To think that the Mumsnet obsession with nicknames is weird?

[521Jeanie]

So often you'll read a post saying something like
"What do you think of the name Atticus (nickname would be Kit)"
or
"I'm going to call my daughter Marigold with the nickname of Mary"

If you want to call your child Kit or Mary, why don't you just call them Kit or Mary?

These are two examples from the last couple of days but you see it very often. Quite often the nickname has nothing to do with the "real" name.

I always find the concept of Henry\ Harry thing weird. It's the same number of letters. I do say this as a mum of a child of that name.

I’ve noticed the opposite,
People saying they like the name Ben or Kate and being told they should put Benjamin or Catherine on the BC so they have an option of a full name “grown up” name if they prefer, yeh If you do that everyone is just going to call them Benjamin and Catherine! You can’t call them a name “just on the birth certificate” 😒

I find it odd too. I can honestly say I never thought what nicknames or diminutive my DC names might have. I can't imagine deciding it before they were born

Russians are brilliant at diminutives, there are loads for their names and it gets very confusing at times but when people use them it denotes affection.

It makes Russian books very difficult to read;

Alexi Petrovich, whose dad is Pietr Alexandrovitch, known as Peti to his friends, Captain Alex to his comrades and Alexander to his wife.

Nope, bored now.

i find it odd.
unheard of in my day.
i think it's overly controlling.
choose a name, preferably not a micky-mouse one.
the child's nickname, if any, will emerge organically as they go out into the world, school etc.
do not seek to control and decide every little detail of another person's life. let them have some autonomy. or just random emergence.
it's not your name. it's not your life. leave it alone. respect.

Yes!!!! The funniest are when they like x nickname but not the full name, just give them the diminutive then!

Yes, I find it odd how contrived the nicknames are - “we’re naming her Clementine, nickname Banana” - but each to their own.

@00100001

It's just the oddity of MN, they use nickname when they mean diminutive.

Makes more sense to say "he'll be called Henry, but known as Harry"

But hey ho.

This.

Surely a nickname is something that evolves and people get called for reasons totally unelated to their given name, often in a jokey way.

I used to know someone called Piggy, no idea why he was called Piggy but it was nothing to do with Lord of the Flies.

I never thought about diminutives when choosing names for my children and in fact have never called them by anything except their full names.

One of them does have a nickname now and, as is usually the case, it has absolutely nothing to do with his given name.

This has been going on for decades. I was given a long birth cert name but known everywhere by a (common/familiar) shortening of it. The difference is 1) the new use of 'nickname' for this - they're not nicknames, 2) the trend of making tenuous connections between longer names and other, short names (usually names in their own right) that have no existing connection to the longer name. Like (to pluck an example out of the air) 'we're calling her Felicity, nn Lily'.

@MrsTerryPratchett try being newly arrived in Russia as an English teacher and deciding to go round asking the students their names and fixing them off the register instead of just doing the register like a normal person. They were greatly enjoying themselves "I am Loysha" followed by starting at me expectantly while I had a minor meltdown attempting to find his name while not looking stupid.

I'm guessing that unrelated-seeming diminutives for names (such as Polly for Mary, Peggy for Margaret, Jack for John etc) developed because of the sheer numbers of people given these names - as a way of distinguishing people. There doesn't seem such a need for it these days, as the pool of names we use is so much bigger.

I agree, it's weird, you can't decide a nickname for a child that hasn't even been born, they are things that evolve once the child starts to have a personality surely.

I've never had a RL conversation on the topic, to me it's a middle class probably London centric concept

@OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea sounds nightmarish!

At least after that you'd be able to read War and Peace without a list of names!

@SirensofTitan

I agree, it's weird, you can't decide a nickname for a child that hasn't even been born, they are things that evolve once the child starts to have a personality surely.

I've never had a RL conversation on the topic, to me it's a middle class probably London centric concept

My brother wasn't called James because my dad couldn't stand the Scottish version of Jim (Jum sort of). So non-Londoners do think about it!

I think it's more because when people suggest using names like Kit or Joe or whatever on mn, lots of people comment "Kit is fine for everyday but I'd put Atticus / Christopher on the birth certificate" and "Joe is a bit informal. I'd go for Joseph and shorten." So to stop that, posters often say they will use a longer name formally (even if they have no intention of doing so, I'm sure).

@Carboncheque

Traditional name shortenings have always been odd. Jack for John and Peggy for Margaret.

Agree with that, but what about when you're picking a completely unrelated name as the nickname?

It's definitely worse when it's trying to be cutesy or to make the kid sound quirky and adorable.

Aka :We are calling her Elizabeth but will call her Liz = fine
We are calling her Talissia but will call her Tally = not fine
We are calling her Jezebal but will call her Zee = not fine
We are calling her Clementine but will call her Clemmy = not fine

It's just so west London

I think it’s very strange too and it doesn’t seem to happen as much here in Ireland. One of my kids’ names is the common shorter version of a longer name (eg Mike for Michael). But it just evolved. I don’t know anyone who planned names based on nicknames.

@Bagamoyo1

I think it’s strange but it’s not especially MN-related in my experience. I worked with someone who was known by her middle name. No idea what the back story was. But she had 3 kids and made the decision to call all of them by their middle name too, before they were born. Very strange.

I believe this used to happen in Roman Cathoiic families where the child's first name was that or a saint or simply "Mary" and then their non religious name as second. For everyday use, the second name owuld be used as there might be many children with the same Saint's name.

@JollyJoon

It's definitely worse when it's trying to be cutesy or to make the kid sound quirky and adorable.

Aka :We are calling her Elizabeth but will call her Liz = fine
We are calling her Talissia but will call her Tally = not fine
We are calling her Jezebal but will call her Zee = not fine
We are calling her Clementine but will call her Clemmy = not fine

It's just so west London

I'm confused. What's wrong with Clementine to Clemmy? Clementine is a pretty old name and Clemmy seems a natural diminutive.

It’s a posh / upper middle thing

What I find weird is MN alternative suggestion for names and their obsession with white middle class name and a judgement on anything which is different. For example, PP will say I love the name Zen, the reply, no that’s terrible, you should call him Harry
There must be a million offspring of MNetters called Harry/ Olivia/ William/ Wilf/ Charlotte, etc

To add: Agree with posters saying it’s totally Normal to have a baby Katherine and it becoming Kat or Katie over a few weeks or months, or a Alistair that becomes Ally or whatever

But the choice of ‘she will be Antigone but we call her Tigi’ and then what if the kid starts school and her friends call her Annie or Ann or something else. You’ve predetermined something that comes with time/familiarity

@Blueeyedgirl21

It’s a posh / upper middle thing

It's not. Bog standard Scottish families do this too. All my grandparents, miners and mill workers, had a fancy name and an everyday name.