Name dilemma - should I change 20 month old DS's name?

[CeilingCat]

This has been preying on my mind for a while now, so I thought I'd run it past the MN jury.

DS as a very unusual (but not 'unique') name. I really love it, BUT no one else does. We always call him by an abbreviation of his name (the abbreviation is quite commonplace) and I now dread people asking me what it's short for. I'm not a 'wacky' person, and I hate confrontation, and I find it hard to deal with the negative reactions.

So, DH and I have been talking about changing his name, either to his abbreviated name, or to another name which could (at a bit of a stretch) be abbreviated to the same nick name.

Hmmm this is sounding complicated isn't it? I don;t want to give the actual names cos it would out me to any RL mates, but here's an approximate equivalent:

DS birth name 'Albus'
Nick name 'Albie'
Possible name change 'Archibald'

THESE ARE NOT THE ACTUAL NAMES, BUT THEY ARE THE BEST EQUIVALENTS I CAN THINK OF.

DH thinks we should just change his name to his nick name, but I'm just not sure. I don't like the idea of him being 'Albie' as an official name IYSWIM.

DH thinks it would be weird to change his name to 'Archibald' as the abbreviation to 'Albie' is too contrived.

We never actually call him 'Albus' and we would probably rarely call him 'Archibald', but I think 'Archibald' is going to serve him better in the future than either 'Albus' or 'Albie'.

Still with me? Whaddya think??

It's not a great name (made me think immediately of the "battle cry" or jumping out of a plane with parachute, but then I am 31.)
So long as you just call him Ronnie, introduce him as that and make it clear that is his "to be known as" name, I don't think it really matters if you change it or not.
Maybe think a bit harder next time...!

any conclusions on this yet? v late in the game but... i think the whole idea of changing the name because people don't like it is preposterous! YOU like it, and he is geronimo known as Ronnie. that's his name and i think you should stick with it. kids make fun of all sorts of things and names are only one possibility- so what if his name is a bit different? luckily we live in a multicultural country so i bet there's plenty of different names around.

there is a guy in my office called something something (forget actually, but i think something quite vanilla like David Smith) and he goes by the name JJ. no one bats an eyelid (and he's not even american!)

personally i find geronimo much less offensive than the million Jack/Jake that you bump into all the time! makes me wonder whether the parents had ANY imagination whatsoever [now runs to take cover from the onslaught of angry mumofjakes...]

yes I'm dying to know also - any conclusion yet?

I changed dd's name, when she was 10 months old as I had been using her middle name rather than her first - just ended up preferring it and went a little mad in the process! So glad I changed it......do it, but only because you love the new name.