When the internet found out a mum-of-five called two of her kids Jackdaniel and Tiamarie, there were plenty of people who (of course) had a lot to say about it.
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However, Sarah Mennell has since hit back at the trolls by explaining that they have nothing to do with booze – it was all just a coincidence.
The 35-year-old, who is teetotal herself, told Hull Live that she chose them because people “can’t all have boring names”. She’s really stuck to her guns with this one – her other three kids are called Sydneyrae, Princess and Albert.
And although the first two appear to be alcohol-related, Jackdaniel, 12, is named after a Canadian runner and Tiamarie, 11, is named after a Spanish waitress. She said:
We didn’t just pluck them out of thin air one night after a drink. No alcohol or drinks are behind the kids’ names.
We didn’t drink until around five months ago, when we decided to start having one night out as a married couple a month, so we are definitely not alcoholics.
We are just a hard working family who literally like a twist in names, nothing special about it and not alcohol related. But it’s surprising how quick people are to judge. But now we just laugh it off and run with it.
It’s quite the conversation starter when were out and about usually, but it’s actually surprising how many boys are called Jackdaniel in some way or another and we know quite a few Tiamaries now.
Tiamarie was actually decided on our first family holiday as a waitress was called Tiamarie in Spain.
It was Spanish and my husband’s parents Caroline and Albert used to go quite a lot so we decided on Tiamarie.
We didn’t know at first, as Tia Maria is the drink, not Tiamarie, we just thought it’s different, not the normal names flying around everywhere, but the names stuck and we weren’t going to change it to please others”.
Jackdaniel is named after an athlete. When we were having Jack I don’t know I was pregnant.
I went into hospital bleeding and it didn’t look good, he was a fighter and even though I was bleeding his legs was kicking like mad on the scan, so he got his name from the great running coach Jackdaniel because he survived this and is here today.
We thought it was funny because the team would put ‘powered by Jackdaniel’ on their backs.
Jackdaniel knows this and always has. And funnily enough he is a runner and recently did the Humber Half Marathon for his rugby team.”
No one forgets their names easily and the kids have middle names double barrelled so it’s up to them what name they would like to be called.
On paperwork or applications when he is older, he would simply use Mr JD Thomas Mennell.
Tiamarie Louise can be used as Tia or Marie or Louise, it’s her choice, her close friends call her Tia. The amount of unusual names used now it’s nothing new, it’s just times are changing and so are names.
Well, you can’t knock the originality of it all. Certainly beats your bog-standard Harry and Sally (no offence to all the Harry’s and Sally’s out there).
And if you are going to go down the ‘named after a drink’ route (on purpose or not), at least they’re slightly more subtle than Lambrini.
