Registering baby with one name but using another

[Chowtime]

Can anyone explain the reason behind the generational (people now approx 70 and older) thing whereby parents used to register their children with one name but call them by another?

I worked in care homes for years and noticed it was very prevalent then - someone called Ann all her life whose registered name was Margaret for example.

Obviously their parents weren't alive to ask them about this but I wondered if anyone else here knows the reasoning behind this.

Thanks.

It was common practice in the Royal family. I think it just became a fad at a certain time- and I’m a baby of that time 😬.
I have three first names.
I’m not called by any of them.
Have spent my whole life trying to explain this to people (cheers mum and dad 🤣)

My mil is known by a name which is similar to her birth certificate name..
Like Emma but known as Gemma.

My mum has her mum’s name as her first name, and has gone by her middle name all her life. Don’t think this was very uncommon at the time.

That's really moving, thank you.

My grandmother was Bernadette, always know as Kathy (apparently because Bernadette was too Irish).

In her care home with dementia they insisted on calling her Bernadette, which must have been confusing.

Sending a hug

My nan hated her first name, so she used her middle name.

There was some confusion at her funeral when some of her cousins never knew.

My uncle is known by his third name. Apparently it just started as a joke on his father's part, but it stuck. It's a pity, really, as his first name is much nicer.

My great grandad went to wet the babies head on the way to register the birth, he forgot the names chosen and picked ones he liked. Grandmother was always know by the chosen names and the registered ones were only for official forms and the like.

This is my father in law. His official name on his birth certficate is Philip William, but has been known since early childhood as Bill or Billy. I did ask once why they called him Philip in the first place and got a convoluted explanation about how Philip was a common name in the family so it had to be used for the first boy, and simultaneously how they had to use the middle name because there were so many other Philips in the family it got confusing.

It has been a problem several times during the years, he was once admitted to hospital quite unwell and the nurses were (quite reasonably) referring to him as Philip or Phil and he wasn't responding.

In past generations it was very very common to name people after older generations so I suppose if you have granny, mum and daughter all called Margaret or Mary you start using nicknames or middle names and it sticks. There was a much narrower pool of given names 100 or even 75 years ago so perhaps now where people choose more unusual names this isn't so much of an issue.

My grandmother was registered as Sarah but known as Sally all her life. She was born in 1910. Sarah was a 'proper' name, Sally wasn't.

My dad was born in 1920, christened Victor Stanley. All his family and school friends called him Stan. When he met my mum she called him Vic, and my cousins on mum's side called him Uncle Vic, my cousins on my dad's side called him Uncle Stan! It was a bit confusing when I was small :)

My dad is Irish Catholic. He has three names on his birth certificate and has been called by the second of them all his life.

There's a very serious point here. Hospitals etc really do need to ask for and use 'preferred names'. MiL was another who always went by her middle name because she hated her first name, but in the last couple of years of her life often ended up being called by it even after DH had told the staff what she should be called.

It's bizarre - the health system seems very aware of 'respecting pronouns' so why is calling older people by their familiar name evidently so hard?

In our family it was because boys were given the same name as the Dad and girls the same as the mum or gran. I guess in the US they used the suffix jnr but we just used middle name

My MiL had the same issue, Errol. A succession of carers and hospital staff called her by her first name when she always went by a (fairly unusual) diminutive of her middle name.

In fact, she was a straitlaced lady who would probably have preferred 'Mrs Sheep', to be honest.

My mum and her cousins are all like this. And not shortened versions of their names, they are like pet names. We grew up knowing them as one thing then found out later their actual name is completely different!

In the past families tended to name children after relatives. In some social groups there was a set pattern: first boy took paternal grandfather's name, first girl,maternal grandmother and so on. Can be a very useful tool for family historians. (I 'found' that my GG 's still born child through looking for the name 'missing' from the standard pattern.)

This tradition of naming after family members was not always as ridgid as in this case but can lead to multiple relatives sharing the same name. So people used diminutives, second names and nicknames to distinguish one from another. Some of the diminutives may not be obvious and may now stand as names in their own right. Eg Daisy for Margaret (Margarite is French for Daisy). There are many other examples. My mother is like one. Not going to use her actual names, as risk of outing but like most people she has 2 Christian names: let's call her Amelia Jane. There are at least 2 others with the same name in the family, all living in the same village, attending the same schools etc. The Matriach of the family is still alive and is Amelia, therefore the 'proper' name is not yet available, because of this we get a Millie, a Jane, a Janey, and a Mel. All registered as Amelia Jane.

Finally people may simply just choose to use another name. I do. I reverted to my second name in 1980s, when my first name became a stereotype for a 'Chav'. Still is among my own age group and still results in unwanted 'jokes' from people who should known better.

I know two people like this.

One was always known by his middle name - his parents always planned to call him that but they made it the middle name became otherwise his initials spelled a rude word (his other names were family tradition names and non negotiable).

The other one just liked their middle name better.

And many of the older generation (certainly for most of my working career, I know we’ve become less formal since) would NEVER expect to be called by their name either, that would be rude unless someone told you otherwise , it would always be Mrs or Mr.

Plus a lot of people were named for relatives who sometimes ended up dying in the wars, or even as children ( sometimes another child in the family was then given the deceased child’s name ) so there’s not always positive connections with a name and someone may choose to go by their middle name because of that.

No, don’t. It is sad, and brought tears to my eyes. But it’s a reminder to make sure “preferred name” is in the paperwork

DH was named after an uncle who was later killed in the war, so no-one could bear to use his name and called him by his middle name. I don’t like my name, so am known by a nickname. But on one job change, I decided I needed more gravitas, so didn’t introduce the nickname. Instead people started calling me by a diminutive. And in my next job, same thing, but a different diminutive. So 4 different names depending on who I’m speaking to!

My mother, very unusually for the time (1920s) was registered as a diminutive, and got very cross in later life because medical staff, thinking to be polite, kept calling her by the “proper” equivalent.

It's bizarre - the health system seems very aware of 'respecting pronouns' so why is calling older people by their familiar name evidently so hard? Because older people don’t know what’s best for them.

My great uncle is like this! We call him Peter but his actual name is Henry .. didn't actually find out until I was about 20 😁 he's never really said why! Just that they called him that from when he was very young

My dad and uncle go by their middle names as my grandad wanted them to have more 'protestant' sounding names for applying for jobs etc. We live in northern Ireland and they were born in a time when they would have been discriminated against when going for jobs for having an Irish/catholic sounding name. I know quite a few people their generation it was the same reason. Others were because tradition to have the family name but too many called the same so they go by middle names

My gran was registered Margaret Ann but always called Pearl. I had no idea her official name was Margaret until I took her to a doctors appointment when I was 17.
Apparently her grandparents told her parents that Pearl wasn't a proper name so they registered her as something completely different then called her Pearl.