My hubby and I are TTC and know for sure that a future son will have the middle name [name_m]Joseph[/name_m] (after hubby and his dad). There are so many names that begin with letters that are so commonly heard as initial names (BJ, CJ, DJ, etc.). I do not like initial names and don’t want people to shorten his name to initials.
Anyone in this situation? [name_m]How[/name_m] do you avoid it? I don’t want to rule out names that start with certain letters just to get around people shortening the name.
Thanks in advance!
I have a [name_u]Jameson[/name_u] and some people have asked if we will call him [name_u]Jamie[/name_u]. We just say ‘no, we call him [name_u]Jem[/name_u]’. And that’s the end of it. One or two people have called him [name_u]Jamie[/name_u], but we don’t see them often anyways so there was no need to correct them.
If te next one is a girl her name will be [name_f]Cora[/name_f] and her initials will be CC- a name were not too fond of. So we will just kindly say ‘she just goes by [name_f]Cora[/name_f]’ and it’s easy as that
When we were deciding on a name for our first, my husband mentioned [name_m]Ike[/name_m] to his mom. She adamantly told me that no matter what we named our son, she would call him [name_m]Ike[/name_m] (I didn’t like [name_m]Ike[/name_m] at all). It really upset me, but thankfully she doesn’t call him that- it would be weird if she did anyways!
The only guys I know that use initials are juniors that use the initials to differentiate between father and son (several are TJ one BJ…and I know a girl PJ) If you don’t call him by initials, I don’t think anyone else will either…I don’t think it’s a hard fought issue like not allowing [name_u]Michael[/name_u] to be [name_m]Mike[/name_m] or [name_m]Mikey[/name_m].
We have this situation and it has never been an issue. Not many people even know his middle name except as a new born, and family of course, so I can’t imagine it being a problem. If someone called him by his initials, I think it would happen as a baby (when they are aware of the middle name) and you can gently correct them. Done.
What about giving him two middle names so he has three initials? Then people are less likely to notice the J in the middle and call him by his initials.
I have [name_u]Everett[/name_u] [name_m]Joshua[/name_m] [name_m]Charles[/name_m] on my list, and could conceivably see someone trying to give him the nn EJ, if I should ever use it, and if that comment ever came up, I planned to say firmly but politely, “No, we call him [name_u]Everett[/name_u]. EJ’s not his name.”
If you don’t want to deal with that at all, though, my only thought is to maybe include a second MN? If [name_m]Theodore[/name_m], for example, was the perfect fn for you, but you were afraid of TJ, then you could opt for something like [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] [name_u]Orion[/name_u] [name_m]Joseph[/name_m], or [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] [name_m]Joseph[/name_m] [name_m]Zane[/name_m]? I think it’s farther removed with [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] [name_u]Orion[/name_u] [name_m]Joseph[/name_m], but I think just adding another initial makes it a little less obvious, because it’s not just TJ now, it’s TJZ [surname]. I’m a big fan of two middles, though, so that would be an easy solution for me.
I would just be looking at which names I liked best right now, honestly, and who knows. [name_m]Zane[/name_m] [name_m]Joseph[/name_m] might be the name, and ZJ isn’t really a common _J nn, and you won’t have anything to worry about. But if [name_m]Declan[/name_m] [name_m]Joseph[/name_m] ends up being the name, you could revisit the whole two MN thing, or whether you’d be okay with correcting whoever tried to call him DJ.
Thank you all for your reassurance! I appreciate it. As a teacher, I’ve seen the gamut of names shortened, changed, nicknames, etc and maybe I am overthinking it
I haven’t heard of people shortening someone’s name to their initials without being told to do so. Besides, how often do people tell their middle names? [name_m]Even[/name_m] if I knew his name was, say, [name_m]Brian[/name_m] [name_m]Joseph[/name_m], I would not automatically call him BJ unless he told me that’s what he went by.
