Registering baby with one name but using another

My mum and her cousins are all like this. And not shortened versions of their names, they are like pet names. We grew up knowing them as one thing then found out later their actual name is completely different!

My MiL had the same issue, Errol. A succession of carers and hospital staff called her by her first name when she always went by a (fairly unusual) diminutive of her middle name.

In fact, she was a straitlaced lady who would probably have preferred 'Mrs Sheep', to be honest.

In our family it was because boys were given the same name as the Dad and girls the same as the mum or gran. I guess in the US they used the suffix jnr but we just used middle name

There's a very serious point here. Hospitals etc really do need to ask for and use 'preferred names'. MiL was another who always went by her middle name because she hated her first name, but in the last couple of years of her life often ended up being called by it even after DH had told the staff what she should be called.

It's bizarre - the health system seems very aware of 'respecting pronouns' so why is calling older people by their familiar name evidently so hard?

My dad is Irish Catholic. He has three names on his birth certificate and has been called by the second of them all his life.

My dad was born in 1920, christened Victor Stanley. All his family and school friends called him Stan. When he met my mum she called him Vic, and my cousins on mum's side called him Uncle Vic, my cousins on my dad's side called him Uncle Stan! It was a bit confusing when I was small :)

My grandmother was registered as Sarah but known as Sally all her life. She was born in 1910. Sarah was a 'proper' name, Sally wasn't.

This is my father in law. His official name on his birth certficate is Philip William, but has been known since early childhood as Bill or Billy. I did ask once why they called him Philip in the first place and got a convoluted explanation about how Philip was a common name in the family so it had to be used for the first boy, and simultaneously how they had to use the middle name because there were so many other Philips in the family it got confusing.

It has been a problem several times during the years, he was once admitted to hospital quite unwell and the nurses were (quite reasonably) referring to him as Philip or Phil and he wasn't responding.

In past generations it was very very common to name people after older generations so I suppose if you have granny, mum and daughter all called Margaret or Mary you start using nicknames or middle names and it sticks. There was a much narrower pool of given names 100 or even 75 years ago so perhaps now where people choose more unusual names this isn't so much of an issue.

My great grandad went to wet the babies head on the way to register the birth, he forgot the names chosen and picked ones he liked. Grandmother was always know by the chosen names and the registered ones were only for official forms and the like.

My uncle is known by his third name. Apparently it just started as a joke on his father's part, but it stuck. It's a pity, really, as his first name is much nicer.

My nan hated her first name, so she used her middle name.

There was some confusion at her funeral when some of her cousins never knew.

Sending a hug

That's really moving, thank you.

My grandmother was Bernadette, always know as Kathy (apparently because Bernadette was too Irish).

In her care home with dementia they insisted on calling her Bernadette, which must have been confusing.

My mum has her mum’s name as her first name, and has gone by her middle name all her life. Don’t think this was very uncommon at the time.

My mil is known by a name which is similar to her birth certificate name..
Like Emma but known as Gemma.

It was common practice in the Royal family. I think it just became a fad at a certain time- and I’m a baby of that time 😬.
I have three first names.
I’m not called by any of them.
Have spent my whole life trying to explain this to people (cheers mum and dad 🤣)

I think my grandfather registered my mother's birth. My grandmother hated the first name he chose so mum was always known by her middle name (which was much nicer) by everyone from virtually day one, except as the poem says when admitted to hospital and we had to keep correcting them and in death.

My dad and nearly all his cousins had the same first name and are/were known by their middle names. Why, heaven knows, as it doesn't seem to be a common name further back in their family.

DH was called by his second name till he was 15 and then refused to answer to anything but his given name. Young friends of ours have just had a baby and she has two very old fashioned, posh sounding names but they also announced another name as the name she is to be know by. I can’t even remember what her given name is.

My parents go by their middle names. It was a Catholic thing were the done thing was to christen children by a saints name

I think it's in the book Lark Rise to Candleford that has a bit about how childrens names were always shortened (William - Billy, Elizabeth - Lizzy etc) so one child was named May because no one can shorten it and she'll always be called by her proper name.
She ends up being known as Mayie 🙂

My uncle is 76, has a very out there first name, uses his middle name because it's much more "normal"

I think it was quite common for eldest son/daughter to have the name if the parent but be known as something else such as second name or nickname.

@Sharptonguedwoman no don't delete it.
It's both sad and beautiful in a way 🙂

My mum is in her 70s and goes by her middle name as she was named after her mum so it meant there was no confusion.

i find it all very odd as her middle name is actually nicer than her first name.

The bizarrest one is a guy I know who is known as Ian but his name is actually John!