A woman on Reddit has issued a tongue-in-cheek public service announcement on behalf of everyone named Annie—and thousands of people can relate.
The post, shared by user mushroomqueenie, went viral after earning more than 21,000 upvotes in under 24 hours. Titled “I speak for all women named Annie when I say this,” the January 7 post lays out all the comments, jokes and assumptions she’s heard over the years.
She wrote: “Yes, we are okay,” pointing to the chorus of Michael Jackson’s 1987 hit “Smooth Criminal,” which famously repeats: “Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay?”
She continued: “Yes, we know the sun will come out tomorrow,” a nod to the song from the musical Annie, in which the title character sings “the sun will come out tomorrow.”
Despite the name’s deep presence in American pop culture, data shows it has never been a popular name. According to Social Security Administration statistics, 1,564 baby girls were named Annie in 2024, representing just 0.088 percent of all female births.
The post continued: “No, you are not clever for making those connections. Yes, I have heard it every time I meet a new person. You are not the smooth criminal who struck me.”
To help others understand her frustration, she later added a simple scenario: “Imagine you’re working as a cashier and an item won’t scan and the customer says ‘Well, it must be free!’ Same feeling.”
Reddit Reacts
The thread now has nearly 4,000 comments, with hundreds of people sharing similar stories about name-related jokes that never seem to die.
“Annie, this post suggests you are in fact not OK,” one user commented, earning more than 6,000 likes.
“I feel it. My name’s Victoria. I get asked about my secrets a lot,” another woman wrote, alluding to the lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret.
A third user described dealing with nonstop references to Neil Diamond’s 1969 hit “Sweet Caroline”: “As I’ve gotten older, i can deal with the annoying sweet Caroline references but as a kid it would make me so uncomfortable when adults would start enthusiastically singing it to me. My parents let me go by my middle name for a lot of my childhood because people really don’t listen when a kid says they’re uncomfortable but of course, people would ignore that and demand my ‘real name’ and the cycle would start again.”
While none of these names are particularly unusual, the reactions highlight something parents might want to bear in mind: cultural associations can follow a child for life.
What Parents Should Consider
A Gen Z mom previously told Newsweek: “My biggest piece of advice for people wanting an unusual or unique name for their kid is to give it to yourself for a week. Use it in a coffee shop, and listen to how it sounds when another adult calls out your name.
“Go yell it off your back porch and see if it sounds ridiculous. Imagine it on the door of a CEO’s office. Does it look silly? Does it sound insane? If so, don’t do that to your child.”
Her point mirrors the sentiment behind mushroomqueenie’s viral post: sometimes the cultural baggage attached to a name becomes part of a person’s everyday life—whether they asked for it or not.
Newsweek reached out to u/mushroomqueenie for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.