronunciations.

To her dismay, it just kept getting worse. ‘Introducing her made me sweat,’ she said. ‘I thought, we’re going to keep having to introduce her! This is going to be a problem forever.’

Three months after naming their daughter, Carri decided to let her husband, Will, know how she was feeling.

It turned out, he felt the same – so they decided to choose a different name for their daughter.

Carri ran a shortlist of names that were 'simple' and wouldn't give her 'anxiety'. Carri says she ran her shortlist of two names past every person she met, and it was a friendly barista who helped her make the final choice: Ottilie would become Margot.

They let people know through group email. They sent a message to all of their family and friends to say: ‘Hey! Remember Ottilie? Her name’s Margot now.’ It was met with a positive reaction! 

So, what does the name Ottilie mean?

In Europe, where the name originates, while not exactly common, it is not regarded as the most outlandish of names.

Of German origin, Ottilie (also Ottiline) is the feminine version of Otto, and means ‘prosperous in battle’.

The most well-known Ottilie is probably Ottilie Assing, a 19th century journalist feminist, freethinker and abolitionist from Germany, though Franz Kafka had a sister named Ottilie. The name is referenced in Goethe’s Elective Affinities and also in a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, called To Ottilie. 

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