To expect people to use the nickname I chose?

[ReiofHope]

I’m 35 weeks pregnant and I’m having a little boy. Since I was a child I’ve loved the name Alexander James using AJ as a nickname. (I’ll admit it started as I loved the Backstreet Boys)
Now 20 on this generation of babies has a James and at least one other child with James as a middle name. So I changed the middle name for my son to jason but still want to call my baby AJ.
Over the last few weeks everyone from my step mum to the children on my partners side have been referring to him as Alex no matter how many times I correct them.

It’s not as if they’ve ever refused to use nicknames before we have an Ollie (oliver) harry (Harrison) Albie (Albert) and Mila (Emelia) so why is it that they’re refusing to use my chosen nickname?

Am I just being an unreasonable bitch to expect people to use a specific short form?

[FangTasticFeast]

Of course you can dictate what people call him as a baby, people do it all the time

I know a Someone who’s initials are CJ and that’s what his parents decided to call him before he was born. I’ve never known anyone use his name even at school.

[MaisyPops]

You do get to pick:
1. His actual name on his BC.
2. The nickname you call him.
This.
People will probably tend to call baby whatever parents do by default.
I find the instructing family what to call a baby that isn't born yet to be a bit much.

Like other posters, I've known people who've decided they love certain names but not common diminutives of the name only to use them. Or, people choose not to call their baby a name that they dislike popular shortening of.
Picking a name and deciding this is their Nick name and you must call them that is a bit much.

[qumquat]

If she says 'here's my baby AJ' and they say 'hello Alex' they are just being plain rude. I know a girl called 'Libby' who's official name is 'Olivia'. If I were ti insist on calling her 'Livvy' despite her parents introducing her as Libby I would be being a dick.

If he prefers to be called Alex when he's older that's a different thing, which she can't control.

Initials are fine in schools, I've taught girls called BB, BK etc (in these cases short for long Yoruba names). Just put in on the form as the preferred name.

[Ontopofthesunset]

You're not talking about a nickname - you're talking about the name you want him to be called. If you call him AJ everyone else will. Don't refer to him as Alexander Jason though, or anything else. Just call him AJ. No one will call him Alex if his name is AJ.

You can't determine if later in life his friends call him Ajjer or Ace or StinkyBoots. Nor whether he decides he'd rather use Alexander than AJ (but he's likely to be a lot older before he does that). Neither of my sons ever wanted to be called by their 'birth certificate' name, though they use it on official documents etc.

[Ngaio2]

Call him Ayjay. Similar to Indian names I’ve come across.
Ayjay Alexander Jason would tick all boxes

[ReiofHope]

I prefer James to Jason. I always have. But since I have a half brother who’s 7 and is called James and a lot of other middle name James children in the family I chose to honour my father by using Jason.

Also together the meaning of Alexander Jason is actually really sweet as they mean leader and healer.

I like the name as a grown up name I just know way too many Alexs and can’t reconcile my baby with the image of all of the Alexs I already know.

I don’t know a single Xander though or anyone who actually goes by Alexander

[julietrosalind]

I knew a little boy called Ajay. It’s not to my taste but it is a ‘name.’

[contrary13]

This might be a bit outing, but... I've been called "Elephant" for as long as I can remember, inside the family. Obviously that's not my actual name in any form... but I was apparently very chubby as a baby and my grandmother decided to run with it! For a brief while, I was also called "Pig-Face", for similar reasons. My younger cousins call me "Ellie" (without understanding the back-story behind it, really) which I think I prefer to "Piggy"... My mother hated the nickname "Pig-Face", but could no nothing to stop her father from calling me it. To my father, I've always been "Sweetpea" (after the baby from Popeye cartoons) and to my mother, I'm permanently "Fred" (which also has nothing to do with my actual name!)

DB1's nickname is a Welsh given name, which has absolutely nothing to do with his birth-name, whilst DB2's is "Jolly" because he's tall, like the Jolly Green Giant... My own children's family nicknames are "Bartholomew" (for my daughter, after a naughty little bear who said "nah!" instead of "no", which she insisted on saying as a 2 year old) and "Poppy Imogen" (my son, whose haircut one time resembled that of a photograph of Enid Blyton's daughter, Imogen... whilst Poppy came from Poppet, which was my father's name for him as a baby). Their teachers, friends, and actually their father's family all have completely different names for them - most often the name which is on their birth certificates, or a version derived from that name. Although my son's friends call him "Late", because he always is!

In other words, OP, you're going to have worse/more important things to stress about than your son's nickname. Go with the proverbial flow over it, I'm afraid. Your son will either answer to "AJ" or "Alex", or maybe even "Xander" or "Zan"... and there's nothing that you can do to dictate it. The first gift we, as parents, give to our children is their name... and we all know that we therefore have no control over what they choose to allow others to do with that name, I'm afraid.

[GunpowderGelatine]

But Alexander is such a gorgeous name why would you ruin it by calling him AJ (sorry)

[FithColumnist]

Totally missing the point of the thread, but when on earth did "Jason" become a "grandad name"? It's hardly "Cuthbert", is it?

[LellyMcKelly]

You could call him AyJay 😂

My surname is Campbell and I got called Soup the whole way through school. Didn’t bother me for a minute.

[YouOKHun]

My DS (13) has an AJ in his class which came about courtesy of the other children because he is Alexander and then a long surname starting with J. I suspect they’d have come up with something else if he’d arrived at the school with the name AJ. Once your baby turns up and you see his character you might feel very differently about what suits him and you’ll certainly have many distractions away from this dilemma.

[qumquat]

You're not talking about a nickname - you're talking about the name you want him to be called. If you call him AJ everyone else will. Don't refer to him as Alexander Jason though, or anything else. Just call him AJ. No one will call him Alex if his name is AJ.

This. Don't refer to it as his nickname. Refer to it as his name. By all means put Alexander James on his BC but introduce him as AJ.

[stayingaliveisawayoflife]

I knew a family who had two boys one called and spelt Cj and one Jc. They will now be adults and I wonder if they kept their names?

[YouOKHun]

Fith I know what you mean about ‘grandad names’ but Jason is a very old biblical name, knocking around for years, but had a bit of an upsurge in popularity in the 60s along with the Karens, Julies, Tracys, Pauls and Garys. If you’re of that era (as I am) it’s always a bit disturbing to find out there are grandparents among us

[DeaflySilence]

Forget Alexander Jason entirely.

You could name him Aijay. They wouldn't be able to get away from that!

[AamdC]

I have an Alexander he is univerally known as Alex , i wanted Alexander but from being a baby everyone has always called him Alex hes 13 in the new year and it feels odd calling him Alexander now , i know a JJ but hes Jamie Junior after his dad .

[NotMyNameButHereForever]

'You can call him by whatever affectionate term you like, be that AJ or Alexypalaxywoowwoo'

Lottie

[DeaflySilence]

"I prefer James to Jason. I always have. But since I have a half brother who’s 7 and is called James and a lot of other middle name James children in the family I chose to honour my father by using Jason."

If your father was James, how can the name Jason even remotely honour him?

And if your father was neither James nor Jason, but his name simply began with a 'J', then why not give your son your father's actual name (beginning with 'J') as a middle name?

[AamdC]

I know it seems odd to think of a Gary or a Jason being a Grandad doesnr it youOk they should be young lads tinkering with cars i know a 12 yr old Jason.

[ReiofHope]

@youokhun and @fith my dad was born in 69. He’s still very young and remarried and has two other children of 9 and 7.
I was born when he was 20 and my brother when he was 21. Within the next three months he’ll have his first two grandchildren.

[AamdC]

Hes only four years older than me how can he be a Grandad(kidding obvioysly )

[BrokenWing]

I always think of A-Jay, T-Jay, C-Jay etc as one of those trying to hard but failing miserably to be super cool names.

Either put A-Jay on the birth certificate or lie and tell everyone you've put it on the birth certificate until he's a few months old and they are acquainted with calling him that name.

My cousin has a son called Alexander and insisted for years she wanted everyone to always use the full name and we did mostly (slipped in the odd Al here and there). Until all his friends started calling him Zander and she now finds herself doing it too sometimes. If one of them come to the door and say "is Zander coming out", she'll call up the stairs "Zander!". She loathes it as a name but he loves it so not much she can do!

[Knittedfairies]

If you call him AJ, be prepared for his nickname to be A.

[AjasLipstick]

Knitted Or God forbid.....BJ.