Expectant Parents Asked the Internet to Name Their Child. And the Winning Name Is…

Jason O. Gilbert Technology Editor Apr 21, 2014

In January of this year, an expectant father named Stephen started the website NameMyDaughter.com, where anyone on the Internet could suggest and vote on potential names for Stephen’s forthcoming baby girl.
Well, as noted by the folks at Betabeat, Stephen’s wife gave birth on April 7. And the winning name is — drumroll, please! — Amelia Savannah Joy McLaughlin.
Kind of sweet, right? Or, sweeter than you might have expected from the feces-hurling cesspool that is the Internet?

Unfortunately for those looking to have their faith in humanity restored, “Amelia Savannah Joy” did not technically win the vote. The real first-place name was “Cthulhu All-Spark.” (“Cthulhu” won the vote for first name, and “All-Spark” won the vote for middle name.)

The parents, who live in British Columbia, Canada, rejected that one in favor of the second-place name, Amelia. Though they did have a good sense of humor about the results:

“All bow down to the great and powerful Cthulhu,” mom Kathryn posted to Facebook after the birth, according to Canada’s Global News, along with a photo of the newborn.

“All bow down to the great and powerful Cthulhu!” (Global News)

Stephen revealed in an Ask Me Anything questionnaire on the site reddit that he was forced to delete “several STIs and a couple of sexual positions” from initial submissions. And, if you’re wondering, he also explained the inspiration for the project at length, as well as how his wife reacted to the idea:

“I was sitting on the end of the bed after coming home from work and the idea hit me. I tend to be very forward person (this gets me in a lot of trouble lol) and I just blurted it out — ‘Hunny, I am going to ask the internet what we should name our daughter!’
“She was supportive right from the start. I think at first she didn’t think I was actually going to do it. But once the domain was registered she knew it was real.
“Hell when I saw that namemydaughter.com was available I just knew that was the sign that I HAD to do it.”

When a reporter asked explorer George Mallory in 1924 why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he famously responded, “Because it’s there” — the same reason why a man would open up naming rights for his daughter to the World Wide Web.

Let’s all just be thankful that Stephen and Kathryn chose responsible parenting over contest integrity. Congratulations to the new parents, and also to the newborn, for not being named “Chalupa Batman.”