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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

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Original poster

Does everyone do nicknames now??

70 replies

IamJob · 09/02/2022 06:51

On this board anyway there seems to be a trend for giving a child a name then not calling them that name but a nickname.

In my family and extended family we don’t do nicknames - so my niece is Isabelle and we call her Isabelle for example!

Is anyone else the same? Seems odd to me to give a child a name then not call them that name (obviously friends giving a nickname down the line is normal but parents starting off with a nickname instead of the full name you called your child I just don’t get it!)

OP posts:

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LowlyTheWorm · 09/02/2022 10:13

Language evolves and now people do accept Katie as a “proper name” also Evie, Millie etc too.
But I kind of agree with the OP that it’s odd to think so much about a nickname or pet name and not just use that as the name rather than trying to fit a name to the nickname.
I wanted to call ds Teddy but DH dislikes Edward and I wasn’t sure that teddy was a reasonable grown up name… so he isn’t teddy sadly.

Luredbyapomegranate · 09/02/2022 18:58

@EileenGC

I could count with one hand the number of people I know who go by nicknames. Any age. It’s a very Mumsnet thing.

Don’t be daft, names have been shortened in the Uk for the best part of a thousand years, if not longer.

People might call a child William and plan to call him Will because they want him to have options, or have formal full name if he wants it, or it’s traditional, or all three.

DramaAlpaca · 09/02/2022 19:03

I'm sorry, I can't help myself. Short forms of names aren't 'nicknames', they're diminutives.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Santiagopink · 09/02/2022 19:33

@DramaAlpaca

I'm sorry, I can't help myself. Short forms of names aren't 'nicknames', they're diminutives.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Thankyou! That's what I was trying to say but didn't know the word. Its not a nickname!

PoleFairy · 09/02/2022 19:37

Actually now you say it, the last 2 people I know who have had babies have announced them as "this is xyz but we are calling them x" for example "this us baby Emmeline but we will be calling her Emmy" and I did think it was weird they havent let a nickname evolve

CatkinToadflax · 09/02/2022 19:58

I can see where you’re coming from OP. I know a little Juno, which is a beautiful name, but her official name on her BC is something completely unrelated. It’s another lovely name, but why give her one name officially and then use the other?

My parents deliberately gave my DB a name that can’t be shortened. Instead he generally gets called an abbreviation of our surname!

DS has a friend called Hippo. Fortunately on the class register it’s a name along the lines of James or Sam, as opposed to an abbreviation of Hippopotamus!

I think what I’m saying is - nicknames can just evolve regardless of what the person’s actual name is!

Laureatus · 09/02/2022 20:03

It's really weird - also it's usually a diminutive, not a nickname. To me a nickname has nothing really to do with your actual name, or is a joke on it (eg a girl I knew whose nn was Bean because her surname was Maxwell and it was a joke on Maxwell House coffee bean...)

We all have long names and our parents called us by that name until we naturally began to use a shortening - so I'm Elizabeth and was called Elizabeth until I became Lizzie. I couldn't say Elizabeth, all I could manage as a toddler was 'Liddie/Lidbeth' and nursery etc thought I was saying Lizzie so that became me for life. However, I still like my work email address to be Elizabeth because that's my name - many IT depts automatically set up my email as Lizzie; I always make them change it 🤣 To me that's just weird!

SummaLuvin · 09/02/2022 20:04

I think there is an element of liking a name, but a diminutive sweetening the deal. I think Margarita and is a beautiful name, but I also love Rita so much that it makes me want to use the name even more. (shame DH doesn’t feel the same…)

Also, some names are just long. I have a four syllable name, my sister was 2 when I was born, she was never going to be able to say it in full, so a nickname was needed and I don’t see anything wrong with that being part of the name selection.

IamnotwhouthinkIam · 09/02/2022 20:20

I think the reason some parents chose longer versions of the nickname/diminutive names they plan to call their child, is simply that it's an easy way to give your child other options - it's a way of playing it "safer" since they can't tell us what name they'd like for themselves!

None of us know whether our children will ending up liking our choice for their name - so by putting Elizabeth instead of "Lizzie" on her birth certificate makes it simpler for her to decide in future she prefers Beth or the full Elizabeth for example (even if she's spent her childhood as her parents preference of "Lizzie"). After all, once they are are old enough it becomes their name to use or not as they choose.

Some of these popular diminutives as given names might be able to be changed slightly eg. Freddie has now decided he wants to be known as "Fred" , but unless a parent absolutely hates the longer version, I personally don't see the harm in putting Frederick/Alfred/Wilfred on the BC so he has even more choice of what he is known as?

Others parents seem to view it the other way around. I think there have been lots of threads advising on not using say, Daniel, if as a parent you hate "Dan" etc ,as your child will be the one who ultimately decides .

VanillaAndOrange · 09/02/2022 22:50

I would say that a nickname is something unrelated to the name but based on personality or a particular trait.

Absolutely! But I think in this case the OP is talking about short forms, in which case my opinion is this: there's no harm at all in using a short form of your child's name, unless they tell you they don't like it. I personally find it a bit odd to use a name that has potential short forms and then absolutely forbid the use of them.

YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer · 09/02/2022 23:08

My oldest son is Matthew. I do not like the name Matt. Well, everyone except his father and I would call him Matt. Once he was old enough for school then all his friends did too. He then eventually started using Matty for a while too. But to me he has always been Matthew. I did learn after that though to never pick a name that can be shortened to something I dont like. So second son was named Nicholas and has been called Nick since the day he was born. I live in America and in the area I live people do not just name their son Nick. He would forever have to explain he was not a Nicholas to people. When I had my youngest I went with a name that does not have a natural shortened version. His name is Colin.

Ohlalaohlala · 09/02/2022 23:14

My ds has a name that can be shortened. I like the long and short. So we switch between the 2 although officially he’s the long version. We don’t get annoyed when others call him one or the other.

WeasilyPleased · 10/02/2022 00:29

Thank you@DramaAlpaca. This thread is driving me mad.
Nicholas to Nick is a shortening/diminutive.
Nicholas to Spider is a nickname.
If you like Nicholas, be prepared that he will be called Nick/Nicky/ Nico/Cole by some and that is out if your control.
Yes OP. This is all very annoying

DramaAlpaca · 10/02/2022 01:56

Thanks to those who posted to agree with me about referring to diminutives as nicknames. I thought I'd get roasted

AmberLynn1536 · 10/02/2022 02:10

@DramaAlpaca

I'm sorry, I can't help myself. Short forms of names aren't 'nicknames', they're diminutives.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Thank you! it was driving me batty reading this thread.

mondler · 10/02/2022 09:05

I love the name Libby but if I have a girl I want her to have a name that she can choose various diminutives of. So I would give her Elizabeth on her BC and call her Libby until shes old enough to choose. She might prefer Elizabeth, Eliza, Beth etc and that's her choice. My best friend changed their name officially on the BC as they hated it. I guess my thinking is they get a bit of choice without having to do anything official. I have a long name which I was called in full until I reached my teens and then changed it to the shorter version.

I'd point out though I have nothing against people naming their kids shortened versions of names.

Thurlow · 10/02/2022 09:21

As others have said, most of the time it’s not a nickname, it’s a diminutive.

And I find it hilarious that people act like this is a new thing when diminutives have been used since god knows when - as if Ben being short for Benjamin is some sort of new thing?

IMO the ‘newer’ thing is having just the diminutive as the name on the birth certificate; that’s probably something that’s only caught on in the last few decades.

SliceOfCakeCupOfTea · 10/02/2022 09:31

My grandad who is in his 90s goes by Jimmy. As did his dad before him. Hardly a new thing.

I purposefully chose a long name for DS. He goes by his long name as I like the idea of letting a shorter version appear organically.

I go by an unusual diminutive of my name which came about when I was at uni as there were a couple of other people with the same name so it was a way to differentiate us. It's now so much a part of me that people (and I do too actually) forget my real name.

KirstenBlest · 10/02/2022 11:06

i agree that nicknames and diminutives are different.

I can think of people who are the short version on their birth certificate, so are Tom, Sue, Mandy, Tony etc. The downside is that people assume that they are really Thomas, Susan,Amanda and Anthony.

Another assumption is that the name is short for something that it isn't short for like a Jill being called Gill/Jillian, Ben short for Benedict being called Benjamin etc

CoalCraft · 10/02/2022 12:15

Everyone in my family whose name is longer than one syllable has a one syllable nickname. These weren't usually planned as such but it happens naturally.

RuthW · 10/02/2022 12:22

My name isn't shortened. I have wanted a name with a nice shortening for forty years. That's why I insisted my dd had a long name with many shortenings.

Mollymalone123 · 10/02/2022 12:26

Yes it’s weird!

shivbo2014 · 10/02/2022 12:27

I actually done this. We called him Vincent on his birth certificate but we knew we'd only call him Vinny. I don't really know why we done it, wish we hadn't now! I think we just thought he might like Vincent when he's older...

Crunchymum · 10/02/2022 14:02

I don't think MN understands what a nickname is???

Nicknames should evolve naturally and organically.

It's only here I ever see people saying they want to call their child Mary nn Anastasia your baby gets one name, is it Mary or is it Anastasia ffs? You cannot dictate that Mary is to be nicknamed Anastasia???

Shortenings are different. Edith becoming Edie isn't a different name per se.

That said I know several children who are 'just' Tommy (not Thomas) and Albie (not Albert)

Crunchymum · 10/02/2022 14:09

Yes, yes nicknames are very different to shortenings / diminutives / derivatives.

Jimmy for James. Dick for Richard etc.

Picking two different names that have no relation at all and deciding one will the the child's nickname.... nah!!! Feck off with thay nonsense.

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