To really wish my parents hadn’t decided to make my middle name my given name

[abigbloodynuisance]

This has always annoyed me. Names are fictitious.

Name is Anna. Middle name Doris. Surname Donaldson.

Parents realise Doris Anna Donaldson spells DAD and think it’s funny so decide to go with that. But I’ve only ever been known as Anna. However, passport, driving licence, etc, are all Doris Anna.

It’s caused so many problems in big and small ways and mostly it’s just embarrassing having to explain myself. (It doesn’t help that my actual name is foreign so I always have to spell it anyway!)

I know I’ll get people who haven’t RTFP telling me to change it but since my line of work requires me to state any name changes it looks a bit peculiar and looks like I used to be called Doris and decided myself to be Anna and I didn’t!

So AIBU for being a bit fucked off about this? Note ‘a bit.’ I haven’t been stewing on it for forty odd years but it does annoy me a bit.

Deed poll - get your names reversed. Then all your documents will reflect your preferred name order.

Marvellous

Penultimate paragraph.

It's not that big a deal. I am the same, it's common. I recently did a dbs check to join a committee and said to the treasurer doing the application, oh yes this is where I need to tell you that my official first name is XXX, the name you know me by is my middle name. She said ok We'll put everything in your official names.

However I did go through labour with dc1 with them calling me my official first name which my poor husband kept trying to correct....

I can understand you finding it frustrating but allowing it to 'fuck you up' seems a bit OTT

It's not exactly an unusual situation

Quite a few of the older members of my family are known by their middle names.
It is weird.

Yanbu to feel peeved by it.

It’s hardly the biggest issue surely OP. You sound a bit dramatic.

4 of my 8 current colleagues have exactly the same scenario (can see it from their official payslips). No biggie and absolutely no drama “explaining” themselves

I have read the first post and still say change your name. Yes it'll be a pain and yes you might think it seems odd to your work when you have to explain it (although it's actually very common for your official name to differ from the one you call yourself) but it rips off the plaster. A few months of having to explain to work colleagues etc sounds better than a lifetime of being annoyed by this.

I’m probably precious neigh but tbh that would have been a big deal for me. I would have absolutely hated going through labour being known as Doris! (The name isn’t Doris but not that dissimilar.)

I’ve told DH that if Doris is on my gravestone I will return and haunt him.

Well yanbu to wish you'd been Anna Doris all along, but yabu not to change it as even though you have to declare it, no one will really care if you just say 'I was always known as Anna and it just made sense to make it match legally'.

I’m not generally prone to being dramatic, tbh. I think names are a sensitive point for me as I’ve spent my life explaining firstly the middle / first name confusion then being called a variant of my actual name - like calling a Laura Lauren or a Sophie Sophia. Only mines more unusual. To the point where I have given up and let people call me what they want! I suppose it’s because your name is or can be part of your identity or definitely when it’s unusual. People constantly calling you something else grates.

Haha, I've got the exact same problem! I've always been called by my middle name, and didn't realise i had another name until I saw my passport about age 10. I find it mostly funny, but it has resulted in certificates etc all being in different versions of my name, work email accounts being set up in my unused first name etc. It doesn't help that the name I go by is unusual and trnds to be misspelled. Thanks parents!

That’s not really what I mean though chameleon. changing it seems to almost draw more attention to it. Plus it still fucks me off that I should have to, tbh.

Oh god helix are you me ... only I did know! 1980s teachers getting pissed off with me because my name was different - er soz, it’s not my fault!

And then you get married, it happens again

Me too (waves). I'm not pissed off at my parents, my names do sound better in the order they are in. I am pissed off at various companies (I'm looking at you NatWest Bank - hard stare) who will only call me by a name that is not my own. Gahhhhhh. I find title and surname polite but they totally refuse. Apparently their marketing department issued an edict and their computers can't cope with people known by their second names. It's common. It's our (parents') choice. Not according to NatWest.

Marriage isn’t quite the same though - it’s expected for women to change their names which is a whole other feminist rant but anyway. And you don’t have the same intimacy with a surname as with a first name, I don’t think. Although I do have friends with a son named Harrison Owen and people constantly get it the wrong way round!

@abigbloodynuisance

Marvellous

Penultimate paragraph.

Well, I HAVE read your penultimate paragraph and don’t see the problem. It’s the obvious solution, and your only objection seems to be that it might ‘look a bit peculiar’. No one but you cares. As for having to share any make changes in ‘your line of work’, I’m afraid your job isn’t special - every employer would expect the same.

looks like I used to be called Doris and decided myself to be Anna and I didn’t!

But technically you did. You might always have been known as Anna, but your official name is Doris. Get them changed if it bothers you. ‘Anna’s actually my middle name, but I’ve always been known by that, so I’m making it official’ is not the outlandish tale you think it is.

I’m not saying it’s an outlandish tale, but my point is there wouldn’t be a tale at all. It would literally be - have you been known by any other names ‘yes’ and then what those names are. And it looks a little odd, so I’d rather not do it. Perhaps you would do it differently which is fine. I just personally find it irritating.

I can understand your pain!!
Mine isn't a middle name but my very unusual first name eg Katarina has always been shortened to a derivative eg Tara. So all my qualifications are in my full name but no one ever calls me that. Interviews are a particular pain.
The bank can't understand how cheques for Katarina Smith should go into Tara smiths account, despite me giving them birth certificate, driving licence etc evidence I am one and the same. Pain in the neck

@abigbloodynuisance

That’s not really what I mean though chameleon. changing it seems to almost draw more attention to it. Plus it still fucks me off that I should have to, tbh.

In the nicest possible way, I think you're being a bit self-defeating.

Changing it doesn't draw that much attention to it because no one else cares much, surely?

It would literally be - have you been known by any other names ‘yes’ and then what those names are. And it looks a little odd, so I’d rather not do it.

Well don’t then What was the point of the thread?

I’ve no idea if they care or not, it’s just that my instinct is not to draw attention to myself and explaining a name change does

It is something and nothing I suppose. When I was younger I honestly thought my parents must have hated me. I obviously don’t think that now but I do think they were thoughtless.

No point whatsoever still. A whinge, pure and simple. Is that all right?

My nans father was drunk when he registered her and gave her the first name Edna. She hated it and was always known by her first middle name. Even in her care home with dementia she remembered enough to say I’m Edna Joan but everyone calls me Joan.

Meh