To think "Leo" isn't necessarily short for anything else?

[Caff2]

just that...

[UniS]

I know a few Leo's.
Short for James
short for Loenie
Short for Leonadis.

[zirca]

All the Leo's I know, aren't short for anything. It is a full word on its own, not just a name.

[Thisvehicleisreversing]

I call my friend Barry, Barold. Like Harold

[limitedperiodonly]

My Barry was almost certainly a stand-alone Barry. He was trying to claim poshness like Clarence. Not seriously though - he was just taking the piss.

It's a name that's definitely gone the way of Trevor and Brian.

[WandaDoff]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(name)

Barry is short for lots of names but not Barrence as far as I can tell

I've read somewhere that Barack Obama was known as Barry when he was younger.

[badtime]

Barry can be Barrington, Bartholomew or Finbar (probably others), but on its own is an Anglicisation of various Celtic names.

I have a relative called Gary, real name Garfield! (long before the cartoon cat)

[zebralegs]

I have an 8 week old Leo - YANBU! I've already been asked what it's short for by a school-gate mum and she seemed a bit surprised when I said 'nothing', but not in a nasty or judgmental way. Tbh I can see why people think it's a shortened form when they don't know about its popey history etc... I don't think it really matters all too much. Lovely name either way (IMO!)

LOL at Barence.

[MrsKoala]

I thought Barry was from Barrington?

[SarahAndFuck]

limited Barry is a name just crying out to be a shortened form of something else

Probably not 'Barence' though, because that's a terrible made up name.

[thebody]

I like Leo and I am in full favour of calling your kid what the hell you like.

[limitedperiodonly]

one person working there actually believes that Mickolas is his real, full name

SarahandFuck A boy at school called Barry told a girl in my class that his name was short for Barence. She told me and I said he was winding her up.

She insisted quite angrily that he was telling the truth and I didn't know what I was talking about.

As I was saying 'No, no, he's taking the piss. He's always doing it,' 'Barence' looked at me behind her back, raised his eyebrows and smirked.

Soppy cow.

[Thisvehicleisreversing]

I have a Zach full name Zachary.

No one has ever asked me if it's short for anything. There's a Zack, and a Zac at his school which are stand alone names.

I thought Zach needed a full name really hence Zachary.


I also have a cousin who's just plain Steve.

[SarahAndFuck]

I'd say that Leo is a name in it's own right but it is also used when shortening other names, so she wasn't entirely unreasonable to ask if it was short for anything else as long as she wasn't insisting that it should be.

My name is a name in it's own right but it can, if you try quite hard, be used as a shortening or pet name for other, longer names. It's rare than anyone assumes I have one of those other names, there's a very famous person with my name and so it's not like nobody has ever heard of it as a name in it's own right. Most people with my name are not called something else.

But I did spend two years of school trying to convince one teacher my name was not Geraldine because of her assumption that my short but very real name was a shortened version of a name that sounds nothing like it

As a joke at work once, we referred to a customer who goes by the name of Mick as Mickolas (it was Christmas and he pretends to be a bit 'bah humbug' about it but secretly enjoys it so we were playing on Saint Nicholas) and now one person working there actually believes that Mickolas is his real, full name

[MaidOfStars]

Leo looks and feels like a diminutive. It's short and ends with a vowel sound. And you could come up with a couple of names for which it could be used as a diminutive.

None of those things mean it is a diminutive in any specific case.

[Caff2]

I get what you mean, Mrs Koala - my friend has an Anastasia usually known as Anna, but no one has ever said "Anna?" What's that short for?"

I think that's quite a good Leo analogy!

[Caff2]

Excuse typos, please!

[Caff2]

Like with Leo and similar sounding names - Arlo or Milo or Jago or Hugo. I would not think we're shortened, but Jimmy, Dave or Charlie I'd think maybe they were?

We liked Charlie, for example, but would have had Charles on BC - but if we wanted Milo, we wouldn't have had. Miles.

[MrsKoala]

I suppose it is because it can be a shortening or it can be the whole name that people ask. It is often assumed that the shortened version of my name which i use is my full name, as it can be a stand alone name too. People can get quite weird and cross when they find out i actually have a different name than they thought. I have been accused of lying before and pretending for attention

[Caff2]

See, Alfie is like Sam to me ( as you'll have seen, I have one). So I wouldn't be surprised if people thought it was a diminutive, even if it isn't. But Leo? Surely just a name?

[NewLisaLife]

People often ask me if my Alfie's full name is Alfred. No he's just Alfie.

[MrsKoala]

I'm sure it is Caff. I'm not disputing it. But i thought it would be in this instance. As i said it just sounds like it is to me. But that's probably affected by personal experience - I come from a long name family and we use the first syllable as our everyday name and have the long one for Sunday best.

[Caff2]

I don't get how such an ordinary, common and traditional name could be mistaken for a diminutive.

[Caff2]

Like Jon COULD BE SHORT FOR Jonathan, and Nathan COULD BE SHORT FOR Nathaniel, but they're also just names?
Unlike Cathy (me) which is usually short for something. Or Sam (my son) which is usually short for something.

[Caff2]

But it's not short for anything! Traditionally, Leo is just a name!

[MrsKoala]

I worked with a Leo once and asked what it was short for. To me it just sounds short for something. Dh and i liked Leonidas for DS1 but opted for something else in the end, (mainly because the film 300 had been out recently) but Leo would have been ds's nn.