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.

@knittingaddict

I know a family that has done this to their children. Both were called by their middle name immediately after birth. I'm totally perplexed by their decision to do this. I was once with them in a waiting room and when their child's name was called not one of us, including the parents, responded because it was not the name they were ever known as. I would really have to question my parents sanity if I was one of those people.

Agree, I just don't see the logic. So you want to use Edna, or Doris or whatever as all the women in your family have had the name Doris forever. Fine. We did the same with May as every woman on DH's side of the family has used May as a name for about 6 generations. But rather than calling our daughter May Susan and just referring to her as Susan, you just stick May in as a middle name.

Why do people do this as it literally makes no sense?

Stop moaning about it to then if it genuinely doesn’t bother you enough to do anything.

Seriously change it, so what if you have to explain it in work. People won’t realise the effect it has in you until they’ve lived it. Do it now, or you’ll be old with dementia and the staff will write you down as not responding when they call you Doris.....
we’ve had this issue and changed via deed lol. Far easier to explain changed in work as a one sent ace non issue when it arrived than forever have to remember legal stuff needed a different name. To those saying you are overreacting, unless you’ve lived it then they don’t understand!
Pretty easy to do.

If you're not already married, look for someone with a surname that begins with the letter A and have a double-barrelled surname.

Then get involved in avant-garde art...

Tbh whisky I will moan if I want to: I mean, obviously, you can be unpleasant if you want as well. But I’m not going to stop just because you have decided I should.

We have the same problem with MIL. Always been known by hermitage name. Now she is elderly, severely disabledand can't communicate social services and the hospital insist on using her first name and MIL gets visibly upset. We always respond using her middle name. So they might say is Jane sleeping well so we respond no SUSAN wakes several times a night. Anyone listening in would find it really odd.

I’m totally with you op.
55 years of explaining which name I use.
Being called x by doctors, call centres, teachers etc when I am actually known as y.
What makes it worse is I have 5 siblings all called by their first name.
30 years ago not so much of a problem but now anything official is so tricky.
Before marriage I also had a surname that is also a girls name just to compound the problem further.
I hate it.
My dm’s response when I told her how difficult it made life was. - get over it!

My dad's family call him by his middle name, as does everyone else. My dad's complained its a pain.

Hermitage? Her middle!

we've got several people at work who do the same. It's never been an issue. I know about it because I process payroll and DBS checks but it's never been an issue anywhere.

I’ve read the whole post and I still don’t see the problem with you changing your name. Who cares if others have an opinion?

@abigbloodynuisance

Marvellous

Penultimate paragraph.

I deed polled a minor change on my name purely because I didn't like it and it was causing a bit of admin faff a bit like yours (a bit that I never used but other people would)- it doesn't look 'odd' and is really no bother when filling out forms etc..I just note the previous name and date. I've never had an issue with it. I don't understand why you don't just change it as it is clearly causing you more faff as it is now....?

I can see it might be a bit annoying!

Rather than changing your name you can have, 'known as' in your passport / driving licence etc.

I know two people who did this, they were not in touch with their father and as children needed his permission to use a different surname, so they had Name X known as Name Y.

Well @abigbloodynuisance I do have to say you’ve you’ve chosen your nickname for yourself perfectly on here. So let that serve as name compensation.

Stop berating other people for not being able to solve a problem you can’t solve for yourself.

And if it doesn’t bother you, why are you still going on about it? No need to inflict your self-chosen misery on others.

Ah, you are just one of those pointlessly unpleasant posters. Have a good day anyway.

self chosen misery

It is an annoying name, not a plot set in the slums of Paris during the French Revolution.

Just saying.

I live in Cornwall (not Cornish) it’s very common here. It is also quite common to be Dorris Anne Donaldson but be called something completely different like Amanda.

My grandmother was Dutch. When she moved over to the UK after the war, she opened bank accounts etc in the Anglicised version of her Dutch first name, which was fine at the time as you didn't need any evidence of what your name actually was or how you spelt it. When she died and we were sorting out her estate however, it caused huge issues as each and every formal letter had to say "Dutch first name, English surname, born Dutch surname, known as Anglicised first name, English surname", just to make sure that the institution knew who we were talking about!

She also called her first son (my dad) his middle name, and all formal letters had to be first name, middle name, known as middle name, first name. It's relatively common and happens more than you think, but it does make you think, if you liked the middle name well enough to use it on a daily basis, why didn't you just give the child that name in the first place!

Can I just politely point out that describing a perfectly calm if morose OP as anguished, angry, etc, is a feminist issue? Ty.

It really isn’t.

We have a tradition in my family that the first born son is named James as a first name but the name that is actually used is the middle name. I don’t recall ever hearing any of the James’s say this has been a problem. Generally when you “join” something you get to say what your preferred name is surely? It’s not that often you are using you’re required to use all your given names. The library or the gym don’t care what you want to call yourself

My bil has exactly the same scenario. He has never found it bothersome at all. It could be a bit annoying but is not the end of the world!

Women are constantly accused of being hysterical, etc. It’s to silence us.

Of course, people are free to quote me where I’ve been hysterical and dramatic. It should be very easy given that MN let you see the OPs posts.

I must have forgotten saying ‘it is the end of the world’ in my post.

I changed my surname by deed poll when I was 18. It can't be done in France (where I now live) and I've been asked to show my divorce papers when buying property, getting a loan etc. I've never been married. It's been an issue. I had to have official translators to certify everything and they didn't want to rubber-stamp it. I think they thought I was an international criminal.