NC mother goes viral on TikTok for searching through cemeteries to pick baby’s name
When picking a baby name, the possibilities seem endless — from family names to trendy names and more. But one North Carolina mother is going viral on TikTok for selecting the name of a stranger. From a cemetery.
In May, Haley Hodge and her family (@hodgehouse) shared a video searching for a name for their daughter among gravestones at Old Smithville Burying Ground in Southport.
Why a cemetery? Because they “hold the prettiest names,” she shared in their video. It’s also how her younger sister’s name came to be, from a Wilmington cemetery that she also checked for ideas.
“We were traveling in a place I’m familiar with…and we were walking past the cemetery so I was like, ‘Why don’t we just go in and see what names they have’ and it kind of just happened randomly,” the Cary mother told CharlotteFive. “It ended up being a real unique journey for us.”
While some thought it was a clever idea to choose a cemetery for inspiration, the family also received a lot of criticism from many who were a little more superstitious of the “dangerous game” they were taking part in.
“I couldn’t walk into a place of death when I’m creating a new life,” someone commented on her video — a sentiment many shared in the comments of her video.
In response, she explained that she has a more positive perspective on cemeteries, and doesn’t see them a place of death. As someone who grew up going to ghost tours with a “history buff” mother, Hodges said she “learned history through ghost stories.”
“To me, cemeteries are not necessarily scary,” she said on TikTok. “Cemeteries, to me, are more like a library of stories because every gravestone, every person had their own life, and I see a graveyard as a place to go and visit people.”
After sharing some standout names from their strolls through the cemetery in Southport and another in Wilmington — including James, Ella, Bellamy, Magdalene and Meares — the family revealed which one they decided on for their daughter: Salem, the name of man who served in the U.S. Coast Guard in WWII.
“Honestly, I just thought it was a really pretty name in itself,” Hodges told CharlotteFive. “The meaning behind it is peace and complete and safety, so I just thought that was really beautiful.”
Now, she and her husband are still thinking about what Salem’s middle name will be, and she’s not opposed to possibly going back to another cemetery for more name inspiration.
“I just love that we do have that history of going to cemeteries, and just the history aspect of it. I’ve just learned to love it, so tying in my own baby’s name with that love of history and how I grew up learning through a unique way, I think is really special,” she told CharlotteFive.
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