Would it be a mistake to think you could veto certain shortenings of a name?

[alittleteapot]

I love the name Edward but not keen on Ed or Eddie. Like Ted and Ned though. Do you think you could call a boy Edward and avoid it becoming an Ed or Eddie?

Boys names are so hard...

You can't avoid shortening of names. It is a pet hate of mine, so I do sympathise. I chose dd's name because it is not easily shortened (well I didn't think so) - but everyone calls her a stupid version. I hate it but sadly have got used to it after 13 years!

Perhaps if you call him Edward but use Ted or Ned from day one - then people will know him as that from day one iyswim. But be prepared for Teddy or Neddy!

IME, if you put the full name on birth certificate so its there if necessry, but use the preferred shortening from the start, and introduce the LO as such, you shouldn't have any bother

You can stop unauthorised versions within your own family/friends but you won't stop secondary school friends.

Nor will you stop your own teenager changing it themselves when they really want to piss you off.

I must admit, I don't think you can avoid name shortenings, especially popular ones like Ed from Edward.

A Thomas will always be called Tom by someone, a Samuel will always be a Sam to someone else. If you really don't want the shortened version in your life at some point, I'd avoid it.

For what its worth, I like all the versions you mentioned in the OP!!

We were a little apprehensive that our DCs names would be shortened but amazingly they have not been and DS1 is 15 so seems to have escaped. Andthey have very obvious and common shortened versions . The only one that gets shortened is DS2 - and we did that

I think you can pretty much ! I have a long name which has a very common shortening which my parents didn't like and I have never been called it (apart from by a few people who clearly don't get the fact that no one calls me it !). It helped that I decided I didn't like it quite young so was always telling people not to call me it.

I think if you chose a shortened form like Ted or Ned it would catch on and people wouldn't shorten it to Ed/die. Of course, if he decides Ed is cooler you can't stop that !

Yes.

You can call your son what you like and up until the age of about 8 everyone will call him what you do.

Then your ds and his mates will come up with their own name, which may or may not bear any relation to his actula Christian name, so it's a moot point really.

My name can be shortened, and my mum drummed it into me when I was younger that noone was allowed to call me by shortened version

few have tried never repeated
so it is possible I always told people I didn't like shortened name so friends never call me it

my ds2 is Ned, but my dd1 insists on calling him Ed[ddie]. I suspect if you didn't have a rebel in the family and then it might stick! fwiw I didn't really like Eddie, but I think it is quite cute now when my dd1 uses it!

actually, my name has a common shortening that i never use and cringe when peop;le assume it. hadn't thought of that! yes, take the point that you can't govern for your teenage son deciding to call himself Punk Star Dog, but reassured that you think if we adopted our own favoured shortening it should in general catch on...