Is it a bit batshit of my mother to periodically decide on nicknames for family members and insist on calling the person by that name? Usually the nicknames have nothing to do with the person's real name or interests or anything - they're either things designed to highlight some aspect of my mother (her favourite apparent family connection this week, or her favourite historical figure this week), or they're slightly belittling, faintly nasty, faintly judgemental - but never so overt that anyone casually overhearing would be able to say "no that's not right". The only time my mother ever uses someone's real name is when she's furious with them.
Why i'm wondering is I will be telling my dear mother about my pregnancy in a few days' time. Based on past experience I know that one of the first things she'll do is come up with one or more nicknames for my DC. Inevitably these will be nicknames that are all about her - family cultural connections that she likes telling people about because it makes her feel special despite the cultural connections being so distant and tenuous that this makes her look like a total loon.
Having sighed, rolled my eyes, and put up with it as you'd put up with an irritating 8 year old doing the same thing, all my life (though i do have the long-term effect that I hate my given name because I only ever heard it when I was in trouble), i'm aware that turning round and saying "actually it's a really annoying habit, would you stop it" is going to look like an overreaction. Any reaction from me is likely to be met with being told i'm oversensitive and humourless and that it's only words and why am I being so nasty to my poor mother.
However, my instinct re my DC is that I will be putting my foot down and telling her that this child will have a name and no, it won't be a nickname chosen by her, and that it is disrespectful and rude of her to do this.
My sister didn't stand up to her over this, and I remember my niece getting confused and upset repeatedly when our mother kept changing her name and refusing to call her by her real name, once niece was old enough to know what was going on. Our mother kept saying that it was because she was proud of her grandchild that she wanted to call DN by something that demonstrated her "real" heritage (see point above about said heritage being so distant that it's ridiculous - as well as it really being only to do with our mother). Niece now has learnt to roll her eyes and just ignore it.
Do I put my foot down for my DC? Or am I in fact being PFB, humourless and oversensitive?