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

[nicknameshame]

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

I think people shortening names is a sign of affection and familiarity, in the context of people who you know quite well (surely a childminder comes under that heading?). I might be a bit if I introduced myself to someone new and they immediately started calling me by a shortened name, but with people I've known for a while I think it's nice.

YAB a bit U.

The people at nursery used to call dd1 Janie, and when we went to primary school it was Jan. She would always, very politely, correct them: "Excuse me, Miss, but I would prefer it if you called me Jane, not Janie/Jan." I was quite pleased to have called her that just so I could hear her being polite for once. :o

Thunk - exactly. I don't understand when people shorten a name just because when they aren't close with the person. It makes no sense.

That first when should be a why and that whole post reads awkwardly

If it's a name like thomas, william, christopher, robert, steven, samuel or joseph then you were naive to think it wouldn't be shortened, is prissy to pull people up on it IMO.

i hate it too - i have a daniel and i cringe when/if anyone calls him Dan or even worse....a few teachers at school used to call him Danny.....god it used to make me twitchy...

whenever we had parents evening i used to emphasise his name each time a teacher called him dan or danny....bloody hate it.

his name is daniel. i like daniel. he calls himself daniel. why the fuck do people change his name? drives me insane....

But vicar, daniel inevitably gets shortened to danny, dan, it's standard, what else did you expect?

Thunkshead, really like violet, and Vi sounds old-fashioned in a good way!

Vicar - that's what I find deeply strange. Why set yourself up (and your child) up for cringeing half the time? It's inevitable that Daniel will be shortened. I do think it's pretty self-flagellating choose a name if you really hate the shortening, because it's likely to happen.

Nice name though. Love the name Dan especially! It's a 'he'd get the round of drinks in because he's a good bloke' name.

I taught a Daniel. I always called him Daniel. As did his parents. And his peers. And other teachers. It is how he introduced himself. He's a few years older now and still called Daniel.

Same with a Catherine, Matthew, Andrew, Elizabeth.... Among many others. I call children whatever they tell me they want to be called. Why would I call them anything else? That would be really impolite and disrespectful!

I think nicknames are cute....

One b/f called my sons MuK, and Ace...

My Xh calls my son scooterpoo, or buddy... my daughter of course princess

My DD6 hates being called Annabanana

Once upon a time...
My DS20, I use to call Andypandy.
My DS21, Marcopolo.

bettyspaghetti - I did that to my dh too - to his father of all people, actually at our wedding

In my defence, dh never liked his nickname when he was little, so when he got to uni and there were at least 4 of them with the same nickname in his year he took the opportunity to change it to something similar but different.

I got to know him after this and so have only ever known him as his second nickname. I have to double think about his full first name, it's not a name I really associate with him .

At our wedding, FIL came over and was asking about NN1 - so I assumed we were talking about one of DH's old friends that he met at uni and who still is known as NN1 - but who unfortunately hadn't been able to make it to the wedding. Doesn't help that I had only met FIL 2 or 3 times before we got married (14 years going out beforehand, not like we rushed down the altar a couple of months after we met!) and he makes me feel uncomfortable as I don't really know him and the way he is distant from all his children makes me sad as I had a really close relationship with my dad before he died) plus I was busy with all sorts as it was my wedding and I had lots more people I wanted to speak to before him. It was one of those horrible conversations which was completely at cross purposes - I knew that NN1 (ie old friend) wasn't there and so was saying this, FIL knew that NN1 (ie his son) was there and was getting annoyed at me for messing him around, I was getting annoyed at him for messing me around. I Just never think of DH as NN1 - just never occurred to me that FIL was talking about his son!

Yes but those are cute nicknames used by parents or maybe close friends. Not teachers, colleagues or acquaintances.

But have you noticed HavePat (see - shortening...) that sometimes it's in the lap of the gods as to whether they'll remained shortened? Sometimes with the best will in the world Cassandra will end up Cassie or Caz.

I do think it's what the individual wants. If an individual called Cassandra who really, really wants to be called Cassandra and ends up beng called cassie or caz, then either others have been really disrespectful to her, or she just wasn't strong enough/just gave up asserting herself to people who wouldn't respect her wishes. I really think we ought to call people what they ask us to call them! I'm baffled that people feel entitled to shorten names at will just because they want to! .

Oh! I also know an adult Daniel! Always been Daniel. He has a very strong personality and is a lovely person. He introduces himself as Daniel and everyone I know calls him that.

I have the opposite, DD is known by the shortened version of her name but school insist on calling her the long version.

5Mad that made me giggle because to me "Zak/Zach" is just as biblical a name as Isaac! :o

I do feel bad for my MIL sometimes because she always calls DH and his sister Andrew and Katherine and they get nothing but Andy and Katie from the rest of us. :) Their brother is technically James but he was always going to be Jamey as FIL is also James.

Although come to think of it I know a pair of cousins (they're both 9) at our local school who are Matthew and Elizabeth, not Matt and Liz/Bets/Etc...

yes cheerful you are right zach is just as biblical as Isaac, but this relative is a bit funny, she is lovely and dotes on the boys and dd, but is very opinoinated, and there was NO way i was having her essentially give our child another name from the one we had chosen!

my dp is Alastair, his mum always calls him by his full name, as do i but as a child he was Ali, his sister is Alison, so she was ALi as well!! madness! anyway as an adult he doesnt care what he is called, but most do call him ALastair and i always do as to me Ali is a girls name, purely as i had a friend Ali for years.

but i do think you shouldnt pick a name if you HATE the shortening as its inevitable that it will be used, we were very careful when choosing our kids names to think of possible shortenings and we ruled out names on the basis of not liking the shortening ie Genevieve which is a LOVELY name but i HATE Jen, which is WOULD become!

I thought I wouldn't mind my son's name being shortened until i heard my mother using it, even though she had asked me what i prefered her to use, and i said i didn't mind! I just told her I'd changed my mind. I do use the shortened version in text messages and when i'm talk about him, though not when i am talking to him. I want him to choose for himself when he's older.

I go with what the DC likes to be called.
Everyone shortens DS1's name, except me, but since he likes it it is up to him. I realised that even before he could speak people did it so called DS2 a name that couldn't be shortened and all his friends called him something different!
You have no control.

My son's name gets shortened at school which doesn't bother me much, although I invariably use the full version. He answers to anything, including "Oy, You."

What I don't get is choosing an abbreviation for a child's name in the first place. Harry has become commonplace & Harold seems old-fashioned now although Henry (also shortened to Harry) is fine. Calling a baby Betty might seem cute but as a teenager she might prefer to have been called Elizabeth & then shorten it to Libby...

I have a DS McCarthy - known as Boney!