To refuse to call him by his stupid nickname??

[PonyPals]

So we have a brand new staff member in my team who has a perfectly sensible name - Steven but has decided to use some ridiculously stupid nickname he made up - Sonty
And he is now constantly correcting all of us and insisting we use his nickname. I am his manager. I feel silly even uttering Sonty. Yet he corrects me every time I say Steven.
Aibi to want to take Sonty and shove it up his bum!
PS not his real name or moronic nickname but they are similar to what I said.

Sounds ridiculous of him to be honest. Assume it was his cv, so if not would suggest he knew how ridiculous it sounds.

It's like text speak on a job application or wearing pjs or a bikini to work. Nothing wrong in the right context, but inappropriate, informal and over familiar in a professional context. And makes you look a twit.

Frankly, as long as the nickname is not offensive or insulting, I call people by whatever name they want to be called by. YABU

I have a name that is a very common shortened form of my long name - think Katie short for Katherine. A previous manager refused to use my shortened name and would only ever use my long name as she didn't approve of shortening names! That really annoyed me and I always felt like a naughty child when she addressed me.

Dazza however is a stupid nickname not reasonable in many professional workplaces.

I ❤️ Professor Alexander.

Crispbutty lol !!!!

Yanbu. It's incredibly wanky and unprofessional. I'm with the person who said you should say as his manager it's too familiar.

V funny taste of MN norms.

OP: "Junior employee insists on being called by casual nickname but I don't want to"
MN hive mind: assumes that nn is Jonty "Oh don't be so uptight OP, you should absolutely call him by whatever his chosen name is unless it's 'twatface'"
OP: "By the way it's Dazza"
MN Hive mind: "Dear heavens no! What if someone important heard it?! shock"

This times a million.

I take it you're not in the UK, OP?

Timings are out.

I am not sure about whether he should be referred to by his nickname by colleagues and yourself, but am definite that others outside the team, especially clients, should use his real name.

If he's name it's good enough for a cv and to go on his payroll it should be good enough to be called by it at work . If it's a nickname he just made up he can grow up and understand that people sometimes aren't comfortable and don't feel professional about calling others by nickname. It's a work place , deal with it. Or legally change it if he's so passionate about it the damn thing .

Ps:. No I don't think it's unreasonable of you .

I had the opposite problem! My real name is rather unusual and out of what he described as "annoyance" having to repeat my name to people , my now ex shortened it to Olly.
Began introducing me as such to absolutely everyone and it irritated me a lot. My boss would only address me as my correct name as he said nicknames are far too familiar for a manager to use (even though thanks to my ex my colleagues took to calling me Olly ) and I really appreciated that my managers stance!
This employee of yours has every right to go by his "preferred" name in social circles . Be it his given name or otherwise. However, if you work in say, a call centre which deals with customers sensitive financial data etc, in pretty sure you could argue that they are obliged to use their official names in a professional capacity due to data protection and the customer having a legitimate point of reference should they need to complain about an employee.

Lol Kiroro

So if his parents named him Dazza that would be ok, or you would insist on giving him a nickname you liked?
How about Danna or Shazzah - both "real" names? Is it ok for girls?
What about Ballakishnan? Would he be allowed to be called Balla? I bet he would.

Either your company has a rule that everyone must be called by their full first given name (which ofc would be surname for some cultures) or you put your judgypants back in the bottom drawer and respect your coworkers as you would expect them to respect you.

Yes you are! Just let him be called by the name HE wants. I'm sure he probably wants to call you something other than your given name!

If his name was ACTUALLY Dazza then that would be different. Presumably Danna and Shazzah have been called that by their parents - that's fine. Balla is an obvious and legitimate shortening of Ballakishnan - same as shortening Steven to Steve. Shortenings aren't nicknames.

It'd drive me nuts too, unfortunately. There was a docu type TV prog a while ago and one of the presenters on it was called Peter. A couple of series later it was announced he wanted to be called Fonz, so everyone on the prog started calling him Fonz when we the audience were all used to him as Peter! It drove me fkg crazy 😣 Anyway, back to OP... If it's a shortening of his actual name then fair dos, plenty of Peters are Pete (and not fkg "Fonz") You might not like it but I guess he might not like his given name and he prefers this one?

If his name really was Dazza his CV would probably have gone straight in the bin,

Floggingmolly - sadly, probably so. It's pretty foul how big and relevant an issue classism still is today. Katie Hopkins, very sadly, is not alone in her attitude towards people with the 'wrong' kind of name.

If his name really was Dazza his CV would probably have gone straight in the bin
I'm sure some people would do that, doesn't make it right.

Some people do dump CVs with black or asian sounding names, names of the unwanted gender or age...names from the wrong social background...
Discrimination for those things is not something I would want to support. People can't help having their opinions but should not be taking biggotry to work. Certainly shouldn't be getting support for taking biggotry to work.

Not Inspector Morse?

Endazzar Morse

I'd have to shorten it to Daz I think as I'd be too busy trying not laugh at Dazza!

Dazza does sound ridiculous, oh dear. Maybe explain it doesn't sound professional for work purposes.

Arf at the secret gangsta nicknames Mackerel. I once did similar with a colleague who was the image of the Fast Show's Swiss Tony. He looked like him, sounded like him and had the same mannerisms. In my head he was always Swiss Tony.

Then one day I accidentally referred to him as Swiss Tony out loud in a meeting with the director. I was mortified, but the director guffawed, and a couple of weeks later told me that he couldn't look at or think about the poor guy without 'Swiss Tony' popping into his head.