PICKING the right baby name for your child is no easy task, and one mum has learned the hard way after trolls say her son deserves to be bullied for the moniker she picked.
Brittany Davison, 25, named her three-year-old son Se7en Simba after googling unusual baby names.
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The mum said she first suggested it as a joke but her partner, Wayne, 36, loved it and they decided to go ahead with it.
Brittany loved the unique twist of adding a number to the spelling but forgot to ask the registrar if they could use the number – so on his official documents, he is Seven.
His middle name – Simba – is inspired by Brittany’s favourite Disney movie The Lion King.
The parents – who own a children’s play café and an online retail business – get comments saying their son will get “bullied” and “picked on”, but they say he “suits” his name.
Brittany, from Ferryhill, County Durham, said: “Se7en is the most unique child you’ll ever meet.
“He absolutely suits his weird name.
“Everyone who meets him comments on how happy and funny he is.
“People can be cruel and we always get told ‘he’ll get picked on. He’ll be bullied. 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.
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“I’m raising a strong child who is happy to stick up for himself.”
“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.
Brittany said: “We really struggled with finding a boy name we liked.
Banned Names in the UK
The UK has no law restricting names, but names that contain obscenities, numerals, misleading titles, or are impossible to pronounce are likely to be rejected when registering a child.
- Hitler
- Monkey
- Cyanide
- Martian
- Akuma
- Chow Tow
- Rogue
“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 goggling unusual baby names and came across Seven.
“I suggested it partially as a joke but Wayne loved it! We didn’t even look at names after that, it was absolutely certain we were calling him Seven.”
Se7en was born on February 12, 2022, and the pair were delighted with their name choice when they met their son.
A fully grown adult on TikTok told me when he was less than six months old – ‘I would bully him.
Brittany Davison
Brittany said: “I loved the spelling Se7en, but unfortunately I forgot to ask the registrar if we could use the number.
“I didn’t have the energy to contest it postpartum but I wish I had. We use the spelling Se7en everywhere except for his passport and birth certificate.”
The parents also settled on Simba for Se7en’s middle name.
Brittany said: “I wanted Mowgli but Wayne didn’t like it.
“The Lion King is one of our favourite Disney movies and 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 think of one, so Se7en Simba it was!”
Public Reaction
Brittany said most of their friends and family are supportive of their choice of moniker.
She said: “Most of our family and friends were supportive of our choice of name after a few jokes and disbelieving faces.
“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 even jokingly calls him ‘Six’.
Sadly the couple claim they do get a lot of negative comments from strangers online.
Brittany said: “People are always taken aback when they ask his name.
“We took him to A&E one day 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.
“A fully grown adult on TikTok told me when he was less than six months old – ‘I would bully him.'”
But the parents say they are raising a “strong” child and if he doesn’t like his name he can always change it in the future.
Brittany said: “Se7en is everyone’s friend, he’s kind, he’s gentle. But he’s also headstrong and will tell you when something is unfair.
“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.”
