One mum from the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, has stirred up a HUGE controversy over the spelling of her daughter’s name.

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The mum wrote into a (currently unidentified) magazine to explain how she’d found the perfect name for her little girl – Kaitlyn – but didn’t like how common it was.

So, she and her partner decided to spell it like this: KVIIIlyn.

Here's the mum's explanation:

“I’ve always loved the name Kaitlyn but hated how popular it was,” she admitted to the magazine.

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“So, when I found out I was having a girl, my husband suggested we replace the ‘ait’ with the Roman numeral symbol for 8.

“Now our daughter is truly unique!”

Yep, you read that right. Her daughter's name is spelt KVIIIlyn, using Roman numerals, but it’s still pronounced ‘Kaitlyn’.

A photo of the magazine was later shared on imgur, with the caption: “Surely this is a form of child abuse?”

Naturally, the unusual name choice really got people talking.

One commenter had a hard time accepting the modified spelling - based on the fact that giving your child a common name isn’t a big deal:

“Who cares if a name is common? I've told people if I have another child I'm thinking of the name Margaret - "Maggie" for short - if it's a girl after my Gran, and people tell me off for picking such an old-fashioned, boring name.

"Maybe I should call her hashtag instead.”

Another enraged internet user summed things up with this point: “You've still given her an 'overly popular' name, you muppet. You've just f***ed the spelling of it.”

Finally, one user on reddit wrote: “This is a joke right? Who puts Roman numerals in a name? Ah well, guess it’s better than K8lin.”

Why KVIIIlyn not K8lin?

It is worth nothing that here in the UK, naming laws are some of the world’s most relaxed – you can pretty much name your child anything as long as it isn’t offensive, according to the BBC.

However, in Australia, certain US states and in other countries across the world, parents can’t include actual numeric characters in the name. Roman numerals are, obviously, written using the alphabet. Perhaps that's why KVIIIlyn is not K8lin, after all.

Have your say

We have to admit – all this did get us talking here at MFM HQ.

On the one hand, we can totally understand why parents want their child to have a different and uncommon name, and it’s every parent’s right to make that choice.

On the other hand, adding Roman numerals instead of letters on the quest to uniqueness is really taking things to the next level!

What do you think – would you do this for your child? How would you have felt if your parents had added Roman numerals to your name? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter.

Images: Imgur

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