Nutella Refuses Personalized Jar for Little Girl Named Isis, and Her Mom is Furious

nutellaUp until just a couple years ago, Isis was a perfectly lovely name for a little girl. Isis was primarily associated with an Egyptian goddess, and plenty of little girls were given that name. It was also the name of the spy organization in Archer and Lord Grantham’s beloved yellow Labrador on Downton Abbey.

But the rise of Daesh–commonly referred to as ISIS or ISIL in the media–has overshadowed that mythology. Now bookshops named after the Egyptian goddess are receiving hate mail, Archer and his coworkers went to work for the CIA, and the world is full of women and little girls who are now getting some nasty side-eye for having what was, at the time of their births, a perfectly normal name.

One mother in Australia is particularly put-out by the difficulties her five-year-old daughter has been facing. Five years ago “Isis” was a lovely and slightly unusual name, but not one that a person would blink at. Today, however, she gets dirty looks constantly, and forget getting her daughter any kind of personalized toys or bicycle license plates. She was recently even rejected from getting a jar of Nutella, because her daughter’s name was “too sensitive.”

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Nutella was offering personalized jars for the holidays. When Heather Taylor’s sister tried to buy some jars for her nieces and nephews, the store initially rejected her order because Taylor’s children’s names–Odhinn and Isis–were flagged by the computer as potentially unacceptable. And while Odhinn’s jar was eventually approved, the store manager said they would not be putting Isis’ name on one.

“Like all campaigns, there needs to be consistency in the way terms and conditions are applied,” said Nutella parent company Ferrero Rocher in a statement. “Unfortunately, this has meant there have been occasions where a label has not been approved on the basis that it could have been misinterpreted by the broader community or viewed as inappropriate.”

Heather Taylor–who named her children after Norse and Egyptian gods–is pretty angry about the whole thing. Not being able to get a jar of Nutella is a pretty small problem in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just one more straw on the camel’s back for a mother whose daughter has been getting strange looks for her name. Taylor says she’s been trying to shield her daughter from headlines and news reports, but it’s not going to work for long. It really is an awkward situation for that little girl, who at five is probably too young to understand what is going on.

“I am starting to get to the point where I don’t want to call her name out,” she said. “Because she’s going to start noticing people looking.”

 

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