'My parents gave me a granny name - I feel like my life is over'

A teenage girl has opened up about the severe impact her 'granny name' has had on her life, confessing that it makes her too anxious to introduce herself to others. She's cried over her name 'so many times', baffled by her parents' decision to give her such an 'awful' name.

The reassurances from people, including her sister who says she has plenty of 'nicknames to choose from', do little to comfort her.

She envies others for their names and is annoyed when she sees people complaining about their 'too common' names online, which she doesn't find bad at all. In fact, she wishes she could have a 'normal name'.

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Venting her frustration on Reddit, the girl - who is called Sharon - expressed her annoyance: "People like to compare my name to Karen and online I see a lot of people say stuff like Sharons and Karens are SOOO annoying. My parents could've at least made the name look nice by replacing O with I (Sharin) or even Sherrin would be better."

"I'm literally a teenage girl with a granny name, how am I gonna live the rest of my life being named Sharon? And whenever I bring this up with my mum, she just says, 'Okay then you can change it' blah blah. But the thing is, I've lived so many years with the name Sharon, changing it randomly would be so weird and also I can't think of any other names that would somewhat fit me since I've basically just accepted defeat at this point. I feel like my life is over bro.", reports the Mirror.

Reddit users rallied around young Sharon, assuring her that her name wasn't as bad as she thought. One user called it 'a very rebellious, punk, cool girl name', while another suggested, "Not that you'll care, but I think Sharon is a good mix. It's not trendy, but it's not old either. I don't know how old you are, but you could ask your friends to call you Shaari or Shar if it bothers you that much."

They continued: "When you meet someone new, use the new nickname. People will always be all over the place depending on what they've always called you but that can't be helped. When you start college, use the nickname or your middle name or whatever you choose from day one. That will be better for your future."

One person offered some comforting words: "This may seem like the end of the world because you're young but it's definitely not. I know friends who hated their name growing up but ended up loving them when they hit 20. Find a way to make the name your own. Just seems like you associate it with something else that's entirely irrelevant to you and then have a meltdown over it."

They added: "You can always change the name when you get to an age you're legally allowed to. But give the name a chance until then. Issues like this become smaller and smaller as you age. Names cycle through the generations till eventually out of style ones have been gone for so long they have a revival. Same with everything. Hope you learn to love it."