To dislike my name

[whyidontlikemyname]

My name has three syllables and honestly decades on I STILL hear my mothers voice screeching it with the emphasis on the second syllable and I really dislike my own name!

Wondering if anyone else hates their name?

@whyidontlikemyname i know you don’t like it but it’s your name and you’re unique and special and the people who love you won’t care.

I do like the name I am normally known by (and have been since birth).

However, I really do wish that my parents had made it my first name rather than my middle one. It's been a lifetime of explaining and a true pain in the arse.

I know now that I could have used a deed poll to change it around and or just drop the first name (which I really don't like) but I feel I would have had to have done this at around the age of 18. That was over 40 years ago now, and with no internet back then the information was not easily available to me. Hence it has stayed put and is now on so much stuff that changing it would be such a total faff. I also thought at the time when I was 18 that the change would have met with disapproval from my parents and that put me off too

Whenever I hear that someone is considering calling their baby by their middle name I just want to shout "Nooooo! Call your child by the first name you put on the birth certificate or it will be a total PITA for them!"

Is it Jane,Louise or Elizabeth? Only say that as these three names seem to have been the default for middle names back then.

I hated my name as a child. It was very unusual for a girl, however I now love it because it’s different although most people still spell it wrong.
maybe start using your middle name.

My middle name is spelt Jo-Anna anyone else?

My dad and my sister both use their middle names. It's very common for people to decide to use a middle name. Most Chinese will use a western alias to be known by.

I gave my eldest son an unusual first name (which his dad wanted), but i gave him a very "normal" middle name so he could go by Eddie if his first name didn't suit. Luckily he likes the first name so it stuck.

I totally understand that you'd find it difficult/strange to change names later in life than earlier. Do you have a second name?

Really? I’d find it so odd if one of my friends did this

I hate my name too, it’s also 3 syllables. People assume I’m posh from my name. It was very unusual when I was growing up but now I keep meeting babies with my name and I think poor kid

But presumably you'd understand if it was a name they really dislike or causes them issues? You'd only find it odd for a few days, then you'd just get used to it, it's not that difficult.

I would find it odd as well.

I only know one person who has done this. She is now non binary and goes by her first initial only (like Jay but isn’t J.)

I don’t know her well, although we were friends at primary school. Even so, when I saw her about a year ago (at a funeral) I kept slipping and calling her “Jen” then that “oops sorry” moment. I imagine if I did change my name people would just call me the old one and I’d have to keep correcting them which is my main beef with current name anyway!

Here’s a twist; my name is my middle name. Dad thought it would be very funny to give me a certain set of initials. (It wasn’t, Dad!)

My mother hated her named so everyone called her by something she had chosen. Most people didn't even know her real name.

Parents really need to pay attention to initials. A guy where i used to work when we were all apprentices in the 90s had the initials NOB so got called Nobby, he's still called Nobby now and he's a partner in the firm.

I hate my name, it just isn’t me. I use a diminutive but doctors still call it out and I still have to use it for various situations. I’ve never been able to truly leave it behind. Having a name that seems all wrong can be really jarring.

I always hated I couldn’t shorten my name. And there’s several spellings and people always get it wrong. My kids have long names with nickname possibilities and only one spelling!

What was so frustrating for me hating my name was that my middle name was my mother’s first name 😭 I couldn’t win 😖

The thing is, no one really knows my first / middle name, so it would just be the same as me changing my name to something totally random. But I do wish my dad had just put my names in the right order; it wasn’t done maliciously obviously but it’s been a real fucking headache!

My own mother hated her first name so went by her unusual middle name which she adored. Unfortunately, this did not inspire her in the least to give me a decent, non throw-away middle name in case I felt the same about mine!

I agree with pp. Parents should sincerely consider initial combinations, shortened versions and nicknames too.
A lifetime is a very long time to be harnessed to an unlucky number chosen haphasardly.
I say this and I mispelled my username ! hahaha.

I feel exactly the same OP - and I even tried to change my name to something else entirely and found myself getting incredibly depressed and feeling like no name on this planet suited me or "felt right" so I ended up keeping my original as it was and just... Hating it. Asking for nicknames or pet names instead.

I also have the same reasoning for disliking my name as you, no positive connotations, spelled an unusual way, never pronounced correctly. It also caused MASSIVE family beef when I tried to change it and cause a huge rift.

The only names that ever feel "right" to me aren't even proper names - they're shortened versions of online usernames that I used for videogames or whatever - which is.. WILD. But I suppose because they were used in positive contexts that's probably why I like them and why they feel home to me.

Hell, if I could walk around being called my online name/s I'd be SO happy, but unfortunately I'd get funny looks I imagine hahah

I hated my name growing up because it was 'common' but now I love it because I tell tell quite a lot about it from how they react when I tell them 😂

My Nana and her sister both changed their names in their late 20s. My Nana went to her middle name as her first name at the time was seen as very old-fashioned. My aunt had an utterly ridiculous first and middle name combo so she gave herself a new name that sounded a bit like her middle name. They said it took a while but people got used to it eventually!

Change it then and stop moaning.

Also one of my best friends changed her name to a nickname version. It took me YEARS to stop thinking of her as say "Elizabeth" and start thinking "Betty" and I called her "Elizabeth" lots of times, but now 20 years later we are going on a girls weekend and I booked it under "Betty" completely forgetting she is actually Elizabeth. Luckily I have realised in time to change it!

@Journey1234 yep, middle name is Jane

I’ll never forget that baby named Ikea. Understandably the baby grew up and hated her name. As soon as she turned her name she swapped her middle name with her first name. So she still has Ikea as a middle name.

I also read a story in a magazine about a woman named Alien. She was a hairdresser and went by Ali. Surely the OP’s name can’t be as bad as either of those.