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.

Forgot to say I worked as HR manager in a medium sized organisation and had one member of staff who changed his name twice, changed his first name to a nickname everyone knew him by ad a couple of years later changed his surname. Didn't raise an eyebrow, no one thought anything of it. It meant he had to write a couple of extra names on his DBS form but that was it.

You are the only person who has used the word hysterical here OP. No one else.

It is incredibly common to have people called by one name when their official name is another.
I'm a teacher and I have at least one child with a different name on the register to the one they use in every year.
It is common in a lot of different cultures.

This thread illustrates something that I’ve had to become aware of over the years. Sometimes people just need to talk something over, they don’t want solutions and generally already know what the solutions are but don’t want/aren’t ready to do it.

I naturally look for and offer solutions but I’ve really made the effort to reign myself in unless someone explicitly makes it clear that’s what they’re after.

In the OP’s case, presented at its most basic level, yes, I can see how it would be annoying and she isn’t unreasonable to be irritated by it as it was just a pointless way to set her name up. That’s it.

Even if she were to change it officially it’s likely to still be a source of irritation every time she has to present documents to prove it. It’s just one of those things that irks some people 🤷‍♀️

OP: I don’t liked my name, it has always ‘annoyed me,’ ‘caused me so many problems’ and I am ‘fucked off’ with it

(quotes are from your post)

All: Change your name if you feel like that about it

OP: That would be ‘odd’

All: No, it wouldn’t

OP: I’m not going to

All: Well, there’s really little else we can do for you here.

OP: This is a feminist issue. You are oppressing me.

All:

OP: Stop telling me what to do

... Good day to you, OP.

Interesting as I have a family name that is my first name and I am known by it, but my mother and grandmother are known by their middle names, never seemed to have bothered them. I’m pregnant and trying to decide whether to stick with tradition and give the baby it as the first name but call it by the middle name, or switch it so it is the middle name. It’s not a name I like much but would be cool that she’d be the 5th generation if I give it as a first name.

@abigbloodynuisance

Nor me sara, nor me.

Runner, that’s what bothers me tbh, and note to ‘you are hysterical’ posters it’s a relatively mild sort of ‘bothers.’ But it does feel like I was just a joke to them.

And while people barking at me to change my name is one thing, this is obviously only something I’ve had the luxury as an adult. As a shy ten year old, having to correct teachers, brownie leaders, etc, was difficult and as we can see from some relies here, people seem to find it immensely irritating for some reason!

Having been a leader at cubs I don't know why they would be bothered. In an average group there would be Michaels known as Mick, James known as Jimmy or maybe two of each one called Mick one called Mike one called Jimmy and one called Jimmy. Lots of kids (and adults) don't get called by the exact name on their birth certificate and teachers and youth leaders deal with that all the time.

I'm known by a shortening of my given name, I can only think of one person who ever used my full name, so something like Katherine but I've always been known as Kath or Katie, no one was bothered and I've never had anyone sigh about it.

It’s something people called Mary or Rebecca or Kate don’t really get

Actually my name is Kate and I get it because I’m a Catherine on my birth certificate and official documents. Further complicated by the fact I was an exclusive Katy till I went to secondary school, chuck in the various spellings of Catherine and there’s always a fun conversation waiting somewhere

Not exactly the same, but my surname is also foreign and looks imposing (it’s actually really easy and very phonetic but it’s long and people get flustered) so I’ve had various weird and wonderful pronunciations and spellings over the years. Doesn’t bother me at all but I know some people get very annoyed at their name being spelt or pronounced incorrectly. Smyth is one that seems to be an annoyance for its owners.

@SpeakingFranglais

Oh good, my parents did similar with my brother. I have no idea why they registered and baptised him Stephen Mark but called him Mark all his life.

Even worse mum was apparently registered as Angela Mary but everyone called her Mary. On some of her official records she is Angela Mary, others Mary Angela and she answers to anything when called out for appointments. When I started doing family history and looked at birth certificates Angela isn’t even on her registration or birth certificate! But it appears in the 1950s on her marriage certificate. How the hell did that happen?

When dad died recently sorting out the paperwork has been a nightmare because of mums unmatching names. 😡

My DH's grandmother was even worse. It's been really hard to work out what happened exactly but we think it went like this. (Names have been changed)

Dh's granny was born in the very early part of the 20th century to an unmarried woman. She was then informally adopted by a married couple who we think were the sister and BIL of her father. Their surname was Brown, the birth mother's surname was Harding. DH's granny was registered as Elsie Rose Harriet Harding Brown, with Harding as a middle name, not double barrelled or anything.

They then proceeded to call her Rose Harding all her life. She's Elsie Brown on her birth certificate, Elsie Harding on her marriage certificate and Rose Harding on her death certificate, which also has the wrong date of birth on it. It was a huge mess to sort out, apparently.

Having been a leader at cubs I don't know why they would be bothered

But it’s not about them being bothered, it’s about the OP being bothered (bothered, not chewing her nails nervous over it).

If you’re not particularly assertive or socially unsure/awkward, as many children are, then it’s just something that colours your experience and stands out to you as an unnecessary conversation to initiate.

Plus it’s not even guaranteed to be successful, I’ve corrected people on my name and it’s not stuck in their heads for whatever reason. A child on the shyer side might not be comfortable with repeatedly correcting an adult. That’s understandable.

This thread reminds me. I have a friend who has changed her name twice because she didn't like her given names. She has had no hassle from it and no one has asked about it. She hated her first name as a teenager so changed it to her middle name. A few years later she still felt that the new name wasn't quite right, so she made up a name (along the lines of Spark ), and she's had that name for 20+ years and is very happy with it.

Actually, both of her siblings have also changed their names (one also at least twice afaik), and no one has batted an eyelid. Apart from maybe their mum, but she seems cool with it. They all had perfectly normal names but just didn't like them so went ahead and changed them. It's really not a big deal.

No idea what RTFP stands for, get you don’t want to change your name but still think YABU not to change it and to get cross with people for saying it’s the obvious solution.

YANBU to be annoyed by the names though. I’d hate to spend my life correcting people or being called the wrong name because my parents gave me a ‘funny’ name. It’s not funny when you have to put up with it for your whole life.

Am I right in assuming there simply wasn't as much bureaucracy generations ago? When we chose names for our recently born children we sat down and thought about these issues, maybe this wasn't a thing in the past.

I suppose I lead a double life, I'm known by my middle name with family and by my first name with DH and everyone else. It doesn't bother me in the slightest.

great it is a feminist issue when a perfectly calm (if morose) op is accused of hysterics.

You can pull faces all you want, but yes, it is.

sorka I’m not remotely cross. Bemused by some who have been bloody rude and for whom me not changing my name seems to matter so very much to - but not particularly cross. I shall just go about my day as normal.

cornetto that’s it. And you never ever correct people once!

@SnuggyBuggy

Am I right in assuming there simply wasn't as much bureaucracy generations ago? When we chose names for our recently born children we sat down and thought about these issues, maybe this wasn't a thing in the past.

It was much easier to change names years ago as there wasn't the same paperwork trail as there is now.

I have a relative whose birth was registered as Elizabeth, she got married as Lizzie, her husband registered two of their children with her name as Beth, she registered one as Eliza, and her son registered her death as Betty. That just wouldn't happen now.

It was also extremely easy for someone's surname to be changed years ago. Their parent just informed the school that Mary Smith was now Mary Jones and that was just accepted. Schools are, thankfully, getting better at not allowing changed without official changes because that causes a world of hassle when Mary Jones' exam certificates don't correlate with any of the rest of her paperwork!

I have always been known by my middle name. It's not a problem.

For me, I don’t really like drawing attention to myself (I’m NOT saying or implying you do!) but I do prefer to quietly fly under the radar.

But doesn't explaining that your name doesn't match your birth certificate draw attention to yourself? I have to make sure flights are booked using my first name for example so they match my passport, make sure that work emails etc are in my middle name rather than first... My dad's first name wasn't even on his birth certificate at all! That was a tough one to explain 😂

This is how men are named in my Dad’s family and it is a bit odd. I don’t think it’s caused too many issues though.

@Cornettoninja

Having been a leader at cubs I don't know why they would be bothered

But it’s not about them being bothered, it’s about the OP being bothered (bothered, not chewing her nails nervous over it).

If you’re not particularly assertive or socially unsure/awkward, as many children are, then it’s just something that colours your experience and stands out to you as an unnecessary conversation to initiate.

Plus it’s not even guaranteed to be successful, I’ve corrected people on my name and it’s not stuck in their heads for whatever reason. A child on the shyer side might not be comfortable with repeatedly correcting an adult. That’s understandable.

But children don't just appear at Brownies etc. A parent will drop them off and say 'This is Tiggy, I've put Emily on her forms as that is her real name but everyone always calls her Tiggy'.

Oh' and I am painfully shy to the point of being mute.

I have a number of family members whose middle names are used as their first names, and I see it does cause some minor issues, but nothing overly difficult to sort out.

But I have a slightly unusually spelt middle name and it's frustrating how often it gets 'corrected' to the more common in the UK spelling, so I do recognise issues around names can be annoying.

It’s the explanations soup

It’s a simpler explanation that I had an irritating dad than that I changed my own name. Because then the assumption is I was once called Doris.

I got yelled at by a teacher once for very politely correcting her stanford

You can say ‘my name is Anna’ but I think for some people once Doris is in front of them they decide that’s what you’re called.

@YonderTweek

This thread reminds me. I have a friend who has changed her name twice because she didn't like her given names. She has had no hassle from it and no one has asked about it. She hated her first name as a teenager so changed it to her middle name. A few years later she still felt that the new name wasn't quite right, so she made up a name (along the lines of Spark ), and she's had that name for 20+ years and is very happy with it.

Actually, both of her siblings have also changed their names (one also at least twice afaik), and no one has batted an eyelid. Apart from maybe their mum, but she seems cool with it. They all had perfectly normal names but just didn't like them so went ahead and changed them. It's really not a big deal.

Yes, I had a friend with siblings like that. They were all called rather 'out there' names by their parents. My friend's real names was something like Neon but she went by Sammy. Literally everyone called her Sammy and when she got to 18 she officially changed it.

It’s the explanations soup

My middle name fucking rhymed with my surname. Any explanation is always followed by "no, I don't know what my parents were thinking either".

Bloody hell soup!