Cate rather than Kate - pretentious?

[wildpoppy]

Following on from the nicknames for Catherine thread. I like Catherine with a C rather than K, but find it weird the nickname beginning with K if the name begins with C is Cate too try-hard?

My middle name is Catherine and I abbreviate Cate.

I would possibly find it pretentious if someone called their child just Cate (after Blanchett, say). I expect some people would find it pretentious, but never mind. I'm with you TBH on the look of the name.

To me the C and K are slightly different sounds. Why shouldn't a nn or diminutive be spelled the same way as the 'full' name? Lots don't.

Amanda - Mandy
Alexander - Sandy / Xander
Margaret - Peggy / polly

To me Cate just looks wrong, no idea why though! Not pretentious just 'odd'.

Cate? nay, sorry...

Prefer Kate. Cate looks too 'try hard' as you suggested.

I went out with a Catherine once, but everyone called her Kate. It genuinely didn't occur to me she was called Catherine until I noticed it on her (then) shiny new provisional driving licence.

Her view was that 'Kate' wasn't as correct as she would like, but 'Cate' looked wrong, so she stuck with Kate. Things your 17 year old girlfriend tell you when you are only just 16 stick with you, so I'll go with that.

No

Cate and Kate sound different? I'd need super sonic hearing to notice any difference.

Yes, and always explaining 'Cate with a C not a K' would get really annoying

Not pretentious necessarily but she will spend her entire life correcting people's spelling. As someone with a PITA unusually spelled name, it gets wearing, let me tell you!

And some twits people will read her name as 'sate' - no end of problems, I tell you!

not pretentious but lazy.

I really like Cate - reminds me of Cate Blanchett. I think there are far more pretentious names than that.

It only really works for Cate Blanchett because she's the globally famous Cate Blanchett but I bet even she has to say 'C not K' from time to time.

DD has Cate as her MN after my grandmother (Catherine), I didn't use Kate as her first name starts with O and I didn't like OK as initials. It didn't even occur to me that it'd be seen at pretentious/odd :(

I like it.

It's not pretentious or try-hard IMHO. It makes sense. It's the pet form of Catelyn (and Cait for Caitlyn)
If she gets fed up of telling people it's a C, not a K, as she gets older then she can decide for herself....it will be her name after all.

Try hard-ish imo.

DD4 has a Mary Cate in her class and it's just unnecessary.

It's not pretentious IMO, but it doesn't 'look' right. I prefer the usual spelling of Kate.

MammaT

Well I like it :)

Imo it has to be Cait if it's C, cos that's Irish. But Kate is English.

It's middle class kre8tive name spelling.

It's pretentious and looks awful. Kate for Catherine has been used for centuries in this country, why mess with it?