to be mildly irritated at childminder shortening my dc's name

[nicknameshame]

not the biggest crime in the world i know but annoying me!

Calling your child a name with a common shortening that sets your teeth on edge is really really not a sensible thing to do. Apart from anything else, that is most certainly the shortening the child is going to choose for himself the minute he can express a preference!

Not necessarily, seeker. That is quite an assumption.
I'm a teacher and have taught plenty of children old enough to express an opinion who still prefer the longer version of their name. And everyone respects that.

Sorry that should have said "almost certainly"

And I was basing it on my knowledge of Sod's Law and the contrariness of children!

DD1 has a name with a shortened version and I was the one to shorten it first but she explicitly said she prefers that name.

DDs's dad chose her name. It has a shortened version which I dislike so I call her by the full version and so far, so does she. I've never heard anyone shorten it but she is a bossy strong-minded character so would probably correct anyone

Am resigned to the fact she may shorten it to one of two possibilities when older - I loathe both but it's her name.

I think a friendly word with the CM would be fine - "would you mind not shortening X's name? (big smile)"

I have the opposite. When DD was born we gave her a first name and a middle name. Her first name is X, and her middle name is Y (well, you know what I mean). My neighbour insists on referring to her as XY despite the fact that only X is her given name.
I blame TOWIE and similar for creating stupid names like Kitty-Boo. And apologies to anyone who has a DC called Kitty Boo.

I have two friends who insist everyone use the long versions of their Dcs names. Joseph and Benedict. I find it odd. Especially anything 3 syllables or more. Do they really expect to get thru school without it being shortened?

I suppose I am the opposite. We chose the shortened versions of the names to call our DTS but registered them as the long versions for situations requiring gravitas in later life!

I called my son Finley. Very cute when he was little, but now he is nearly 11 I can honestly say it makes me cringe to hear him called Finley, he has been 'Fin' to me since he was about 4!

I think it's worth worrying about if it bothers the child. For example, my sister's name is Rebecca - she shortens it to Bex most of the time but the full version is quite alright too. Becca is reserved mostly for me because she's been Becca to me way longer than she's been Bex. The nickname she hates with unbridled passion, however, is Becky - never ever call her that. She had teachers who insisted on calling her Becky regardless, which seems grossly unfair and dismissive of her identity. When called on it, they said they refused to use nicknames for pupils!

(meanwhile I am a Rachael and a surprising amount of people call me Rebecca by mistake, even if they don't know I have a sister. People are weird. But then I've been called Richard in e-mails more than is reasonable...)

I bet even more of them spell it Rachel :)

I love Rachael and Rachel, but DH wouldn't consider it for our little girl.

I confess to denying the existence of one of my brothers when someone asked if I was Andy's sister, I said no and it was only minutes later I realised that they meant my brother Andrew - he was always known by his full name to family but everyone else (wife, friends & colleagues) knew him as Andy. I had to go back and say "...actually yes I am his sister" I think they thought I was mad!

ps CommanderShepard - I'm a Rachael too and am often called Rebecca by mistake - don't know what that's all about!

Red MY DC is called Kitty-Boo

How very dare you.

My sil must really be a ball of fury if calling little ones anything but their given name is such a disrespectful act, because we call the nephew every possible variation on his name. She sucks it up if she doesn't like it though, which is probably the wisest course.

You can't control everything, and I think YABU if you try. This is a small thing and if I were going to complain to a childminder, I think I'd wait for a proper problem. If this is the total of your complaint - that she's too familiar in the name she uses - I'd leave it if the child is happy, healthy and unabused. If this is the worst thing that happens in the childminder's care, be an extremely happy woman.

I have the same name as commander's sister. I don't mind it being shortened much out of work but at work, I like the full name. I always introduce myself as such and it drives me bonkers when people shorten it. My married surname begins with a B too and it just sounds twee . I do correct people who automatically shorten it at work - I find it irritating and a tad rude - that's not my name, if I wanted to be Becca, Becky, Bex I'd have introduced myself as that! If someone gives your dc a nickname you don't like, I think it's fair enough to have a word.

Oh and I get called Rachael, a lot.

If you choose a long name that has a very common shortened nickname it WILL be used, this is why we didnt call our dd Genevieve, we both LOVE the name Genevieve but KNEW she would end up as Jen, which we HATE, so we didnt use that name. We chose Merryn instead, which so far doesnt get shortened too much, some people call her Merry but we are fine with that, dp went through a phase of calling her Mezza which i hated!! and so he has relented, its not even a nickname we thought of when we chose the name so where he got it from ihave no idea!

ditto the name Isaac, really liked it but one of our relatives informed us she didnt like it as she doesnt like 'biblical names' and that she wouldl call the baby Zak if we called him Isaac so we didnt use Isaac as we didnt want him to be called Zak.

our eldest is Theodore and obviously gets Theo 99% of the time, which is fine as we like Theo, and when he was little we called him Theodorable he is now 12 and doesnt like being called Theodorable :(

Took sometime at school to convince one teacher that my name was my real name, which was on my birth certificate and not just what my friends/family called me. It got to a point I would ignore her as she wasn't calling my proper name! Funny thing is my name has also a shorted version and I do respond to that but it is only usually used those close to me,

Ds3 is Tom, not Thomas. We had one neighbour who insisted on calling him Thomas, despite SIL and I both correcting her repeatedly. Having said that, I call him Tombliboo myself but that is my prerogative as his mother.

dd was Sylvie-Rose and although she didn't live very long when people wrote cards both when she was born and when she died, we got all sorts of variations, Sylvie, Sylvia, in one case Sylvie-Marie which I did find annoying, not so much on the Congratulations cards but I found it hard on the condolence cards as I had really hoped people would get those right. Then I gave myself a talking-to and told myself that it was nice of people to have taken the trouble to write a card to show they cared and that we had kind of asked for it by giving her an unusual combination of names.

Wtf is it about Rachel and Rebecca? Yes, they both start with R but that's about it.

Teachers used to be especially bad about getting it wrong

Sorry chipmonkey

ask the childminder to use her proper name at all times because you prefer it.

i didn't want ds name shortened, but now he has a name that is not even connected to his name.

How long do you expect to retain control though? Until they start school? Go to secondary? Go to uni?

And who do you expect to abide by your rules? Their best friend at infants? Their first boyfriend? Their future spouse?

Sooner or later there is going to be a cut-off line where your dd negotiates separate relationships with other people on her own, outside your control. And that may well include what they call her. Accepting this is part of recognising that your dd is a separate person from you, who has her own way to make in life.

Dh has not been called by his family's affectionate nickname by anyone outside the family for the last 40 years. Greatly to his relief, though possibly not to that of his mother and sibling.

Ds is known to his friends under the affectionate soubriquet of Beyonce. Not the nickname any loving mother would have chosen for him, but it's his life and if he is socially secure enough to carry it off, then that's fine by me.

chipmonkey when writing congratulations to a new baby i ALWAYS make sure i spell the name right! and i also would do on a condolance card, but i guess in the midst of grief people were just trying to do the little thing they could, i can see why it would have grated. So sorry chipmonkey :(

btw i agree with the poster that said if this is the only thing that bothers you about your childminder, you really have nothing to worry about!

tigerbomb I used to call DD Billamena and my dad called her William

Do you ever get people assuming she is a Billie-Jo?
I used to get that all the time but it may have been something to do with our surname.

I even got into a discussion with some twonk once. She insisted that 'that girl what died - you know Billie-Jo....' I kept trying to correct her but she wasnt having any of it. 'No, it was Billie-Jo. I KNOW it was cos my mate knew her mates sister'

I couldnt be arsed to drop the grenade so I just walked off and left the silly cow.

My name is Violet and my friends and close family call me Vi and I am happy with that. It bloody irritates the life out of me when people I've just met at work call me Vi though, because only people close to me do and it seems very over-familiar and a bit of a liberty. I think in general people should call you by the name you introduce yourself as.