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Pregnant woman seeks out her baby's name by walking through a cemetery and it's wonderful

Is this the beginning of a "gravestone baby" trend?

Photo credit: Canva

Honestly, there are far worst places to get baby name inspo.

There are a million and one ways to find a baby name. Some parents might glean their own family line, scour through beloved books or pop culture references, or even hire a professional to conjure up some creative ideas.

But as we dive into the spooky season, you could opt for the more macabre route. That is what Haley Hodge did for her fourth child.

In a video that quickly went viral on TikTok back in May, Hodge filmed herself in a flowy pink dress traipsing around the Smithville Burying Ground in Southport, North Carolina, on a quest to find her soon-to-be-daughter’s name.

As she does, her onscreen text offers this fun fact “did you know families usd to come to cemeteries to have a picnic with their loved ones?” (sounds like a very Victorian pastime).

Hodge’s other kids lend a helping hand in the name hunt, her son getting particularly excited to find a gravestone with the name Salem. Bunny, Winnie, Vienna, and Olympus were some other good ones.


@hodgehouse Fun fact: My sister came from someones gravestone 🤍 #babynames #southport #love #fyp #viral #weird #graveyard ♬ Beautiful Memories - Lux-Inspira

In an interview with TODAY, Hodge shared that she came by this idea rather honestly, as her mom was a history buff who loved to go epitaphing—i.e., visit cemeteries—and would often bring her and her sister along. In fact, her sister’s name came from someone’s grave.

"My mom found that we were more interested in spooky stories and ghost stories rather than the historical tours," she shared with USA Today. "I've always been fond of walking through the cemeteries and looking at how they're decorated or their stories behind some of the people."

Though she said some might find it “creepy,” Hodge argues that “You can learn so much about cultural aspects of the past." And many in the comments seemed to agree.

“I love this! and it’s absolutely no different than looking at a book of names or getting a name from a movie/show. and it’s a great way to bring back the older generation's names!” one person wrote.

“How beautiful must it be for some of these souls to hear their name spoken again after so many years. I hope you have an incredible pregnancy and a healthy baby,” added another.

One fellow “gravestone baby” even shared that “whenever people compliment my name I love to tell them and see their shocked faces when I say, ‘thanks my mom got it from a gravestone.’"

Still, other more superstitious viewers did share concern about visiting cemeteries while pregnant, as they feared it could attract uninvited spirits or energies.

Either way, Hodge has found a really cool way of both honoring some family traditions while bringing something fresh and unique. "I know there's baby books, but I feel like I see a lot of repeated names over and over again. And it's fun to have a story behind finding a name,” she told USA Today.

And in case you were wondering, it looks like Salem was the winner.

Look, graveyards might be a place for somber remembrance, but they can also be a source of joy. Previously, Upworthy covered a librarian who got delicious recipes from tombstones. Even earlier this mount a cemetery went viral for filming a nesting bluebird couple.

Bottom line: Cemeteries remind us of the inevitably of death, but they are also opportunities to celebrate life as well.

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Humor

Woman's sleep walking habits have people in tears from laughing at her sleeping antics

"I am Chris Hanson."

Celina SpookyBoo|TikTok

Woman's sleep walking habits has people in tears from laughter

Let's be honest, most folks have no idea what they're doing in their sleep. Unless you're tossing and turning, you're blissfully unconscious for approximately six to eight hours if you're lucky. You have no clue if you stole the covers from your partner to wrap up like a human burrito or if you sat up abruptly to do the Macarena because you were dreaming of dancing at a friend's wedding.

Most people are likely doing nothing more exciting that snoring, drooling or accidentally backhanding their partner if they have one. There are some people that become chatter boxes when they're sleeping whether its coherent sentences or jumbled nonsense. But there are those rare ones that not only want to chit chat while they snooze but get up to do things that they may consider strange.

A woman that goes by the name Celina SpookyBoo on TikTok recently posted a video of her own sleepwalking shenanigans and commenters can't get enough.

In the video that has racked up over 28 million views, Celina sits up in bed with her eyes wide open while being recorded with a night vision camera. "There's goats. There's seven goats," she says before getting completely out of bed and doing what appears to be some sort of Irish jig. Celina says several random phrases before laying down on a storage bench at the foot of her bed and saying, "I'll have a grilled cheese, it's fine."

So many questions. Is she cooking the grilled cheese on the storage bench? Is someone else making her the tasty snack in her dream? It doesn't stop there. At one point she appears to almost be acting out the famous scene from Hamlet before appearing from the door way to declare, "I am Chris Hanson." You know, the guy from Dateline and To Catch a Predator. Commenters were amused by the random sleep walking activities.

"The little Irish step dancing is KILLING me," someone writes with a laughing emoji.

"IMAGINE WAKING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND YOU SEE SOMEONE STANDING COMPLETELY STILL AND THEY JUST SAY "It was the 11th of December," one commenter says.

"How do you make so much sense and so little sense at the same time," another person writes with a crying emoji.

Watch the entirely not weird at all sleep walking incident below:

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Family

Mom wants to know when Halloween became 'an adult pub crawl'?

"Have parents always done this, and they're just being more public about it now?”

via Sam Beckwith/Pexels and UltimiteMomChallenge/Tiktok

Celeste Yvonne had a recent Halloween realization.

Celeste Yvonne, a certified recovery coach and a founding host of the Sober Mom Squad, had a Halloween realization and wanted to know if she was the only person who felt the same.

“This morning, I'm listening to parents at the school drop-off area talk about how they will be bringing a keg onto their golf carts when they do the trick-or-treating rounds with their kids this year,” Yvonne says in a viral TikTok video.

“I'm not shaming them, but my question is: when did trick-or-treating become a beer crawl or pub crawl for adults?” she asked. “This is a newer phenomenon, isn't it? Or have parents always done this, and they're just being more public about it now?”

“I mean, even now, you can go up to a house doorway, and they will have candy for the kids or adult drinks for the adults. I never saw that growing up trick-or-treating,” Yvonne added. “Is this a newer phenomenon as a result of mommy wine culture or just the normalization of alcohol in general?”

@theultimatemomchallenge

#mommywineculture #halloween

The answer could be that drinking is a lot more visible during the holiday because the number of adults who celebrate is on the rise. At the same time, there has been a rise in alcohol consumption among older adults, where we now drink about the same amount as we did in the pre-Civil War era.

Interestingly, at the same time, there has been a decline in drinking among younger people.

In the comments, many noted that we didn’t see parents drinking during trick-or-treating in the past because kids used to go out with their older friends or siblings. “In the ‘80s, our parents let us go on our own. They stayed home and did what they wanted or at least in my town,” Leigh Winchester Fle wrote. “Gen Xer here, my boomer parents just sent us out and stayed behind and boozed. Now I think our generation tags along and take roadies,” Uncle Rico added.

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Pop Culture

Gen X mom shares what it was like trick-or-treating in an ‘80s ‘garbage bag’ costume

Every Gen Xer can relate.

via TikTok/KellyManno

Kelly Manno explains the '80s "garbage bag" costume.

In 2023, Americans are expected to spend more than $12 billion on Halloween and more say they will participate in the holiday than ever before. While it may seem like Americans have always gone all out during the spooky season, things used to be simpler.

Anyone who is a Gen Xer will remember that, for most kids, Halloween meant going to the local drug store and picking a vinyl Halloween costume off the rack that cost $3. For that, you got a vinyl jumpsuit that smelled like paint and a plastic mask held on by a string, and you loved it.

TikTok’s unofficial Gen X ambassador, Kelly Manno, remembered those good times in a recently posted video with over 4 million views. She shared what it was like to go trick-or-treating in a "garbage bag" costume with little ventilation that made a “woosh-woosh” sound when you walked.

“The eye holes in those masks never lined up with your actual eyes. We would push our tongue through the slit in the mask. We'd cut our tongue, but then we'd keep doing it again because we were, like, eating it up with, like, OCD and ADD, and nobody cared,” she joked.

She also noted that the costumes weren’t all that safe.

@kellymanno

In the 70s and 80s we trick or treated in garbage bags. We couldnt see out our masks, or breathe, but that didnt matter. It was the best night ever. #genx #oldermillennial #xennial #halloween #nostalgia #80skid #feralchildren #90skid #kellymanno

“Our parents took about three or four pictures of us a year, and Halloween was always one of them,” Manno explained. “You knew before you went out trick-or-treating, you had to line up with your cousins in front of the fireplace in your highly flammable costume with your mom, chain-smoking Virginia Slims like, ‘Say trick-or-treat!’”

The most popular manufacturer of these vinyl costumes from the ‘60s to the ‘80s was Ben Cooper. Sadly, after people began to demand higher-quality costumes in the late ‘80s and adults started to join in the fun, it couldn't get with the times and was purchased by Rubie's Costume Co., which dissolved the company.

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