Birth announcement - full name?

[NC2025]

Facing a bit of a dilemma with how we will announce our new baby when they’re born and wondering if you could help. One of our top names is a shortened version of a longer name (think along the lines of Billy(William) or Tom(Thomas) or Sam(Samantha) etc.

I would rarely if ever use the full name, would it be strange to announce in our text message to friends/family just the shortened version or do you think we should put the long version in brackets? Or perhaps say “to be known as…”

thank you!

Yes, say 'We are proud to welcome William Robert Jones, to be know as Billy-Bob'

I would announce just the shortened version.

Use the full name and "to be known as".

Shortened version. Start off with the name you want the babu known by!

Thank you! We are still debating whether to use the full version at all…I really am not a huge fan but love the short version!

I’d say the full name and to be known as, due to the fact that many of our family members assumed a baby was called one long version of the name, when it was another.

I'd say long name & known as

I’d go with it like William Henry Smith “Billy”.

Short version - I hate the long version of my name.

Wish I was just the short version

I hate being called it by professionals and cringe when it comes up on a screen and no idea why- it's a perfectly normal name.

Our daughter’s name is like this and we announced as ‘William ‘Billy’ Henry Smith’. People have always used the shortened version (although we like the long version too so no issue if she’s called that).

That reassures me, as we are debating whether to even use the long version or not. I don’t like it and I would never call the child it so perhaps just the short version (which I love!) happy to tell people the name if you want to PM for some more views (but I have some friends on here so don’t want to post in the thread!)

I like this approach with the “!

If you don't like the full version of the name, then why even bother putting it on the birth cert never mind telling everyone it?

This is what I keep asking myself! I feel people will just assume that’s their full name so I may as well just give it…?

I had the same dilemma with my eldest. I wanted her to be called a shortened version of a longer name, but really didn’t like another shortened version - for example I wanted Lottie from Charlotte, but really really not Charlie (this isn’t her name!). My dad said just call her the shortened version, so I did!

I'd just go Sam (Samantha) Smith. But if you really don't like the long version maybe don't bother. Although people will assume it is "really" the long version according to my friend Jenny NOT a Jennifer.

We had this and said ‘Say hello to William (Billy) Smith’. Everyone calls him by his shortened name 😊

If our baby turns out to be a boy we are also giving him a name that will be a diminutive of the very normal name he’ll have on paper. Not actually occurred to me how I would announce it until I saw this thread though!

My child has the diminutive on her birth certificate as that was the name we wanted to give her. If you don’t love the long version, consider that it will be easier to correct a few erroneous assumptions than to escape from what is his or her legal name.

If you don’t really like the long version just go with the name you love, plus then you control the shortened version. I loved Alexander for my ds but wanted nn Xander, dh preferred Lex and we I’m sure everyone else would have gone with Alex, so as a result Alexander is his middle name.

If it's a newspaper announcement then go for William (Bill) Thomas Smith.
If less formal, then Bill Smith.

DD has a name which could be a shortened version but is a name in its own right (think Sam/Samuel) we had a few people asking when she was first born If it was short for Samuel, said no, moved on, job done. Now it's never mentioned.

I know a few who have th shortened version and it is never questioned whereas I know others who are long name at school, short name at home and I find it weird, just have one name

If .you dont even like that long name why on earth would you consider using it?!

You have no authority over what people will call your child I'm afraid so don't use the long name on the birth certificate if you hate it! You'll literally spend their whole childhood with it grating.

It depends how formal the text announcement is to be. I would never text my family anything close to formal unless would be like 'omfg' Bob has arrived - look how cute his wee face is.

If you are going 'proud to announce the birth of' then I would put the full name and known as but if you are just casually texting family then I would just give the short

We announced William (Billy) Smith, similar to you I don’t love “William”, but I dislike diminutives as legal names even more. One person put “William Smith” on a personalised blanket, but otherwise he’s always been referred to as Billy.

I’m known as a diminutive of my registered long name (professionally as well as personally), the only issue it ever caused was when I registered with my professional body as “long name” and when I sign certain documents this has to match - my team always forget that they need to draft these with my full name as signatory. Otherwise it’s a non-issue, there’s a “known as” section on most medical forms etc but if someone refers to me as long name I’ll still answer.