Respondents: 43 (This poll is closed)
I go mainly by a NN rather than my given first name and I’ve gone by 2 NN throughout my life. A third was recently used to call my attention and I hated it. I think 2 is plenty. I prefer not to disclose my name, but an example would be like if my given name was [name]Margaret[/name], I would go by [name]Margo[/name], sometimes [name]Maggie[/name], but if someone called me [name]Marge[/name], I would hate it.
I think it could possibly be confusing when they are very little and learning to talk. Calling them [name]Lizzie[/name] one day and [name]Betty[/name] the next, you know. Whereas calling them [name]Lizzie[/name] and the next day [name]Liz[/name] wouldn’t be too bad, because one’s a shorter version. It still sounds similar. I think when they are older, it probably wouldnt be too bad unless the kid specifically asked to be called _________.
But then again, I don’t have kids so I dont really know if they can adapt to different names or not.
As an [name]Elizabeth[/name], I am in the ‘sky’s the limit’ camp. I’ve been [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]Liz[/name], Lizard, [name]Lizzy[/name], Lizzo, [name]Lizzie[/name], Lizziekins, et cetera. And that’s just a small fraction of what Elizabeths can be called. She’ll probably change throughout her lifetime what she prefers to be called. My parents are the only ones who call me [name]Elizabeth[/name], and they are not allowed to call me anything else, nor is anyone else permitted to call me [name]Elizabeth[/name]. [name]Lizzie[/name] was my favorite, but then a person I hated started to call me that, so that went away and I became [name]Liz[/name]. My favorite person in the world calls me Lizziekins on a regular basis, and I am okay with it only as she is my best friend. But you see what I mean. It’s a nice way of differentiating your relationships with people. She can be [name]Elizabeth[/name] to you, [name]Buffy[/name] to her siblings, [name]Lizzie[/name] to her friends, [name]Liz[/name] to her co-workers. It all works just fine.
I also think it’s a wonderful quality about [name]Elizabeth[/name] that it has so many nicknames. When it comes to how many nicknames I think it really depends on where she is in her life. I think when she’s school age or older it would be fine if she’s known at school as [name]Lizzie[/name] or [name]Liz[/name] and at home it’s [name]Elizabeth[/name] or [name]Betsy[/name]. And as she gets even older perhaps even more nicknames depending on the group of people. However when she’s just a baby I think it might be confusing if she’s constantly being called something different. I think if they all sound the same then you’d be fine like [name]Lizzie[/name], [name]Liz[/name] or [name]Elizabeth[/name]. But if you try to use all the nicknames then it might be difficult for her when she’s trying to learn her name. We use a lot of endearments in our house and my daughter especially got called [name]Baby[/name], Sweetie and such a lot. She was getting to an age when she should have been responding to her name so we had to make an effort to actually call her by her name so she could learn it.
I now pretty much only go by 2 nicknames, but when I was a kid I went by several. my friends called me one thing, my grandma had about 3 different ones she called me, and my dad had a couple he called me. It was never a problem or confusing.
My daughter’s name is [name]Elizabeth[/name] and she get called [name]Elizabeth[/name] most of the time or Miss E. She also gets about 50 pet nicknames from me everyday that are instantly changing! Growing up I had about 100 nicknames at home but only 1 that I that other people used. I don’t think you can ever have too many nicknames 
There is a difference between pet names and nicknames, just to clarify, so I think you can have as many pet names as you want, but for nicknames, anything more than 2 is too much/confusing, at least when she’s younger. When she gets older, then it might not be so confusing for her. But while she’s young anything more than 2 is too much.
[name]Pet[/name] names = honeybee, sweetheart, pumpkin, pooh bear
Nicknames = [name]Liz[/name], [name]Lizzie[/name], [name]Beth[/name], [name]Betsy[/name], Lillibet
Thanks, everyone, for the thoughtful replies. I definitely agree about sticking to one nickname when a child is very young. I love that more nicknames can be added as she gets older, that’s very exciting, and I’m glad to hear it’s worked out so well for those of you with many nicknames.
You can never have enough nicknames;)
As long as a person is honored by a nickname and likes it, then I simply don’t think it matters. Most people call me [name]Kate[/name], but my grandpa has pet names for me, some people call me by my full name and some call me by my last name. Nicknames are often a sign of affection and familiarity. Limiting that seems ridiculous.
My parents had so many pet names for me. I had pretty much every nickname under the sun, and only one of them actually related to my given name. I don’t think there should be a limit on the number of affectionate names we call our children. Perhaps an age limit, though. Although it sounds like you’re talking about nicknames exclusively relating to the first name, which probably doesn’t need an age limit.
My sons name is [name]Charlie[/name] [name]Joseph[/name]. He’s got a gazillion names. [name]Char[/name], [name]Char[/name] [name]Bar[/name], [name]Chuck[/name], Chuckaluffagus, [name]Charlie[/name] [name]Jo[/name], [name]Charlie[/name] [name]Bear[/name]. That’s just a few. He answers to all of them too! Lol. If it fits why not!? He’s/ She’s your kid afterall…
I think sky’s the limit when it comes to nicknames. As your child grows and develops from an infant to a toddler to a preschooler so on and so forth, it’s typical for new nicknames to present themselves and perhaps for some of the old ones to fall away. When we had our first daughter, we were set on using the nickname Bella and we did along with Bell, Bells and Bellsy. I guess they’re all similar, so there was never any confusion. Then recently, she put an end to all of them and announced that she prefers Izzy (gasp). What can I say-I always knew that could happen. With our younger one, so far we mostly use Nessa, but once in a while we call her Vanunu. Totally couldn’t have planned for that one, but it suits her sassy personality and she answers to it. I guess my advise is to not try to plan too far in advance because organic nicknames are always most meaningful.
My daughter [name]Katharine[/name] started out as [name]Katie[/name]. Before age 2 she was always called that. But after that I decided [name]Katie[/name] didn’t suit her and started calling her by her full names and different nicknames to see what would stick. Now she’s [name]Katharine[/name], [name]Kat[/name], and occasionally [name]Kitty[/name] and rarely [name]Kit[/name]. She doesn’t seem confused.
My full name is [name]Katherine[/name] and I love having lots of nicknames! I’m not fond of my name [name]Katherine[/name] so I go by [name]Katie[/name] and sometimes [name]Kate[/name]. When I was younger my parents would call me [name]Kat[/name] or [name]Kitty[/name]. If you choose a name that has many nicknames it will be great for child because, if they don’t like their real name they have plenty of other options.
My daughter has many nicknames, despite her not that nicknamable name! I didn’t plan for any of them, and I love them all! My mom calls her one thing, my husband another, my in-laws call her the Russian variant of her name, and I often call her the unrelated nn [name]Minnie[/name]! She responds to them all!
My daughter is named [name]Anneliese[/name] [name]Gillian[/name]. While she is “officially” called [name]Anneliese[/name], it doesn’t stop anywhere close to there. [name]Liese[/name] and Liesey are very common (my dad calls her Weisie for some reason). I almost never call her anything to do with her first name when I actually talk to her – It’s [name]Gillian[/name], [name]Gillie[/name], [name]Gill[/name], or just G. As a baby, we began to call her [name]Piper[/name] (long story), which morphed to [name]Piper[/name] Maru (yes from the X-Files). Sometimes I wish that [name]Piper[/name] was part of her legal name! So [name]Piper[/name], Pipes, Pipe, [name]Pippi[/name], [name]Piper[/name] Maru, and [name]Piper[/name] Maruni all get thrown around frequently.
[name]Add[/name] that to the fact that she went through a period at age 3-4 where she wanted to be called other things, and had a whole system (it’s raining and it’s still daylight, so my name is now [name]Anna[/name]-[name]Ann[/name] vs. it’s nighttime and nice weather so I am [name]Gillie[/name]-[name]Bean[/name]). Sometimes it had nothing to do with her real name, like if she was wearing a dress and it wasn’t raining her name was [name]Daisy[/name]. She had times where she was [name]Ashley[/name], and she was [name]Sarah[/name] anytime we went to the doctor (because [name]Sarah[/name] already had all her shots!).
Throw in all the cutesy family nicks like Starbuck, Sneezle, Schmoo-[name]Baby[/name], BG (short for [name]Baby[/name] Girl), The Child, etc. and my child has a LOT of names. My husband used to send her postcards from overseas addressed lots of different ways, and I’d just hold on to it until that was her name again. LOL
All of our friends are pretty used to it. We love her variety and have fun with it. Oddly enough, part of the reason we picked [name]Anneliese[/name] is because we could call her [name]Anna[/name] for short if we wanted to, never dreaming about any of the other nicknames. After she was born we have never called her [name]Anna[/name] or any other [name]Ann[/name] based nickname, unless it was part of her system and she refused to answer (my child, by the way, is a nut!!).