To think that my dh's friend's girlfriend is being really rude when she shorterns our pfb's name.

[mameulah]

The first time she did it he was five days old! Now she does it all the time, in texts, on cards, gift tags and everything. She has never once heard either of us use this nickname and it really, really winds me up!!!

I know my dh is right and it is not that important but I don't at all understand why she thinks it is okay for her to do this.

Has anyone else had to cope with this?

[Piecesofmyheart]

YANBU OP. I think it is incredibly arrogant for anyone to assume that they can just shorten a name. I do think in the UK it's a regional thing. For the first twenty years if my life I was known, without exception by my name. When I moved to another area, the conversation would go along the lines of 'Hi I'm Piecesofmyheart' 'Oh hi Pieces. Nice to meet you' 'It's actually Piecesifmyheart' (I used to assume people had misheard. They still called me the shortened version)
Thing is my name is actually very significant to my family as it is a tribute to a close family member who died on the day I was born.
I'm very glad I've now returned to my hometown and people have the manners to call me by my name

[exoticfruits]

It may be incredibly arrogant but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it!
In the case of Pieces, if she asked me to call her by her full name then I would-what her parents want is irrelevant.
As a supply teacher, calling a register, I ask the DCs to tell me if they are known by a different name and I use their preferred one-you can never tell whether they are generally Samuel or always Sam. I have no idea what the parent prefers-they are not there.

[exoticfruits]

It is not a control issue, it is about giving value to the time and care we put into choosing our ds's name

And no one else is remotely interested!

[orlakielylover]

It is not a control issue, it is about giving value to the time and care we put into choosing our ds's name



you're being a tad pfb OP. People don't massively care about how much blood, sweat and tears you put into picking the perfect name.

[DreamingofSummer]

OP, how is little kipper this morning?

[pictish]

It is not a control issue, it is about giving value to the time and care we put into choosing our ds's name

No one cares how much effort you put in. Why would they? It's not interesting to anyone except you!

[BenjaminButton172]

Its amazing how one thread can differ from another. Only the other day i was reading a thread about james bulger. One poster called him jamie & got shot down with 'it is james, his mother always insisted on james not jamie'. Would any of you tell his mother to get a grip and stop being so precious.

[pictish]

No. Her child was brutally tortured then murdered in a sickening high profile case.
Don't be so ridiculous. You can't make that comparison, and if you do, you're very silly.

[PureQuintessence]

"Your baby needs nice people who care enough to talk about him and give him gifts more than he needs to be addressed by the correct name."

Well said.

She is being friendly!
Shortening names is usually a sign of endearment, they are not deliberately trying to mess with your naming choices. People shorten in texts, or do you really expect her to type out his full name?

You sound very precious! Sorry, but you just have to suck it up, and make sure you refer to him by the name you want him to be known as.

[BeCool]

^^ what pictish said above!

Astonished that anyone would think the issues are remotely similar.

[sneezingwakesthebaby]

I think YABU and at the same time NU. My dd name is very very similar to her cousin who was born a month after dd. Her mum decided and announced one day that my dd could be forever nicknamed with a nn that doesnt even come from her full name just so her dd can have everyone call her by her full name at family gatherings etc. I thought she was joking but she kept calling dd by the nn and encouraging other family members too so in the end I asked her not to call her that anymore. If the nickname was out of affection I wouldn't have batted an eyelid and would have thought it was sweet of her to give my dd a nickname but it was all about not using dd's proper name as it was similar to her dd's name and she wanted her dd to stand out. A bit too pfb for me!

So what my giant message is saying is it depends on the situation whether YABU. If its an affectionate nickname, YABU.

[BeCool]

sneezing - am I remembering your thread on the subject of your DD's name from a while ago? ;)

[Bowlersarm]

Parents who don't expect anyone to call their child anything other than is on their birth certificate is very naive IMO. They will meet thousands of people over the course of their life and as we've seen so far lots of people are natural name-shorteners!

I would never have given my children names where i didn't like any of the shortened versions. James, for example, I would have had to like Jim/Jimmy/Jamie as well. We even gave them middle names we really liked in case they used those instead.

So YABU!

[Francagoestohollywood]

I am always bemused at how much people care about names, as if they were going to determine our uniqueness or personal fulfilment.

[mameulah]

Okay, okay, okay, I am being totally, totally UR and precious. But infairness, don't you think you are allowed to be UR and precious about your pfb's name when he is five days old?

I absolutely know that people don't care about the time and effort you took to choose your ds's name but I think that they should at least pretend to.

[sneezingwakesthebaby]

BeCool I think that must have been someone else. I only joined a short while ago. I'm second guessing myself now though haha!

[Bowlersarm]

Yes you are allowed to be surprised about it when he is only 5 days old! But please don't be dismayed about it forever. My DSis does this with my DN's who are now in their 20's. even now she'll say for eg 'othy' when you just say 'Tim' despite the fact they would call themselves 'Tim'.! It's a bit annoying

[ComposHat]

I am always bemused at how much people care about names, as if they were going to determine our uniqueness or personal fulfilment

Yes, if I am feeling a bit down in the dumps, I often wander over to baby names and have a laugh at some of the absurd things people are considering calling their offspring and the amount of projection that goes on, names like Hunter, Rock and Cassius. It would make me laugh if they all turned out to be 7 stone weaklings with jam-jar glasses, despite their parents trying to project 'strong' names onto them.

[GreenLeafTea]

Of course our names matter. People do judge us based on our names. If the OP hates the nickname she has a right to ask her not to call him that.

Someone called Catherine might love Cath but hate Katie. It's their business what they want to call themselves.

[GreenLeafTea]

OP I don't think you are being unreasonable at all. If I called my PFB Jeremy after my beloved grandfather I would hate people calling him Jezza. It would grate my nerves.

[singaporeswing]

My DGrandma had the right idea when she named her 4 children with names that she thought couldn't be shortened or given nicknames (think John, Jill etc).

She found it hilarious when my Uncle Ian automatically became Little Ee from the moment he was introduced to the entire family.

[Francagoestohollywood]

Do people really "judge" someone by his/her name? Come on!
my ds is 10 and has 1.000 nicknames, many given by me and his family, the majority by his friends. Do I care? No.

[5madthings]

Of course people judge on names, there is thing in freakonomics about it, loads of articles about teachers doing it and there are endless rows and debates on mnet about it, 'chav' names etc.

Given your baby is a week old I think you can be habit precious.

[5madthings]

A bit precious..

[Fakebook]

I don't think you're being precious at all or unreasonable. I'm a bit about all of these pfb comments too. I wouldn't want my second child's name shortened either by anyone.