New Mom Says Uncle Refuses to Call Her Son by His Real Name, Only Calls Him 'Billy Ray'

Yahoo

06-07-2025

A woman is taking to the internet to share her anger at her uncle, who refuses to call her 3-year-old son by his real name
While the boy's name is Cypress, the uncle calls him only "Billy Ray" — a nod to country artist Billy Ray Cyrus
Now, she wants to know if she's overreacting by getting madA woman says her uncle is refusing to call her 3-year-old son by his real name — instead, only referring to him as "Billy Ray."
The woman details her predicament in a post shared on Reddit, writing that she doesn't know "what to do to make him stop."
"For context, in my family almost every one of us has a nickname we go by more often than our actual name but it is generally a shortened name or something that fits with our personalities that we started with as a child," she writes.
Her son's name is Cypress, and the nickname most members of her family use is "Cy."
Except for her uncle, who calls the boy "Billy Ray" — a name he came to in a roundabout way.
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"I don't know if my uncle just didn't hear the name right or if he just thought he was being funny but upon meeting my son, he shook my son's hand and said 'Nice to meet you, Billy Ray,' then he chuckled and walked away," she writes. "I was very confused on how he got the name Billy Ray and informed him that my son's name is Cypress, not Billy Ray. My uncle waved me off and said that it was just a joke because his name made him think of the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus."
She continues: "My son will be 4 years old soon and has seen his uncle at least 2 - 3 times a year now but with every visit my uncle will tell my son 'Hey Billy Ray!' Or 'How are you doing Billy Ray?' And he refuses to stop even after I have told him directly to stop calling my son by that name as that has nothing to do with his actual name but I always get waved off or told, 'It's just a joke.' "
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While the woman is angry at her uncle, her grandmother says she needs to take a step back, claiming the man "doesn't mean any harm by it, so I should let him continue to call my son by the wrong name."
"I have explained more than once that jokes are supposed to be funny, not annoying and rude, seeing as how my uncle is the only one who laughs every time he uses the wrong name," she writes, adding, "Should I just ignore him and hope he gets bored of it soon? Or is there a way to make him stop for good?"
Many Reddit users think the woman is overreacting to the uncle's repeated joke.
Writes one: "You way overreacted to the Billy Ray joke and now he's trolling you. Your son sees him 2-3 times a year. Just ignore it and stop feeding in to it."
Read the original article on People