Naming your kid after a fictional character isn’t a new phenomenon, and it doesn’t have to be a weird thing. Sometimes the names are particularly outlandish, and blatantly fandom-related, which can be enough reason to give people pause. Other times, the reasons to reconsider honoring your favorite fandom through your children are a little more awkward.
A Redditor recently wrote into Am I The A**hole with a relevant story, explaining that their sister had recently given birth to twins and named the boys Sam and Dean after the Winchester brothers in Supernatural. On the surface, that doesn’t seem too bad—Sam and Dean are common names, and by the time they’re older, their friends may not even know what Supernatural was.
But there’s a twist.
“No beating around the bush, [my sister] was hugely into wincest (the romantic and sexual relationship between the two brothers),” u/Loud_Cardiologist120 wrote. “Wrote fic, edited youtube videos, etc. She even made like a wincest tumblr series with her ex girlfriend roleplaying as the two characters.”
The redditor added that their sister has three older children with fandom names—Severus (Harry Potter), Cersei (Game of Thrones), and Katniss (The Hunger Games)—and has allegedly tried to encourage them to take up behaviors and hobbies similar to their fictional counterparts.
These details had them thinking it was “really f—king weird” that she would name her latest kids after brothers who she imagined having sex, and told her as much.
“She told me it didn’t matter because they weren’t real and she didn’t actually condone incest,” they wrote. “I called her a freak and said it wasn’t normal or fair to the boys. What if they found out, you know?”
Although the original poster said their mother got involved and felt they should apologize to their sister, readers generally erred far more on the concerned side of things.
Hopefully the boys have unrelated middle names they can opt to go by in public if they so choose, but that won’t protect them from eventually finding out exactly how they got their names, and why their mother was so keen on them in the first place.
