Yahoo Lifestyle I was warned my unusual baby name would lead to bullying, but it didn’t stop me
A mum has revealed the reasons she decided to call her son a unique name containing a digit, despite being warned he might face bullying because of it.
Brittany Marie Davison, 25, from Ferryhill, County Durham, decided to name her son, now three, Se7en Simba after searching for unusual baby names. While she initially suggested it as a joke, her partner, Wayne, 36, loved it, so the couple went ahead with making it official. However, when it came to registering his birth the new parents forgot to ask the registrar if they were able to use the number spelling, so on their son's official documents he is Seven.
Brittany and Wayne, who own a children's play café and an online retail business, say they often get comments warning that their son may be "picked on" because of his name, but they believe he suits the moniker.
"Se7en is the most unique child you'll ever meet," Brittany explains. "He absolutely suits his weird name. Everyone who meets him comments on how happy and funny he is. People can be cruel and we often get told he'll never have friends. But it's always adults that are mean - he spends every day of his life with new children in our play café and hasn't had a single child say anything about his name."
Brittany believes she is "raising a strong child who is happy stick up for himself". She says: "I know he will grow to love his name - but if he doesn't, it's only a name. How many people actually use the name they were born with anyway?"
Wayne has six other children from a previous relationship but despite being his seventh child the couple say it wasn't the inspiration for Se7en's name. "We really struggled with finding a boy's name we liked. We liked the name Teddy but Wayne's best friend's son is called Teddy. Phoenix was our second choice. We were actually on a road trip for work and I was Googling unusual baby names and came across Seven. We didn't even look at names after that, it was absolutely certain we were calling him Se7en."
Se7en was born on February 12, 2022, with the couple feeling he suited his name when they first met their son. However, despite loving the spelling Se7en Brittany forgot to ask if using the number symbol was allowed. "I didn't have the energy to contest it postpartum but I wish I had," she explains. "We use the spelling Se7en everywhere except for his passport and birth certificate."
The parents also settled on Simba for Se7en's middle name, inspired by Brittany's favourite Disney movie The Lion King. "I wanted Mowgli but Wayne didn't like it," she says. "I suggested Simba pretty early on but Wayne wasn't sure. I told him if he didn't think of a better middle name by the time he was born - I was calling him Se7en Simba. And he didn't, so Se7en Simba it was!"
Brittany says most of their friends and family are supportive of their choice of moniker. "Wayne's nana did say 'you can't call him Seven, that's a number, not a name! I'll call him Wee Sev'." The family often nickname him Sev and Wayne jokingly calls him Six.
Despite the support from their loved ones, the couple say they do get a lot of negative comments from strangers online. "A fully grown adult on TikTok told me 'I would bully him, when he was less than six months old," she says.
"People are always taken aback when they ask his name," Brittany continues. "We took him to A&E once as he was really poorly and when the doctor called his name, the other parent in the waiting room asked if he was supposed to have a numbered ticket because we were 'order number 7' and he didn't know what number he was."
Despite some division about his name the couple say they are raising a "strong" child and if he doesn't like his name he can always change it in the future. "Se7en is everyone's friend, he's kind, he's gentle. But he's also headstrong and will tell you when something is unfair," Brittany says. "We have been so lucky with him, but I also know is a reflection in our parenting that he is so kind and so happy."
Are any baby names illegal in the UK?
You might think parents have free rein when it comes to choosing their child's name, but it turns out there are some monikers mums and dads actually can't give their newborns. In fact there are baby names that parents are banned from picking.
While there aren’t many strict rules about baby names in the UK, some names do push the boundaries. According to the UK Deed Poll Office names that are racist or considered harmful to the child could be illegal and banned in some parts of the UK.
Names that are restricted include names that:
Are impossible to pronounce
Include numbers, symbols, or punctuation marks (not including hyphens or apostrophes)
Are considered offensive, vulgar, or blasphemous by the deed poll service
Fraudulent (inferring the child has a rank, title, or inherited honour)
The Registering Officer has the final say when you register your child’s name, ensuring that it’s practical and appropriate.
"We have over 50,000 different baby names in use in the UK and that total is climbing each year as parents invent individual and creative names for their child," baby name expert SJ Strum from the Baby Names Envy podcast previously told Yahoo UK.
"In the UK, there is no law restricting names, but monikers that contain obscenities, numerals, misleading titles, or are impossible to pronounce are likely to be rejected by the Registering Officer, when registering a birth."
If you do a u-turn on a name, you can change a baby’s birth name by using a deed poll, which can be located at the gov.uk website. The first name can be changed if the birth was registered in the last 12 months. The birth must be re-registered to change a surname.
In both cases, each person with parental responsibility must give consent to the change. The birth certificate will not be changed but will be linked to the new deed poll to provide evidence of the change.
If you need to make a change because of a mistake made on the original register entry, you'll need to fill out an application to update it. The original information will always be present in the register.
Read more about baby names:
The most popular baby names have been released and there's a change at the top (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read)
How to pick a unique baby name (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)
Top 100 baby names for boys and girls in UK revealed as favourite for boys soars in charts (Leicestershire Live, 4-min read)
