Announce birth with full name or nickname or both?

"As someone with a long full name which has been shortened to a nn from birth, I PLEAD with you to include her nn in the announcement. I am now 24 and in my last year of university and am STILL correcting people."

How would your birth announcement change what people at university call you?

Dexter, I found out ds was a ds at 3 months. We had a name for him already so started to use it. And over the last 6 months of pregnancy we started shortening it to a nickname we liked. So when he was born we put down his full name (which we still love and use) but continued to refer to him by his nickname about 50% of the time.

Some people may prefer to call her Florence, anyway. I know a Florence, known to most people as Flossie, but I always call her Florence, as it's such a lovely name.

Full name. It would be a bit weird to announce her name and then at the same time tell people to call her another.

It's a compulsion Dexter. :o My son is Sam, knew he was always going to be Sam, didn't like Samson or Samuel, etc. But I could not physically bring myself to just put Sam. I just couldn't! So he is Samuel Robert on his bc and I quite like Samuel now.

We went with Fishina Belinda Smith (Fish). Because I really, really disliked the common abbreviation of dd's name and planned to avoid it from the beginning.

Full name with nn in brackets and then surname.

Full name definitely. I really don't understand this giving a child one name intending they be called another. If that's what you want why not call them by the actual name you're going to use!???

A friend of mine who has the same views has a son called Ben and that is what is on the birth certificate. She really couldn't see the point of putting 'Benjamin' on the BC when he was going to be called Ben.

Florence Middlename Etcetera ("Floss").

I would send cards and not a mass text, as texts are more throwaway and forgettable and punctuation is less noticeable, which will lead to people calling her Flo, Florrie, Flossie, etc.

Full name with nickname in brackets after. It's helpful to know what the parents are intending to actually CALL the baby.

As someone with a long full name which has been shortened to a nn from birth, I PLEAD with you to include her nn in the announcement. I am now 24 and in my last year of university and am STILL correcting people.

Depends if you are only planning to call her 'Floss' and not Florence - otherwise it will annoy you if people refer to her as Florence!

We announced ds's name as his nickname as he never gets his full name - was only for purposes of birth cert (although it has taken school 3 yrs to stop calling him by his full name grrr!).

We called DD3 Georgina, but only with the intention of calling her Georgie. Georgina is for being in trouble, getting married etc. However, as we announced her as Georgina a lot of people insisted on calling her that for ages (especially my MIL, but I think that was just to wind me up).

The flip side of that though it that as we only ever call her Georgie or even George, a lot of people think she is called GeorgiA and call her that, which is very awkward to correct when you don't actually ever use the child's full name in the first place.

We can't ever actually win can we :)

Oh and DD1 is called Kate, but we often call her Katie, which also sends everyone's heads spinning...

A friend recently announced on FB that her DD Evangeline (Evie) Gertrude Fothrington-Smythe had arrived, weighing 14lb 10oz - Mum and babe are doing well, etc, etc...'

I think that is fine.

One the other hand, DS has been known by a diminutive since day 1, which wasn't actually planned in advance, it just happened that way - we obviously didn't announce him thus, and he continues to be known the the shortened version and only the shortened version ever since.

What happens when he gets to school is anyone's guess but he IS the shortened version (so much so, that his actual name feels like the name of someone else), so all this talk of parents not being able to decide on their DCs' nicknames isn't necessarily true.

*Details changed to protect the innocent.

I think it is perfectly fine to announce that Florence (Floss) Surname was born on XX day, etc. That way people know that you'd like Floss to be her nn - of course you can't control it, but at least people will know. I know someone recently who did this, as the nn's for this particular name were many, and they wanted to indicate their preference. Having said that I much prefer the full name to the nn, and so call the baby that - I am assuming that they like the full name as otherwise, why would you choose it?

I would say 'happy to welcome Florence' then go on to say 'Mummy and Floss are both doing fine' or something.

I would add the NN if you don't actually like the name Florence & don't want people to call her that. I know that sounds odd - why would you give your baby a name you don't like? However, I do know a couple of people who have chosen (or been persuaded into choosing) names they really do not like purely because they do like the NN & choosing the full name will keep their DH/DM/grandmother/aunt/uncle/butchers cousin happy . Basically, if you are going to wince everytime you hear the full name then you should announce the NN. Otherwise, I'd agree with all those saying announce the full name & let the NN come naturally .

Congratulations BTW!

I would put both: Florence MNs SN, to be known as Floss.

Even if the nn evolves later, it starts out with your preferred version.

What I did - with both my sons - is put the nickname in the announcement texts, e. g. Florence Middlename Surname (Floss) was born today, 7 Feb, weighing...
I put the full name on the cards but always wrote "Thank you for your congratulations on [Nickname]'s birth".
This way most people got the hint!
And while it's true that nicknames evolve, to begin with you as a parent do control what your child is called. My first son has a long name with several nickname options so I wanted to be sure people use the "right" one ;)

If you think that's what you'll call her for sure, I'd put

Florence "Floss" Surname

Congratulations!

I would put both! Set out your stall from the start.

Florence (Floss). My friend did this for her baby boy and everyone knew straight away what she wanted him known by.

Def full name