To continue calling DD by the name I gave her

[bannsise]

My DD is 22, her first name is Isabella, I chose the name as I love it and think it’s very pretty. Since she was little I’d always call her Isabella or Bella, her dad who I wasn’t with called her “Isa” (ee-sa).
As a teen she insisted I didn’t call her Bella, I happily just used Isabella.
Now she is insisting I call her Isa, she says she doesn’t like Isabella, no one apart from me has called her it in 10+ years. She also complains I say it wrong anyway (her dad is European and pronounces it ee-sa-bell-a, I say is-a-bell-a). I replied that I can’t say her name wrong as I picked it!!

AIBU to say I will continue to call her Isabella (with the English pronunciation) and not by Isa as that isn’t the name I chose for her and I don’t like it.

YABU - and completely ridiculous! Address her as she has requested.

As you will know if you post here, it's hardly unusual to get a post deleted.

PP said that I "had" my post deleted, which I took to mean that I had requested it to be deleted. When I realised they meant MN had done it, I posted that too. I'd have understood first time if someone had said that MN had deleted it.

Zany called me ignorant, "so, so awful" and a liar twice. (About my friends.) All because I wanted to share my observations. How can you call someone "so, so awful" on the basis of that? I don't care, but she wasn't an angel in that exchange either.

I'm still really puzzled as why why she called me extremely ignorant because I stated that the British public have never owned slaves in the British isles, like Americans did in their country, and we have never had legally sanctioned segregation in the British Isles (although Britain was obviously a big part of the slave trade). She was referring to those statements because she bolded them. As far as I know, on our island we have never been allowed to own slaves and we have never had separate schools, cinemas, toilets etc. for Black and white people.

I'd have been interested to know what she meant, and also VERY interested to know the differences between what the US and UK were like for her, but she was too busy being awful to me to engage.

I saw what I saw in both countries. I was reporting, not saying that m observations are all Black people's experiences.

But Zany doesn't want to share, so we'll just go on not understanding each other.

Plse imagine the gif is at the end of my message. I couldn't fix it.

Mate, you were rude to several people way before you ever embarked on A Pedant's Guide to Racial History in the UK.

See my.mother was the only person who called me by my full name Didn't bother me in the slightest

lol thanks for the lecture reiterating your posts, which I have already read.

I can see you are determined to twist what posters have actually said in order to avoid acknowledging the very obvious reality that if you are not Black, you do not know what a Black person’s experience of racism is.

Your perception of how things are or should be based on a particular historical narrative are not based on lived experience.

You think racism is worse in America because of the slave history, however because of that very history America also has a long-established and widespread Afro-American culture that may provide a sense of belonging for Black people and make the country feel less racist to them, vs the UK, which does not have a similar culture established to the same degree.

I am not speaking for Zany, just giving you a perspective on why your perception may be very different to a Black person’s.

If you are going to apologise for whitesplaining you should probably not then subsequently defend doing it.

I really, really do not understand. I was trying to discuss the HUGE differences in culture when it comes to race in the US and UK, and as part of that, I pointed out that the US had slavery and segregation on its own soil in the modern era whereas Britain hasn't. Those are two massive differences, which to me are interesting because they form a good part of the reason that the US and the UK are so foreign to each other, even though they speak a common language. Observing those differences also helps me make sense of being an immigrant, which can be an extremely confusing experience.

For saying those two facts, Zany called me extremely ignorant and now you've called me a pedant and a racist for saying that one country had these things and the other did not. I think those differences are key to understanding each country.

I said that the OP's daughter was "in her twat era" for insulting her mother via her nationality. Someone else started baiting me by making out three times that I'd said daughter was a twat for her name insistence, which I certainly did not.

But yeah, I'm ignorant, racist, a pedant, a liar, and so, so awful, for reporting my observations and seeking to understand the differences between the US and UK, which are VAST, and as I said, the racism is easily the most disappointing thing about America.

But I don't feel that I'm dealing with reasonable people, so I'll take my pedantic, racist, lying, awful self off for dinner. 🤣

There is absolutely no point continuing, all anyone wants to do is fling insults, so that's that.

OP, sorry for the massive threadjack. We just went off on a tangent and down a rabbit hole. Apologies.

My youngest was three when he decided he didn't like the shortened version of his name that we'd all been using since he was born. He insisted on his full name which we'd never used, and stopped responding to anything else so we had to respect him. You've had a good innings if you've gotten to 22. I'd suggest you respect her wishes too, or you might start seeing a lot less of her.

Thank you for your fourth paragraph, which is the first sensible thing anyone's said to me since Zany started on me.

I'm trying to say that America has this image as a famously racist country. If that image is not in step with the reality anymore, then good! But I don't think the US BLM movement would agree. I've witnessed many more racist incidents in America. There is a vast difference in the quality of school buildings and facilities in Black-dominated and white-dominated neighbourhoods. These are merely my observations, and I could go on about the things I've seen and heard in America, but no one wants to hear how bad it is over here, so I'll be shutting up now.

These are only my observations, and it's interesting to me because it seems very different from home. I know there's racism in Britain, of course there is, it's bloody everywhere. But I was saying that it seems less obvious to me than in America. Just my observation. If Zany has as bad an experience of racism in Britain as many Black people have always had in America, and continue to have, then that is sickening and very, very disappointing.

I agree.

I've had family members who changed their names when young and then went back, although in this case, it does seem that she just wants her name pronounced the way that sounds natural to her. It's a little odd insofar as many children of foreign parents accept that their mum or dad sounds different. And many people with a shortened name accept that their mum is the one person who will always call them by their full name! I agree that it could be a bit of backlash for leaving her at 16. Would have been better to have left it until she was 18 and had left school for a job, or gone to college.

Ugh my mum still insists on calling me by the unshortened version of my name. Everyone else uses the short version which isn’t great tbh, they are both ugly 80s names but it’s better.
When my Mum uses my full name I find it triggering as fuck and a reminder that she doesn’t respect me as an adult or human being and still sees me as her property… she will use the name SHE chose.
Honestly OP just call dd by her chosen name

I really, really do not understand

Well, maybe your reading comprehension needs a little work. 😉

My daughter is 17 and has gone by her middle name for the last 7 years. I was sad about it at first. But can't imagine calling her by anything else now. I managed to respect my daughter's sense of self, despite my own feelings. It's hard being a parent isn't it.

Lots of young people are anti-colonist these days and Italy doesn't have that same colonist past as the UK.

Well it does but you have to go back rather a long way! Perhaps they learned their lesson after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

I would maybe reflect a bit more on the why you are so bothered by this. Is the Italian pronunciation seen as choosing sides/ having her father "win"? Particularly with the unreasonable behaviour he showed in the past.

I get that it's the name you picked and it was intended to be Isabella or Bella, but she is an adult, and could legally change her name completely if she so wished. It's her name.

I do sympathise though on the feeling you need to put on an accent to say it. On reading this thread all I can hear is Michael Sheen in the film New Moon, over pronouncing "Eee-sah-belllll-ahhhh"

You are being deliberately obtuse.

Clearly you value your principles above having any kind of meaningful relationship with your daughter.

She will become frustrated with your inability to respect her wishes. Yes you named her, but it's her name, her choice - this is not the hill on which to die.

My parents are the only people who call me by my original name. I go by a nickname everywhere else, including work. The only time I use my full name is on legal paperwork. I haven’t really identified with my original name for decades. But my parents can’t think of me as anything but my original name so they still use it. I think there must be a generational difference here because I cannot imagine demanding my parents use my nickname. They gave me the name. They raised me. They are the whole reason I exist and am where I am today. But I’m nearly 50 maybe younger generations view things differently.

in your position I’d say it’s probably best to go along with the nickname as it’s not worth damaging your relationship with your daughter over. But from the other side, as the daughter, I would never dream of telling my parents what to call me. I would feel it was very rude and disrespectful. I’ve been very lucky to have wonderful parents. They can call me whatever they like because it is said with love.

It has a recent fascist past though, which is pretty embarrassing.

Well thankfully you're not her daughter

Eh? It’s ice-a for the account, not eesa

Lovely, your mams a dickhead just because she calls you by your long name. My sister Valerie, we all call her val except my mother who uses the full name, is she a dickhead, not at all. Feel sorry for your mam

Going against the grain, I can understand why using isa now would be weird for op.

I have a name with lots of nicknames. My real name is not Elizabeth but for example, my Grandad calls me Liz, mum calls me Elizabeth, friends call me Lizzy.. I'm 32 and at this point I'd never request for everyone to only use Liz when they're not used to it.

If you worked with someone who had a name that could be pronounced in different ways would you use their preferred pronunciation? Of course you would, its basic respect.

I don't see why you wouldn't show the same respect to your daughter. She's a person in her own right, independent of you and her father and if you can't accept that I think you're going to have a very strained relationship with her.

YABU and risking your relationship with your daughter. She was born and raised in a country where her name is pronounced Ee-sa. What harm could it possibly cause you to call her that pronunciation? This is not the hill to die on! Refer to her however you like if she isn’t around but respect her choice.