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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect people to use the nickname I chose?

283 replies

ReiofHope · 28/10/2018 11:43

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?

OP posts:
SillySallySingsSongs · 28/10/2018 13:37

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

I do and it's becoming more popular.

SEsofty · 28/10/2018 13:37

Sonographer might have made a mistake and you could have a girl

IggyAce · 28/10/2018 13:41

My dd requested we didn’t use the common nn for her name at age 5, so we use her full name. Friends call her midge or idgy, I wouldn’t have chosen them but it’s what has evolved.

CoughLaughFart · 28/10/2018 13:43

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

Her father IS called Jason! As stated many times! Have you read ANY of this thread?!

MrsStrowman · 28/10/2018 13:45

You can't dictate a nick name and AJ is awful. I'd call him Alex too

PrincessWire · 28/10/2018 13:46

I know 3 Xanders, aged 6, 11 and 19. The 19yo is short for Alexander but the other 2 are both just Xander.

OP's DF is called Jason - I'm not sure why some people aren't getting that!

CoughLaughFart · 28/10/2018 13:47

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.

Then definitely don’t choose Alexander. You can correct people until you’re blue in the face, but there WILL be people who use Alex. Having a preference for certain nickname is one thing - actively disliking the most common one is another.

Fridaydreamer · 28/10/2018 13:47

Oh god @AjasLipstick you’re right. By year 5 someone will have thought of that BlushGrin

BumsexAtTheBingo · 28/10/2018 13:50

Well AJ wouldn’t be my choice but if you like it once the baby is here just make sure you refer to him as AJ and when he’s in nursery make sure his nickname is on the register. If you, his teachers and friends all call him AJ I doubt he’ll answer to anything else or he’ll correct other family members himself when he’s old enough.

llangennith · 28/10/2018 13:51

AJ isn't a nickname it's two letters, initials.
Xander is a nice nickname for Alexander.

wildbhoysmama · 28/10/2018 13:51

I teach secondary and in S1 ( yr 7) I have a CJ , a CJay and a TJ. I have no idea if CJ and TJ have full names or not- these are the names they are called now that they're 12, I suppose. I, personally, dont care much for these ( together with Dakota, Teigan and Kacie in the same class!) and much prefer Matthew, Emma, Heather, Angus, Alexander, Daniel, James, Harry, Kieran, Kiera etc all in the same class. BUT it's your choice and classrooms these days are very mixed places, so no one will bat an eye.

My 3 DS all have quite unusual, Scottish names with no one at all in their schools with the same names. No one has ever batted an eye and they all like being different. ( Relatives in England struggled initially, but all good as they know it's our choice).

Original poster
ReiofHope · 28/10/2018 13:52

@SEsoftly that crossed my mind originally but in total so far I’ve had 9 scans and have at least two more booked in.
It’s incredibly unlikely that we’re not having a boy.

OP posts:
BumsexAtTheBingo · 28/10/2018 13:59

Of course AJ can be a nickname if the op likes it! She can call her child whatever nickname she likes.

sashh · 28/10/2018 13:59

Do pple really call their kids, Jason?

Yes, and Jayson and Jaysen.

OP

If I heard 'AJ' I'd think the name was 'Ajay'.

I have also taught a class with a TJ and a T-Jay

TheOnlyWaysTitsUp · 28/10/2018 14:00

I get that the name evolves with the child BUT while the child is too young to choose his nickname, or have friends who are even capable of speaking never mind giving him a nickname, then the name used should be the one chosen by the parent.

This. Explain to them that you want him to be known as AJ. If they keep calling him anything else, they're being rude.

BrendasUmbrella · 28/10/2018 14:01

It will be fine. Once he's born, introduce him to people as AJ. Refer to him as AJ. Don't bring the Alexander name into it at all. People will adjust.

DuploRelatedInjury · 28/10/2018 14:01

I really don't get why people on here insist you can't choose how your child's name is shortened when they're little - of course you can. Your friends/relatives should choose to either use that or the full name. Unless they have an unrelated pet name for the child (which you obviously can't dictate) I can't understand why a relative would deliberately use a shortening that you yourself aren't using. Schools generally record the child's preferred name too now and will use that.

You wont get much say in what their friends will nickname them though. My full name is usually a short-for name (incidentally I hate this, I'd much rather have the full name "officially") so my friends called me a variety of made up longer versions instead.

onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad · 28/10/2018 14:02

My son is an Alex and his middle name is Jack - I worried he'd get called AJ and sometimes he does but mostly he gets called Alex. It's a lovely name. His Dad sometimes calls him Xander and sometimes AJ but not often.

I didn't like AJ as I had a boss once called it - it was produced out of a combination of the initial of his first name and the initial of his his surname. Everyone called him AJ - I never heard any other name for him.

steff13 · 28/10/2018 14:13

Our friends have an Alexander who they call Xander. But once he started school, he became Alex. That's now what he prefers to go by. You can't really dictate nicknames, they usually just evolved naturally.

InfiniteVariety · 28/10/2018 14:17

DD2's name is Abigail. We always call her Abigail but she is called various shortened forms of it, Abs, Abi, etc by friends. You can only control what you call him, not what other people call him. She is 27 and loves the fact that people from different parts of her life call her different versions of her name

CoolCarrie · 28/10/2018 14:19

But AJ isn’t his name, its like insisting that Charlotte is shorted to Charlie your child might like their name, and not AJ.

mumsastudent · 28/10/2018 14:19

huh wait till he gets to high school he may land up with a random nick name among his friends that you will never be able to fathom & he wont tell you why!

MaisyPops · 28/10/2018 14:22

InfiniteVariety
Agreed.
My mum still calls me with her chosen versions of my name that I've not gone by other than her. One of them doesn't bother me. The other irritates me. It hasn't stuck with anyone else thankfully.

I'm glad they didn't insist on everyone calling me by their chosen nickname. They said 'this is maisy' and let everyone do their own thing. Everyone else tended to call me by my name or the common shortening.

Ginger1982 · 28/10/2018 14:23

I think if you want any chance of AJ, you'll need to call him Alexander-Jason as a double barrelled first name rather than a first and middle name.

steff13 · 28/10/2018 14:24

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

Not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan?