Baby Name Chalkboard List

Confirmed 60,308

About

Baby Name Chalkboard List is a viral image macro of a pregnant white woman named McKinli Hatch standing next to a list of uncommon baby names that have been written on a chalkboard. Since the image went viral, the woman in the photograph, McKinli Hatch, has posted numerous variations of her chalkboard list.

Origin

On January 29th, 2012, Blogspot^[1] user mommyslittlesunshine posted the original image in a post about choosing a name for her then-unborn child (shown below).

Spread

Over the next year, the image began appearing on various websites as an example of uncommon and humorous baby names. On June 10th, 2013, a BuzzFeed ^[2] list included the image in a listicle entitled "10 Things Only Utahns Know."

Three days later, Redditor^[3] thedictatorscut posted the image in the /r/cringepics subreddit. The post received more than 3,800 points (91% upvoted) and 1,700 comments in six years.

The following year, Tumblr ^[4] user tikkunolamorgtfo posted the image with the caption "I don’t ever want to see a fucking white person complain about Quvenzhané Wallis’ name being a 'burden' ever again." The post received more than 47,000 notes in five years.

Despite the criticisms, Hatch continued to use format to announce baby names. On July 6th, 2016, she posted a version on Instagram ^[5] for her unborn child Tatum. The post received more than 1,600 likes in three years (shown below, left).

On May 31st, 2019, she posted a variation on Instagram^[6] for her dog Maverick. In this version, Hatch seemingly plays into the some of the jokes made about her, captioning the image "Hey internet, how did I do this time!? 😏" The post received more than 5,100 likes in less than two weeks (shown below, right).

Following her two most recent posts, people continued to mock the format. On March 30th, 2019, Twitter ^[7] user @bonerhitler posted the images of the first two photographs with the caption "Someone needs to take the chalkboard away from this lady…" Within three months, the image received 62,000 likes and 8,700 retweets (shown below, left). Two months later, on June 2nd, Twitter^[8] @jodieegrace tweeted the first photograph and the photograph with Maverick the dog. She captioned the post, "she's back." In less than one week, the post received more than 21,000 likes and 2,000 retweets (shown below, right).

On June 5th, BuzzFeed^[9] published an interview with Hatch. In their conversation, she said, "Some people will like the name selection and some won't, but either way I love my children's names that I chose and that is really all that matters."