Do you think you can sort of 'force' a nickname?

Why not just call your baby the name you want them to be called? Why have a different one just for their birth certificate?

For those saying why not just put the short form on the BC, I did know a Debbie who was Debbie rather than Deborah on the BC, she did have problems when filling out official forms or in formal situations where putting Debbie was queried.

My daughter has always been known as a shortened version of her name, although it was the recognised short form of the name. We gave the full name in the birth announcement and added the nickname preceded by “ to be known as”

I think because the nickname they chose was a bit 'childish' (like Sweetie or Poppet) and they might have realised that although they loved it, she might want a more professional grown up name for whatever adult career she followed.

So why call her 'Grace'? Why didn't they just put Lala on her birth certificate!?

I know a girl whose 'known as' name bears no relationship at all in either sound or spelling to her official first name from Day One. e.g Her name is Grace Anderson. She's known as Lala.

It was just presented on her birth announcement cards. The Anderson family are delighted to announce the arrival of baby Grace Mary Anderson, to be known as Lala

Lala is now a teenager and as far as I know has never been known as Grace except on a few more official things. It doesn't seem to have caused anyone any confusion.

@Fozzleyplum I’d never heard of it as a nn for Christopher until I watched ‘Upstart Crow’. In my area it would never be used, always Chris. I went to school with loads of Christophers and they were either ‘Chris’ or a nn based on their surname or sometimes an unfortunate occurrence. One lad got chewing gum stuck in his hair and was known as ‘chewy head’, ‘chewy’ or ‘chuddy’ for most of high school.

I know a Bill (who's name is Nicholas) and Ben (Andrew) I never knew their actual given names until I went to their weddings!!

As an aside, no one here is ever know as ‘Kit’ for Christopher, it’s always, always ‘Chris’. Kids will make their own nicknames for each other anyway.

My Christopher is known universally as Kit, not Chris - and has been for all of his 18 years.

You can definitely do this!

My dd has a full formal name but we shorten it, it is a normal derivative of the longer name though

@Classica A friend of mine didn’t know her correct middle name for years. She always thought it was another name that she’d misheard and kind of rhymes with her actual middle name (like Kaye/Faye). It was only when she’d written her full name on her school book that her DM pointed it out 😂.

As an aside, no one here is ever know as ‘Kit’ for Christopher, it’s always, always ‘Chris’. Kids will make their own nicknames for each other anyway.

My parents tried for me but no one has ever used it and they gave up in the end! I have a nn for DS1 but I'm the only one who uses it. Exh tried to call him by the usual shortened nn on our way from hospital but I said I didn't want anyone calling him that - yep everyone does! 🤭

Our daughter is known by her nickname. Most people don’t even know her full name or that her nickname isn’t her real name. It’s not a natural nick name for her full name.
However it’s a nickname for several other longer names which we didn’t like. But the nickname is my most favoured ever name. So she is known only by nickname but has a beautiful full name should she ever wish to use it and sound more professional.

I know a number of children which nick names, which are their full names. And whilst this might work for some people. I wonder if it will affect them if they end up a very professional environment. I would love to think no one would judge on a name. But unfortunately I’m not sure.

Bevan is nothing to do with the name Ben misses point of thread.

Unless you say the name then we can't say if it's silly or not. I know a Arnold as they wanted to call him Arnie and a Rupert known as Ru. I hate nicknames.

I have an 18 year old Christopher/Kit; when we named him, the Christopher/Kit thing was very unusual. We used Kit from birth, and that is the name he goes by. I just told people he was Kit, short for Christopher, and very few people have ever called him Chris.

Choose the name you want to call your baby. Once they are old enough to have opinions (MUCH younger than you think) they choose their own nickname.
So don’t choose any name you don’t like all possible variations of.

Oh for heavens sake just put Ben on the certificate. I don’t understand why people have to make it so complicated:

We planned to do this. We liked the name Dominic (this was before scumbag Cummings hit the news) but not keen on the nn Dom so we planned to introduce him to everyone as Nico (Dominic) Middle name Surname.
Fortunately we had a girl instead so we were saved the explanations

Yup - our son has his full name on his birth certificate, but goes by a shortened variant everywhere.

When DD2 was born we just announced her as “Ben**, born at 3pm weight 6lb”
Some people (MIL) managed to spell it wrong and was quite shaken when we told her that there was a longer name on her birth certificate, despite it being a completely standard name and nickname.
She reverted to her full name as an elder teen

Yes you can absolutely do this. One of my kids is known day to day (including all their labels at school etc) by a name that I'm not even sure is officially a 'nickname' for their birth certificate name! We just introduced them as that name from birth, but we wanted them to have a more formal name on their birth certificate.

They do know their proper name as well though!

I know lots of people, including DB, who are known by their second name. They are always called by their second name and introduce themselves by their second name. But wherever their passport name is used they have to remember they have a different name! So it’s just a matter of usage IME

I remember reading an interview with Kit thingy from Game of Thrones (Jon Snow) who said he didn't find out his official name was Christopher until he was about 11 years old. Not sure if he was just a particularly unobservant and unquestioning child but it shows it can work

Yup, worked for my DS.

IMO nicknames are something like a Ben who goes by Benjybean or Spike.

My son is for example William but goes by Liam instead of the usual Will/Billy (Not that name, a less obvious shortening).

We just said from the start, ‘this is Liam (William) John Jones, 8lb10 born 10am 10/7/21’ and that was that.