To be annoyed Dh calls out little boy by his initial?

[harvestingsomewarmth]

I know it’s his son too and he can call him what he likes but after months of carefully choosing the perfect name together which also has its own well known abbreviation I do feel a little miffed that he has taken to calling him by the first letter of his name.
The letter is also commonly a shortening of a completely different name altogether.

Is it Alfie?

I have a Joseph too and loads of people call him J. As long as he doesn’t mind it, that’s fine. I don’t shorten his name.

Harmless stuff.

Tbh better than all the "babba"/"bubba" stuff you hear everywhere you go which makes me 🤮

I call my son J

He can call him what he wants.

You're being this controlling and your kid is only 8 weeks old? Sheesh.

I get it, OP. Calling the baby something that’s another actual name feels like renaming the baby. My older daughter’s name ends in “-lia,” and when she was about a month old, my husband suggested we could call her “Lia” as a nickname. Which, HELL NO, because if I wanted our baby to be called Lia or Leah, that’s what I would have named her.

This is bonkers. Almost every child has a nickname during their childhood it's not at all like you're renaming them.

I find it very controlling that any parent thinks they have the right to unilaterally decide their child's equal parent cannot call them an affectionate nickname.

Aitch

your husband should man up and be an equal parent, and call his daughter how he wants to cal her, instead of having to make "suggestion" and tip toe around you. Who put you in charge? It's his baby too!

In my case, I’d specifically said before our daughter was born that I picked the name because it had no obvious nicknames. It’s a Latin name that was used in Ancient Rome but is relatively uncommon today, so it’s not like I was being frustrated over something predictable, like Alexandra being called Alex or Rosemary being called Rosie.

In OP’s case, her husband isn’t calling the baby a predictable nickname for Joseph, like Joe or Joey, and while J/Jay isn’t completely crazy as a nickname for Joseph, it’s an entirely separate and unrelated name in its own right.

Names adapt and change though and to think you have full control of that especially when it's their other parent wanting to initiate a sweet nickname for his own child is really controlling.

My nicknames for everyone (pets and people) make no real sense and are often unreliable to their actual names. I went through a stage of calling DH Daddy Pig when the kids were in their Peppa phase. Isn’t that just now nicknames work? I just don’t really see the issue, unless of course the recipient of said nickname doesn’t like it.

I picked her name in the first place, about a decade before I was even pregnant, and he said yeah, that’s a great name. I specifically told him that I liked it because it had no obvious nicknames. It’s Latin and not terribly popular in modern times, although it belonged to some historical figures in Ancient Rome.

It’s like if two people agree on a triple-layer cake with a blend of different flavors, and after one person’s made it, the other one says, “Eh, I think I’ll just eat that chocolate layer in the middle and toss out the rest.” Should have said that before the cake-maker spent time on something unusual and creative, shouldn’t they?

“Lia” would have been a name we didn’t agree on, and even if we had agreed on the name, that’s not the spelling I would have chosen. This wasn’t an “obvious nickname” situation, like Ellie for Eleanor or Izzy for Isabel.

it's completely irrelevant if your ancient Rome name doesn't have common nicknames, it's still easy to make up one, to use the initial or just blurt something that will stick.

Or your child will start calling themselves "something" and that sticks too

Many nicknames have no relevance with the first name.

As long as the child is okay with it let it go - it's their name not yours.

it's not the same at all.

Going along with the name YOU picked decades before having a child has nothing to do with using a nickname. Fine if you had told him, please don't call her "Lia" to expect him NOT to call her Lia, but he's still allowed to call her something else. He can call her L, Elle, El, or "eleven" if he's a stranger things fan 😂

Again, there's not such thing as "no obvious nicknames". I am sure your ancient Rome has a first letter? That's an an obvious one.

Oh yes. My colleague insisted his son was Crispin. Nothing else.

The lad calls him self Cris. Teachers call him that, mates call him that or Pinny.
Colleague corrects everyone, including his son 🤷‍♀️🤦

Oh bless you @harvestingsomewarmth , your little bundle is still so tiny, he'll have many nicknames and diminutives assigned to him as he gets older!

Just ride this irritation through. It's irrational and makes no difference to you, but it's helping your husband bond with his son.

Many congratulations on the new baby, Joseph is a really lovely name :)

What if the baby’s name is Nathaniel and one parent starts calling him Noah? Is that “names adapt and change, don’t be controlling - they both start with N!” or is that, “You are calling our baby a real, full name that we never agreed to”?

Lia is a full name independent from my daughter’s name; Jay is a full name independent from Joseph. Neither is a traditional, easily foreseeable nickname for the formal name. Calling a baby an entirely different real name that both parents did not agree to is unacceptable behavior. What happened to baby names being a “two yes” decision?

Now I have to know the name 😂

As I can only think of Roman names that are very easily shortened/modifit. Even my quick Google shows loads, all of which can be altered.

And if my daughter feels like calling herself Lia, she can go for it. But what a tiny baby is called is a decision for both parents to agree to (provided they’re both active on the baby’s life).

The baby's name is Joseph, his father is calling him J. Not Jay. It may sound the same, but it's NOT the same! You don't need a "two yes" decision, or any decision, on using a diminutive of the name you HAVE agreed on!

And you know what? If you call your child Katherine, and one of you uses Kate, that is also fine. Because you are both parents of the child. And they still have the name you both agreed on.

I can't get worked up about the OP.

It's not like he's calling the baby Adolf or anything.

you sound like so much fun. You both chose the legal name, what more do you want.

Wait until your kid comes saying they rename themselves as "pineapple" or "mafia" and everybody calls them "maf" for short 😂

I would find it depressing if you genuinely have never EVER called your child anything else than your Ancient Rome name from the minute they were born. Most people even give a nickname to their pet..