To think you shouldn’t call your child Alexander if you don’t like the name Alex?

I also once went out with a Dave whose mum said she hated the name Dave but loved David, seriously what did she think was going to happen?!

I have an Alex. Personally I prefer Alex and he was always intended to be Alex however he is christened Alexander so that he had the choice to chose which form he wants to use.
However I personally hate Xander, Zan or Alec 😬

His sister is the same, I prefer her full name but she chooses to use the shortened form now which is her choice.

I 100% agree OP. Parents need to realise that they pick the name but they do not own it, it is their child’s to do with as they wish.

They’re fucking weird, I mean fine if you prefer a different version but acting surprised at hearing the common shortened version is completely weird.

They're being ridiculous.

It’s different because your partner told you to call him Alex but I can see why his mum isn’t happy with the change. However, I have dated a man in the past who told me his name was John/everyone called him John and I said I preferred Jonathan so that’s what I called him.

Not the same name but my partners family are the same with his name (this Joseph/Joe). They constantly correct me despite the fact I call him the name that HE USES! It's infuriating they won't recognise his preference over his own name.

Maybe but he’s only one right now so time will tell but I’m quick to correct anyone calling him Alex. I think I’m so against it because I wasn’t 100% on naming him Alexander as I didn’t want it shortened to Alex but my partner really pushed for it and I compromised as long as we ensured he doesn’t become Alex. If he grows up and tells his future friends and girlfriend to call him Alex I’ll be upset but it’s his choice, I will still call him Alexander though.

DH is called by his middle name by his family and his first name by everyone else.That takes some getting used to!

I'm called by my nickname, but I like having my full name for posh. I used to use my full name at work and my nickname outside work. So as well as kicking off my work shoes when I came home, I kicked off my work name too. So that's why I'd be quite happy giving my DC the full name and calling them by a shortened name.

And Xander is such a shit name! It’s like the parents are trying too hard to make a name “interesting”. It’s not.

Xan/Xander sound like the knobbiest names. Team alex

Jesus. You sure you want to stay with this guy? Because his mother sounds like she will be the MIL from hell.

DS is Alexander. We've tried lots of shortened versions over the years...Xander never really worked and now he's Alex to his mates & for hobbies. I call him Ander & so does my dsis - from when he was really little. He tolerates it most of the time

Surely there comes a point when that isn't up to you and is up to him though?

Ha ha, my brother is Alexander and we call him Zan/Xan. His friends call him Alex though and I think he's Alex at work.
My aunty and cousins must think he needs his Sunday name and always call him Alexander.

I have an Alexander and I am with your partner’s mum on this! His name is ALEXANDER or Xander or Xandy and I do not like it when I tell people his name and they automatically assume and shorten it to Alex. That’s not his name!!! Never has been and never will be.

She probably got bullied into Alexander so he had a "proper" name.

See it all the time here on baby name boards. "Don't call him Eddie, he absolutely must have Edward on the BC!!"

I faintly see what his family means, being taken aback by Alex, if that's never what he has been called by them.

I'm an Elizabeth. My family all call me Beth. But at uni I somehow became Liz and that stuck and now all my friends from age 18+ know me as Liz and my family and childhood friends call me Beth. Mum still gets a bit of a surprise when I get referred to as Liz, but she isn't a prat about it, which I guess is the difference!

They should have just called me Beth but I guess in the 90s it wasn't the done thing to have just a Nickname?

Sadly no one has ever caught on to calling me Betty, which I always fancied for some reason 😆

I've always had a liking for Bobert!

I prefer the longer version of my son's name and have never shortened it.
Everyone calls him by the longer version.

However his new girlfriend called him by a shorter version the other day and I heard him say "ooh don't let my mum hear you call me that!". I put him right. It's his name, if he's happy with her using the shortened version, then that's up to him, it's not my decision!

Your boyfriends mum needs to cut the chord and grow up

Start calling him either Alec, Sandy or Eck all of which my Grandad answered to

@PoorlyBlah your comment really tickled me 🤣

She wishes she'd called him Xander instead?

Is anybody actually officially called Xander - as in on their birth certificate? Isn't it just a quite posh nickname for somebody named Alexander?

DH has a similar name that can be shortened in several ways - think Robert, Rob, Bob, Bert etc. I first knew him as Bob; it's what he uses himself and how he introduced himself when we first met.

Turns out his parents and family all default to Rob but they do know that he goes by Bob now and will happily switch between both depending on where we are and what we are doing.

Furthermore, turns out that he switched to Bob when he went to uni and there were lots of Robs, and he has several good mates called that. Meant that at my wedding, FIL came over to ask some questions about how Rob was doing and have a chat. We are not close to him; I hadn't met him many times at that point and I knew that he also knew a couple of Bob's mates. Ended up having a long conversation at complete cross purposes about Rob when actually FIL meant about Bob... Took quite a while to realise that the conversation had got strange when I answered a question and said we would need to check with his wife for dates only for FIL to say but you married him an hour ago, how can you not know, you're his wife, why are you talking like it's someone else?! 🙄😂

IN my defence, the rest of his family tended to use Bob a lot and rarely used Rob, especially when I was around. It was just his dad who was low contact with the family that still stuck to always calling him Rob regardless. And I don't think they had ever had a strong attachment to the name Rob, it was just what they had defaulted to and DH had changed at uni for practicality and I guess a chance to be a bit different!