Announce birth with full name or nickname or both?

[3boysgirlontheway]

Which would you do?

We are having a little girl who will be called Florence (It's okay we are in Ireland it's not popular here at all - 14 in the whole country last year!) However I know I want to call her Floss.

So how do we introduce her? When we send out the text announcing her birth, what do we say?

Thanks x

Florence Middlename Etcetera ("Floss").

I would send cards and not a mass text, as texts are more throwaway and forgettable and punctuation is less noticeable, which will lead to people calling her Flo, Florrie, Flossie, etc.

Full name definitely. I really don't understand this giving a child one name intending they be called another. If that's what you want why not call them by the actual name you're going to use!???

A friend of mine who has the same views has a son called Ben and that is what is on the birth certificate. She really couldn't see the point of putting 'Benjamin' on the BC when he was going to be called Ben.

Full name with nn in brackets and then surname.

We went with Fishina Belinda Smith (Fish). Because I really, really disliked the common abbreviation of dd's name and planned to avoid it from the beginning.

It's a compulsion Dexter. :o My son is Sam, knew he was always going to be Sam, didn't like Samson or Samuel, etc. But I could not physically bring myself to just put Sam. I just couldn't! So he is Samuel Robert on his bc and I quite like Samuel now.

Full name. It would be a bit weird to announce her name and then at the same time tell people to call her another.

Some people may prefer to call her Florence, anyway. I know a Florence, known to most people as Flossie, but I always call her Florence, as it's such a lovely name.

Dexter, I found out ds was a ds at 3 months. We had a name for him already so started to use it. And over the last 6 months of pregnancy we started shortening it to a nickname we liked. So when he was born we put down his full name (which we still love and use) but continued to refer to him by his nickname about 50% of the time.

"As someone with a long full name which has been shortened to a nn from birth, I PLEAD with you to include her nn in the announcement. I am now 24 and in my last year of university and am STILL correcting people."

How would your birth announcement change what people at university call you?

Sorry, should have elaborated, on registers etc I've always had to ask people to use my (not obvious) nickname. As a child it's quite a big deal, now I often just don't realise people are referring to me!

Floss?as in dental
Christ that's grim
Florence is v pretty name
Floss is ghastly

I'm afraid I thought "dental floss" too...

Still doesn't make sense, sorry, Katbag.

I say full name. We decided a different nn for dd before she was born, but actually called her by her long name for several months - the nn didn't really come into play until her character emerged - if that makes sense.

On the other hand, a friend of mine has a ds called Ned and she announced him as "Ned (long name Edward) was born at xxxxxxx"

I think Floss or Flossie is a perfectly well accepted nn for Florence. I know a couple - and it doesn't make me think of dental floss at all.

I am going to buck the trend as we announced nn only. However I think the correct thing to do is first name (nn) surname

But I think nn only is perfectly acceptable if you are 100% committed to the nn! It means you never have to correct people as they always use your preferred nn.

I am so hormonal, today I want her nn to be Florrie, so I think we will announce full name only and try a few nicknames as time goes on and see which one fits. I also think we might end up actually calling her Florence and not having a nn at all

That sounds sensible! x

You say:

Pleased to announce the birth of Florence (to be known as Floss).

DS1 has a long name but is only ever known by his nn, unless he is in trouble.

It was always our intention to use the nn. When he was born we said his full name but to be known as nn.

Only my MIL used the long version for the first twelve months but even she caved in after that and now everyone uses his nn. All his school stuff is labelled with it.

OH and DS2 has a shortening of a name as his name. I constantly have to correct people who lengthen it to the longer version - which we have not used!

LOL

We just told our immediate family and they told everyone else. Announcements seem very old fashioned to me (although this was before Facebook or even email was so widely used). I'm pretty sure that we used the long version of their names, and then most people used the diminutives they preferred. To be honest when they were tiny dh and I mostly used nicknames totally unrelated to their birth certificates in any case.

We did the equivalent of:

Announcing the birth of Philippa Charlotte*....Pippa was born on 25th April. Mum and baby are well etc...

*not DD's real name

I like announcing both! Our friends did it with a boy called Laurence (Laurie) :)

Full name with nn in brackets. DD has a traditional name which is usually shortened and we wanted to "control" what it got shortened to, especially as we didn't like the most common shortening. I realise that later in life she may end up with different shortenings but her home one will be this one. She still has other nicknames, some of which have evolved from her shortening and others pf which are completely random.