Heather Murphy-Raines"I'm going to put a cord around your neck, strangle you until you die, throw you in a ditch, and no one will ever know who did it," said a new dad in Everett, Washington, before storming out of a hospital.

According to the Everett Herald, the reason John Keinath allegedly threatened a nurse in this way is that she laughed when he mentioned a prospective baby name. We're all guilty of it. We smirk when we hear what a friend or relative names their baby. But unfortunately for this nurse, she chose the wrong daddy.

He wanted to name his son John Gotti (after the infamous mob boss), and he was a tough ex-con himself (under investigation for meth, with felony convictions for a drive-by shooting and beating with a pipe and a history of domestic violence).

Yet, it seems he was a mite sensitive when it came to his chosen name -- so he stalked the nurse.

According to prosecutors, Keinath spent the past few months trying to trick people at the hospital into providing the nurse's identity. Fortunately, he was caught, and on Monday, he was jailed in lieu of a $1 million bail.

Baby names are so personal. Maybe we think Chester or Esmeralda isn't the best moniker to start a life with or perhaps we giggle a bit at a relative's creative spelling choice. I've been there. I hated one ex-sister-in-law's choice of name so badly that I trumped her by naming my new dog the same name several months before the baby was due. 

So wrong! I know. My only excuse was that I was a teenager at the time.

I also heard through the grapevine that my mother-in-law wasn't thrilled with my name choice for my daughter and took to calling her another name when not in my presence. Hmmmph! Considering the awkward and often mispronounced name she gave her son and my husband, I'm not at all surprised we don't have the same taste.

However this story? It's crazy.

So here's to one more reason to keep those judgments and lips sealed. You might get death threats instead of the chilling death stare I got from my sister-in-law. 

In the meantime though, what's the strangest, most unusual baby name you've heard recently?

 

Image via alist /Flickr