to wonder why people give their child a name then don't use it?

[LordVolAuVent]

A different thread reminded me of this but I've always wondered it.

My name is a "diminuitive", my parents didn't like the long version and knew they would never use it. I think this is quite sensible, but people often don't believe that it's my real name, even call me by the long version and wonder why I don't respond (which occasionally vexes me, but I understand why, because it's fairly unusual it seems).

So, I wonder, why do people name their kids a name like Katherine or Rebecca but never actually use it, always use the diminuitives? I understand if it's a family name or something, but perhaps you don't really like it. I also understand that short names and nicknames do come about (my neighbours for example called their DD Rebecca and I'm pretty sure her school friends call her Becky, but her parents have only ever called her Rebecca - because that's the name they chose and liked) but I also know a lot of people who called their child something and immediately used a diminuitive. Why bother?

Is it that they don't think it's a "real name"?

(not meaning to be arsey, genuinely wondering)

My name is a diminutive and my parents have NEVER called me by my full name. I think the reason I was given my full name, however, is that my mum chose my (diminutive)name but my dad registered me and was confused as to what my mum's wishes were

I have occasionally tried to use my full name (e.g when I start a new job) but I always revert back to my diminutive name within a day or two.

I think it's nice to have a more formal name to use when they are older (if they wish) if their diminuitive is a bit too casual or cutesy. It may well be 'a dated concept' but it's one many of us still go by!

My cousin has just had a little girl, they have a name they loved, and, they wanted to use his wifes granmothers name as a middle name - unfortunately you can't say 'name they love' followed by 'grandmothers name' without it sounding like one big mash of le lelelelelleel (one ending in a vowel, the other in a consonant) so they named her 'back to front' 'granmothers name' 'name they love' and call her by her middle name... it's a little bit of a hassle, but worth it to them to get both names without sounding like they have a stammer...

My Mum has a long name which I didn't even know about until I was about 8, she has, since birth, been called a completely unrelated short name (something to do with a relative???)...

I went out with a guy for about a year who I knew as 'Nathan', we met overseas, when we went home I met his friends who all called him 'Crick' and his family call him either 'Crick' or 'Nate'. He'd decided while overseas to use his full name as the locals couldn't pronounce the name he normally went by 'Crick' - but didn't think to tell me that! It was very odd, I felt too formal calling him Nathan and I ended up calling him by all 3 depending on who we were with!!

My name is a 'whole' name, not one that can be shortened to another 'proper' name. Most of my friends call me the first half of it only, others the whole thing. My parents hate it being shortened and would always tell my friends off (I hated that, it was embarassing!!) - but it does suprise me when strangers do it - it feels like they are assuming a closeness that doesn't exisit! (It's like calling a Holly - Hol).

What's in a name?? A lot apparently

When DC1 was born, there was a name Dh and I both loved, though it was a dminiutive of another name. Neither of us was keen on the 'formal' name and decided to give the diminutive as the name on the birth certificate. I have never had any reason to doubt that decision. It has never caused any problems to DC1 now that they are adult. I don't understand why, family name traditions aside, people don't just give their children the name by which they will be known. As somebody else has said, there are plenty of 'Jack', 'Harry', 'Zach', 'Sam', 'Callum', 'Jessie', 'Rose',etc, etc, etc out there and I would be very surprised if their birth certificates all stated the more formal, full versions of their names.

Callum is a short version? Of what?

hang on, Jack? WWhat's that short for?

Not just days gone by, I have looked at CVs and had kneejerk reactions to "nick" names as names. I am fully up on my diversity training and obviously try to overcome it, but if we are hiring for a serious job then lets just say a Charles is taken more seriously than a Chucky.

I don't like the diminutive of my name, I was known by it until I was around 15 when I started introducing myself with the full version. Some very old friends/family members still use the shorter one and that is OK, but I prefer the full.

i think jack is short for jonathon??

Greensleeves, Callum is short for Malcolm,which itself is a diminutive of Columba and Jack is the accepted diminutive of John (as is Ian).

Morloth as names evolve won't the attitude to nn's on application forms evolve as well.

In 20 years when you will be presented with a bunch of appliciation forms with names such as Alfie, Freddie, Ted, Theo, not just one or two forms as may be the case now.

As names evolve and this country becomes more multi national it will be harder to pick people based on name alone

dd1 had a friend at school who had a huge argument with one of his teachers his name is Joe that is whats on his birth certificate but this one teacher insisted on calling him Joseph and he just blew one day after trying to tell her countless times that he wasn't called Joseph.Both my girls have had their names shortened most of their lives by me and DH but ds's can't be shortened.

'Greensleeves, Callum is short for Malcolm,which itself is a diminutive of Columba'

I don't think so 'callum is derived from Columba meaning dove.Malcolm means Royal blood

Hello again!

withorwithoutyou - understand what you don't understand now, misunderstood your previous post! Didn't know that it was tradition for King Henrys to be called Harry, that's why I didn't understand! (If that remotely makes sense)

MillyR - I don't think it's "controversial" - I just don't really understand personally why you would do it, it's a fairly innocent question, I think. Not attacking, just wondering as I've stated several times. Sorry you think it's "odd". I imagine that because my name is not like that, that's why it seems "odd" to me that it is done. I've found it all quite interesting, rather than odd though.

BritFish - doesn't "bother" me, really just interested in reasons why...

... which seem to be many and varied. I agree in some ways about the professional thing - some names don't work well professionally, tis true (Chucky a good example by previous poster). But I think a lot are fine, personally.
On the Henry/Harry thing, surely there are loads of just Harrys now, after Harry Potter? And there are billions of just Jacks (slight exaggeration!) These (and others like them) wouldn't really be discriminated aginst surely? Hope not.

AnnieAlcoholLeft - wasn't your thread actually, sorry! Was the one about friend stealing a name, but thanks for explaining yourself!

Ian is not a "nickname" for John, I don't think. Its an anglicised form of Iain, which is the Gaelic form of John.

I am a Susan. My family insist on calling me Sue - they are the only ones who do, and despite me saying I'd rather have the full version, they persist. Everyone else calls me what I like.

We have a Katherine. Until this start of this school session she was always Katherine, but has asked school, and everyone else, to call her Kathy now. It really suits her, and I like it, but I do slip into "Kaaaa-therrr-innnne" if she has been naughty.

Ds and dd2 don't really have shortenable names. Dd2's middle name is Jessie, after my Gran. Gran always wanted her name to be Jessica, but it wasn't (rather unusual to be named a diminutive in 1922!) but I love it cos it was her name. But I think maybe my dislike of diminutives as "full" names comes from that - Gran hated having been deprived of the option!

DH's Grandma rejoiced in the fantastic name of Rachel Robina - but was always known as Ruby. It was only when she got older and was admitted to hospital that we realised she always let "official" people call her Rachel, cos she liked it so much better. Its dd2's first name. We always call her the full version - there's not a really good nn there anyway.

Dh is one of these known by his middle name people. Well sort of - his first name is double barrelled (eek!). Its a German name as his Dad is german and when his mum suggested his rather nice "known as" name his dad said "yes but it will have to be "Hans-nicename", that's what we do in Germany". So poor dh has a double barrelled first name that starts with Hans that made everyone at school laugh at him, as well as the slightly embarrasing sounds-a-bit-rude-in-English surname. His brother is Patrick. I don't think he's ever quite forgiven his parents for that!

Oldandgreynow, i suspect it depends on the source of your information, but certainly the baby name book we bought when naming our two DCs, stated that Calum/Callum, was indeed a diminutive of Malcolm, and that is confirmed

www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Calumhere

sorry. wrong limk. try www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Calum this

bytheMoonlight You might be right about the evolution of names, but it hasn't happened yet and I mentioned this thread to DH who is currently interviewing and he said the same thing.

An unusual or ethnic name isn't viewed in the same way as a nickname. I am not saying this is right in any way shape or form, just that it is an immediate reaction that needs to be overcome. I would consider a Rebecca before a Becky for a junior lawyer position for instance, even if she went by Becky.

Our experiences have led us to give our kids sensible "grown up" names so that there isn't that immediate reaction, their names are also still very common (as in used often not feral ) amongst their peer groups so I wouldn't think that things will change that much in the next 30 years.

my DD is Cleo, but her "proper" name is Cleopatra.. in my case, i loveeddd the name Cleopatra but figured it was fairly unusual and odd so most people call her Cleo..

plus now i have something to call her when im angry hehe

My DS is Joseph, he was christened Joseph and we used it at first, but it quickly became Joe and as the years have gone by, he is never called Joseph now, not even at school - just Joe.
It's never been a conscious decision, just one that we were comfortable with as we liked both names, and now he is older, he prefers it too.
And it suits him better - something you cannot predict when you are naming a newborn baby.

Only read first page.

Totally agree with OP. Nothing wrong with LIKING the long name but ending up shortening it. Strange imho to name a child the full name when you don't like it really because of some wierd notion that the shortened version is the full name.

Ds1 is Sam. Don't really like Samuel - not offended by it and don't want to upset anyone who has used that name. Just wasn't what we wanted to call our son so we thought it was wierd to use it in our situation. So he is Sam. He was admitted to hospital when he was 11 months and they continually called him Samuel even though we booked him in as Sam and never referred to anything else. His name was on the board in the ward as Samuel too. After several polite corrections i ended up saying 'Look. His name is SAM, NOT Samuel and stood there while they changed it on the board and in his notes. Never had this anywhere else though. A coupel of people have asked if he is really Samuel but not issue when we have said no.

From what I have seen, family. DH's family names the eldest sons Don for a first name and something with C for a second name and then they nearly always go by the second name. They have been doing it for generations. (Don Carlos, Don Curtis, Don Christian, Don Caedrick, etc). Some go by 'Don' some go by their middle name, and I think one of them goes by DC.

My mother and her twin sister go by their middle names and were never meant to use their first names (they are VERY 'ethnic' [Danish]), as does their oldest sister. Even in the 60's 'Metta' wasn't a fashionable name choice . My grandparents say it just sounded better that way around. My mum likes it as she always knows that if someone is calling for 'Firstname' that they don't personally know her and are probably trying to sell her something .

Of course, my mum liked her firstname so much she saddled me with it instead of just going by it herself!

I think calling a child say Jonathan on their birth certificate and then as they grow older referring to them as Johnny is one thing. But calling a child say Penelope Margaret and then always referring to them as Mary is differnt.Each to their own I suppose and perhaps it is to do with family traditions of all girls in the family being called Penelope, but there again why give your child a name that you have no intention of ever calling them.
I have a friend and her dh is referred to by his middle name and always has been, I asked her why his family did this and she replied that his name didn't flow the other way round she seems to find this perfectly normal too.

DS is known by a diminuitive of his middle name.

I wanted to name him after my Dad, who died before he was born. My Dad's name was Lawrence, not very common and I was conscious that DS might hate it as he grew up. So he's Lawrie to us, but has the option of referring to himself as Lol, Lawrie, Lawrence, Bob, Rob, Robert, or any other connotation you can think of as an adult. I like that he has some say in how he is addressed as a fully grown man.

In our family, my Grandad was christened Claude but called himself Jim all his life, so it's really not an unusual concept in our family.

My name is a long name because the Catholic Priest would christen me with the name that my parents wanted....the shortened name that I known by.

Another thing that I blame the Catholic Church for