I’m not even trying to change my name…I merely would prefer to be called by my initials. I let my family know but they don’t stick to it.
I know that some of you berries have done name changing or changed your kids names. [name]How[/name] do you enforce it…without yelling at everyone every time they forget:)!!!
My cousin sort of changed his name at 13. He didn’t want to be called “[name]Bobby[/name]” anymore and just wanted to be “[name]Robert[/name]”. He told everyone at a family meal that his name was now [name]Robert[/name] and that’s the only name to which he would be responding. He’s pretty stubborn about it, but doesn’t yell about it to anyone. I’ve gotten used to it now when talking with him, but on occasion when talk about him, I slip and call him [name]Bobby[/name].
I think if you didn’t want to be rude about it and not respond, you can always say, “I prefer that you call me _______ now.”
Thank you for responding!
It does seem to take so much correcting…and ignoring might be easier than correcting them over & over!
I knew someone who full on changed her name, including legally, in middle school. Obviously her parents were on board too in that case, but, yeah, what the above poster said, and I’d say it took about two years for all of her peer group to fully get it. It helped transitioning to high school, I think, because she made new friends she could introduce herself to with the new name. I don’t know if a similar transition like that is coming up for you, but it might help. I also switched from [name]Jessica[/name] to [name]Jess[/name] in high school and that was a useful time to do it.
With my friend who changed her name - and myself - I think one thing that subtly helps is seeing the new preferred form in writing. So anything you can do with that might help. Back in the day it was just names on homework and maybe labels of our stuff (you could still do those), but nowadays of course changing your facebook name to the initials, signing e-mails with it, even changing your sender name in your e-mail to the initials, etc - the more people see it as well as hear it, the more I think it will stick.
Good luck!
I don’t think you can expect your family to call you by a different name or nickname. I have several relatives who started going by a different version of their name once they became adults (some went by their full name instead of their nickname ie [name]Margaret[/name] instead of [name]Meg[/name], others a different nickname for their full name, ie [name]Will[/name] instead of [name]Billy[/name]). The family still calls them whatever they were called as children though.
From now on just introduce yourself to people by your initials so that anyone you meet from here on out will call you by them.
[name]Just[/name] don’t respond to the former name. It’s not what you want to be called anymore, and it’s no longer your name (in cases of legal name changes).
When they’re calling you, and realize you’re not responding, they’ll switch to the other name.
I actually know of a toddler who did this. She was about 4/5 when she decided that she didn’t want to be called by her nickname anymore. If we did, she’d yell at us “It’s not nickname, it’s fullname!”, then she wouldn’t respond when we’d call her by the nickname. She’d ignore us until we used her full name. She’s 6 now, and I haven’t heard anyone in her family, or mine and we’re very close to them, call her by her nickname.