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’ve also seen the bizarre suggestion on nameberry of Persephone with the nickname of Poppy. I wanted to meet the person just to ask why? They are two utterly different names that don’t even share the same sounds.

@DontPeeInThePlayHouse

I'm just leaving Hugo here because it still makes me laugh

That makes this thread worthwhile. Thanks.

I worked with a Kim who said her parents named her Kim as "they wanted a name that couldn't be shortened"
She said her mum called her Kimberley half the time...

I gave my son the name Owen because I loved it, and thought stupidly that it wouldn't be shortened. His friends from sport call him Oze, and his friends from school call him Juice ( initials are OJ, so Orange Juice / Juice. Your name will evolve into whatever it will be, nothing you can do about it.

@Blueeyedgirl21

Some one on baby names board has actually suggested calling baby Leo ‘Leonidas’ . Just call the baby Leo. No one will care he doesn’t have a ‘special’ name !

Yes I have a Leo. People occasionally ask if it's short for anything and look slightly nonplussed when I say it isn't, but 🤷‍♀️

nickname [ nik-neym ], noun

1. a name added to or substituted for the proper name of a person, place, etc., as in affection, ridicule, or familiarity: He has always loathed his nickname of “Whizzer.”

1. a familiar form of a proper name, as Jim for James and Peg for Margaret.

A "nickname" doesn't have to be a traditional (or logical) diminutive/short form of the "proper" name, but - at least as the word is used informally now - it can be.

People are naturally going to have different opinions about whether it's best just to use a traditional short form (or whatever random combo of letters/sounds you like) as the full first name or whether to go with a traditional long form - in which case of course you're likely to call the baby something "for short" while you wait for him/her to decide on the preferred shortening and it makes sense to be consistent with that.

I find it strange that people think that choosing a name and a preferred short form along with it is a "new" or "posh" thing, or unique to MN. As for the idea that people at school won't use the preferred form or will resent being asked to, I doubt it. Whatever's on the "known as" line of the form is what they'll get on a day to day basis, for the most part (although they may eventually get called other things too). Who besides the teacher is going to know or care that your five year old isn't "really" called Buddy or Trey or Jezza or Spike or Kitten?

@ViperHalliwell
OK own up, you've got a little Callie haven't you?

I hate the trend for putting diminutives on birth certificates.

I like that my son has a longer, traditional name on his birth certificate, and a shorter more relaxed version for friends and family.

It's a bit of a 'having your cake and eating it' thing. We did it for our eldest and still can't decide if I regret it... We assumed we'd use both names but in reality they just don't feel connected to each other and we only ever call her the diminutive. The shorter name is a name in its own right (not twee, would be fine for an adult, but it's just short and when I noticed it contained the same run of letters as a longer, otherwise unconnected name I liked I thought it might give her more options later on if we put the longer one on the birth certificate). To make matters worse the longer name has a couple of different pronunciations and we went with the less common one so the only time that name gets used, for example when her name is called out in a waiting room, it's always pronounced the 'wrong' way - to be honest this is more the thing I regret than having a different day to day name than the one on her birth certificate. Suffice it to say for the second we went with a simple name that works on its own and can't be mispronounced.

Yes this trend (if it is one) may be a bit contrived and silly, but on the other hand the idea of not giving any thought to what you and others will call your kid 'for short' is ridiculous - surely you don't want to call them something that has an obvious shortening you dislike? Not thinking stuff like this through is how you end up with people called Michael Hunt whose parents never sounded out the short form with the surname. And personally what I find more annoying is parents who insist on never shortening their child's name ie he's Daniel, but no one must ever call him Dan. That seems more controlling to me, not to mention unrealistic. Names get shortened so it's weird not to think about this?

My DS was specifically named to be known by a nickname. DH's father ( long deceased, I never met him) had been known by a nickname, and it's a shortened name that we both really liked. However in the father's case his actual name was a name I really hated. It is ugly, old fashioned AND is the name of an unpleasant fictional character. But the nice shortening can also be short for another, much nicer name. So we gave him that name, with the intention of using the short name by which his grandfather was always known. (Hope that makes sense!)

@Wannakisstheteacher

Yes!!! Recently neighbours of ours had a baby, named her Penelope, to be known as Poppy. What’s the point. Pure snobbery.

Why is that snobbery?

Nothing wrong with using your child's actual name @julachu

Some names seem to entitle other people to automatically shorten them without even checking. It can be irritating for the owner of the name. I've had this experience myself in a small way and my DS has in a much larger way. We did, however, factor this in when naming him so it's not one we actually dislike.

In the end he went with the flow except in the family where he's always known by his actual name. It's not a complicated one either!

@campion Sorry, don't think I explained myself clearly - obviously whatever you want to call your child day to day is totally up to you, I just mean where people actively dislike the most common nickname for their child's name and almost try to ban it. Just seems like they are setting themselves up for being annoyed quite a lot of the time as people do tend to presume that a Michael will be a Mike, a Thomas will be a Tom etc.

Yes I know what you mean @julachu That's why we factored it in as we knew it was likely. If it's a very common shortening, fighting the tide's pointless as I quickly discovered

My son has a common name with an unusual shortening. Most people don’t even know the long version because he’s always just been the short version. Chose to give him the long version officially because the shortening is clearly a shortening and felt a bit unfinished, and DH wanted him to have options. I like all the other potential shortenings. He’s 6 and it has caused zero issues thus far.

But as I said earlier, that’s a shortening not a nickname. A nickname is something like Henrybear or Lottieloo.

@DrSbaitso

I kind of covered this but I think it’s snobby because there’s an obvious thought process there. We like the name Poppy. Poppy is too ‘common’ for us. What longer and more ‘sophisticated’ name can we say Poppy is a nickname for. I know! Penelope.

It’s different if it’s ‘this is Emmeline, we call her Emmy’ because that’s an obvious shortening, but Poppy out of Penelope is utterly contrived just so you can have a longer name. The sound of Poppy isn’t in Penelope and they are two unrelated names - the shortening of Penelope is Penny/Pen.

Beware of ending up with the recent poster who called her son Benedict, Ben for short.
Half her family call him Benji, short for Benjamin

The shortening of names is the reason I gave my 2 sons (now adults) one-syllable names.

My personal favourite was one thread suggesting Caroline with the nickname Cricket.
Absolutely not the point of the thread but nicking Cricket, diminutive Cricket, for a future baby. Boy or girl, I care not.

@hotmeatymilk

My personal favourite was one thread suggesting Caroline with the nickname Cricket. Absolutely not the point of the thread but nicking Cricket, diminutive Cricket, for a future baby. Boy or girl, I care not.

C’mon, you must realise that a lot of posts like that are just people trolling for a laugh. 😂😂😂😂 I have to admit to doing similar when my kids were little when we were shopping, I’d call them reallh pretentious names or funny combined names like Jim-Bob. It used to make us all laugh. I still do it occasionally now that they are adults.

Troll is also a cute name, but I’d have to go for Ptrollemy on the birth certificate obviously.

(I do genuinely like Cricket so I cannot be helped.)

I suppose some of them are a bit of a stretch but surely there's nothing wrong, unusual or 'only on mumsnet' about calling Margaret Maggie, Francesca Frankie, Isabella Izzie, Penelope Penny etc. Also in other parts of the world is common to have multiple diminutives of varying lengths for a longer name that's rarely used outside of formal situations. Where dc were born that was the case so you could have an Anastasia who was known as Natasia or Tasia. It's been happening for generations both here and abroad so not sure why it's making a debatable topic now

@TrollsAreSaddos

Honestly get yourself over to nameberry. I don’t think it’s trolls - on mumsnet it definitely is! I think it’s more likely teenagers/younger adults with fantasy baby name lists that are so shockingly awful. I’ve seen favourite name lists with things like Sherlock Azure.

@hotmeatymilk Ptrollemy that made me laugh.