#Including a cringey ill-advised “Karma” phase

[noyzinerd]

Eli's Name Headcanon

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of the "Eli being named after Stiles' abusive grandpa" theory, and the whole "Eli comes from s-t-'I-L-E'-s spelled backwards" feels like a big stretch to me.

So, here's what I suggest:

Instead of Elias, Eli is actually short for a crazy-long, Polish/Spanish-mishmash name--a combination of Stiles and Derek's roots--(either by a single-parent Derek, who had been pining for Stiles like crazy, or by Stiles who wanted to carry on his family's tradition of naming your kid a mouth-nightmare). Maybe something like:

Iljuszeczkamierz "Eli"(Stilinski-) Hale

(I would like to think that Stiles would probably make a convincing argument about wanting Eli to experiment around with his name to find what truly suits him, like how Stiles had his "Mischief" phase as a kid before settling on "Stiles". Eli probably went through an "Illya" phase, an "Illy" phase, maybe he even tried "Zack" and "Amir" for like a day, before the name "Eli" just clicked into place and he got that excited, giddy feeling of "Yep. That's the one. That's who I am.")