Mom Defends Decision to Change Daughter's Name Just Before Birthday: 'I Did Her a Disservice' (Exclusive)

Laurie Price is hoping to change her fifth child's name before she turns 1 to avoid a more complicated and expensive process

• For weeks, Laurie Price and her husband struggled to find a name for their newborn daughter. They eventually settled on a name that never felt totally right, so they've decided to change it

• The mom of five has taken to TikTok to share her experience trying to rename her daughter before her first birthday, as she says the process can become expensive and complicated after age 1

• Price spoke to PEOPLE about the mixed reactions to her now-viral video and why she remains unbothered by critics in the comments

Though they waited to find out their baby's sex, Laurie Price and her husband spent her entire pregnancy convinced their fifth child was going to be a boy.

They tossed around a few name possibilities for a baby girl and nothing felt right, but neither Mom nor Dad worried as they were set on having a son named Noah.

"When she was a girl, we were like, 'Oh, my goodness,' " Price recalls to PEOPLE.

The name Noah didn't fit her daughter the same way it fit the idea Price had of a son. For the first time since starting a family 11 years ago, the parents found themselves at a loss for baby names.

Their daughter went by a few different names as Price and her husband, Ryan, searched for something that would stick. Weeks after welcoming their baby via home birth, Price's midwife asked for a name to put on the birth certificate. They finally settled on Goldie Solveig, a Norwegian family name inspired by Ryan's grandmother called Solveig.

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Now, however, the couple is making moves to permanently change their daughter's name ahead of her first birthday on July 28. The baby's soon-to-be new name — Marigold Louise — finally feels like the fit Price and Ryan wanted from the beginning of their daughter's life.

"I think we went through three names that we were like, 'Okay, this is it, this is her name.' And then we'd get into bed and I was like, 'I don't like it,' And he was like, 'I don't like it either,' " Price explains, looking back on the baby's first few weeks of rotating names. "I don't know if it was postpartum hormones [or] sleep deprivation, but I felt like I couldn't trust my own brain."

She continues, "It sounds weird, but for example, one of the names we picked was Ellen because it was a family name. And my husband was like, 'I feel like I'm talking to an old lady,' and I know that one day she will be an old lady, but it just didn't feel right ... I just couldn't see it going with our family. It just didn't feel right in my soul I guess. It just didn't sit well. I didn't enjoy calling her that, if you get what I mean."

Price has been documenting the name change process in a series of TikTok videos, and as she explained in her initial post, the couple hopes it'll be easier — with less expensive costs — since she's less than one year old. In one update, the mom of five shared that she applied for a birth certificate correction with a $15 fee.

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"I doubt it'll actually be before her first birthday that it's set in stone," Price tells PEOPLE. "But I think since I'm getting the ball rolling before her first birthday, I will be able to slide under the ... extra fees that come with that."

The social media creator says it's been "fun to see all of the different reactions" to her first video about the name change, which has received over 100,000 views since it was posted in early July. She says she uploaded the video to hold herself accountable in "actually legally changing her name, [versus] always wanting to, but never making the time to do it."

Price expected some people might be skeptical of the idea, as she herself used to be wary of parents who changed their kids' monikers, including her mother-in-law, who changed some of Ryan's siblings' names.

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"I always thought she was so crazy for doing that. I was like, 'We're never doing that. I just think she's so weird for doing that,' " Price explains of her previous regard for Ryan's mom's experience.

Now, however, she completely understands the importance of naming your child something that suits them. And to Price, it's not just about what she's going to call her child — it feels important to make her daughter's name official.

"The more I thought about it, I was like, 'On her driver's license, on all these certificates, on her diploma, on all these big life events, I want it to say this name,' " she says. "It just feels like I did her a disservice in deciding her name so quickly when [with] my other kids, I took my entire pregnancy to decide their name."

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Price isn't bothered by her online critics, some of whom have worried about the baby having an identity crisis later in life.

"If she's 18 and decides she wants to go back to Goldie Solveig — or if she wants to change it to Jennifer Love Hewitt — whatever," Price quips. At the end of the day, she says her only motivation is in the interest of her daughter's future happiness: "I will support her in what she wants to do," says Price.

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