Don't want to use 'proper' name on birth certificate/passport

I am known by a nn and really dislike my full name. No one who knows me uses it not even my parents. But I get called it at the doctor's, whenever work make a list of names from HR records etc. When booking plane tickets for me I have to make sure friends are aware of the exact spelling etc.

When I started my current job my email address had already been set up as full name and I was introduced to everyone as full name. I spent the first week asking people to use my nn and requesting IT change my email address to my nn.

If you don't like a name and don't plan for your child to ever be called it, don't give it to them on their BC!

I don't understand why anyone would give their child a name that they don't like

Bonkers

Put the long name on the BC. Your child may well like it.

My name is Alexandra and everyone calls me Alex purely becasue I don't have a choice. I like my name but no one says it.

BUT I get very annoyed when people introduce me as Alex especially at work events and I get even more annoyed when I get reffered to as Alex on official correspondence and letters at work. Alex is my nn but I prefer my proper name to be used in fromal correspondence and on work documents.

DS has a short name on his birth certificate, not only that but it is also officially his middle name

yes and my advice is

• choose the name you are going to call them
• the only thing that makes any sense to put on the bc is that name
• if you are not going to put on the bc the name they are called, but something else, there is no particular reason to put not-his-actual-name-but-a-similar-name . you might as well put their name in french, or 'penelope' or 'ashraf' or 'nobdie' for all the difference it makes.

stubborn - but this is about what the parents start of calling the child/baby

what the person decides they want to be called later in life at either 5 when they go to school or 11 at secondary school or 18-19 at uni is up to them and they will choice or even later.

the op wants advice on what they do with the bc not what the child grows up to call themselves

people are tying themselves up in logical knots here.

in the mistaken belief that the name they put on the birth certificate is vitally important in determining what the child can later choose to call themseleves (to give them an option) ..... what they put on a birth certificate is DIFFERENT from the name they actually use for the baby.

thus demonstrating perfectly that the name on the birth certificate isn't that important!

• my baby is called Lizzie
• but, in order that she can call herself Beth later, on the bc I am going to write Elizabeth.

Well you might as well write 'Penelope'. whatever you write, she can still call herself Beth later if she wants to.

I have a 2 syllable name which nonetheless doesn't really shorten at all. I've never felt I had any choices re nicknames or anything - and does it matter? (I suppose I do have two middle names in case I'd hated the first name, but never really use them! And I gave my Kate a long, pretty middle name too!)

I'd still use the version of the name you are always going to use, but if OH is putting his foot down about it, I can't see the harm in having a long version too, but it might end up being pretty pointless if it's not going to be used!

simple - not smile

If you are always going to call

Tony, Tony - then why put Anthony

same with nellie, why put Helen on birth certificate

Or kitty, why put Catherine or kathyrn - why not just put Kitty

A bit like my MIL her name is jeannie - but her birth certificate states Rosalind, her mother liked the name Jeannie but they used Rosalind on her birth certificate - really odd to my mind but there you go. Just put on their birth certificate what you are going to call them seems the smile thing to do.

DD1 is Hattie on her BC and everyone assumes her 'full name ' is Harriet.DD2 is Felicity,but always known as Fliss/Filly.Perfectly acceptable to put shortened names on BC I would've thought.

I think you should use the full name on the birth certificate and then the child has the option of using it when he's older - a nn version might seem cute now but what about when he's grown man

This is PRECISELY why we chose names for our 3DCs that couldn't be easily shortened.

One name, full stop.

I am known as a shortened version of my full name and it's a total PITA. I'm always worrying what to put when booking flights etc - one day I'm bound to get it wrong.

I don't think it's a mumsnet obsession with using the full name because it's a lot bigger than mumsnet. It's the peculiarly British fear of being perceived as 'common' and not doing things the 'right' way.
My Mum still wishes ,36 years later, that she'd had the nerve to call me 'Molly' but she hated Margeret and didn't think you were 'allowed' to use the short form.
We're allowed to do whatever we like ,within reason (shithead was queried-seriously), and the world/society won't collapse. Have you been in a primary school recently? Names are changing!

See, now, I'm a Katy. On my bc. I was talking to the vicar the other day about getting DD christened and he asked me what Katy was short for. He couldn't get his head round my 'real' name not being Catherine. Which is the first time I've come across that in around since I was about 11.

My parents were never going to refer to me as Catherine in any context and they preferred Katy to Catherine anyway. As it turns out, I'm the least likely
Catherine ever. I couldn't imagine being any other name. I'm not even a Kate, so they obviously got my name right.

You don't have to use the 'full' version of a name for it to be a 'real' name.

FWIW my nan is a Peggy not Margaret, and my cousin is a Chris not Christopher. I know plenty of Millies not Millicent or Amelia. And a Jim and Jamie not James. So it's not that uncommon either.

if you prefer the short name and are never going to use the long form then i can't see why you need to put the longer version on the bc. peoples opinion seems to be if you put the longer version on his official documents he then has more options that is to use the short or long form but surely the reverse holds true if you use the truncated form , he surely can also elongate his name as an adult even if it is not on his birth cert .

fwiw using the short forms of their names doesn't seem to have done tony blair , bill clinton or nick clegg any harm

he doesn't need to have it written on his birth certificate to give him the choice ... he can call himself any name he likes, regardless.

ds2 has full name on birth certificate and we had no intention of ever using it, only once in the hospital has it ever been used and then it was by mistake because the nurse hadn't bothered reading the short form in brackets afterwards.

He took his first external exam last year and the certificate has the short form on it so I don't think it need ever be an issue

We only put the long version on the birth certificate to give him the choice when he was older.

it makes no difference what's on your birth certificate.
Pick a friend of yours - any friend - no, what's written on her birth certificate?

you have no idea.

Even if he has 'Archie' or whatever the name is on his birth certificate, it doesn't stop him from deciding to call himself Archibald as an adult if he wants to sound like a pompous twat serious and professional.

Go with full name on the BC.
I reckon people make names their own. So much so that you forget that the name was ever anything else to you but that person.
My aunt was adamant that her son would be Matthew -- nothing less. She turned her nose up at "Matt".
He is now (30+ years later) called Matt by all and sundry. And even aunt doesn't mind (though I'd faint if she ever called him "Matt").

"Our daughter is called Kate. I had no intention of ever calling her Kaitlyn or Katherine, so went for the name I liked. ..... I just don't see the point of giving a different name when we like the short one!"

See, that could be my parents talking. But it was my name, and had I been given Katherine I would have had an array of options - instead of being stuck with just the one monosyllable. I posted to this effect earlier on.

The child is the one who should be considered, and should be given options in this sort of case.

I was about to say the same as lotsofnicesweeties! Our daughter is called Kate. I had no intention of ever calling her Kaitlyn or Katherine, so went for the name I liked. My friend has a daughter called Hetty, not short for anything, and strongly agrees that you should just register the child with the name you are always going to use. In my opinion both of these are quite strong, standalone names anyway, but I just don't see the point of giving a different name when we like the short one! This seems to be a very unpopular view, but makes sense to me!