[name]One[/name] of my great name loves is [name]Raffaela[/name]. I think it’s so beautiful. It look like blue black taffeta to me (synesthesia causes names to have color and sometimes texture for me) plus it’s such a romantic, feminine, noble sounding and looking name. But when I’ve tentatively tested it out on others I almost inevitably get “what would you call her for short?” I’m not a huge fan of nn’s tho there are a few names that have nn’s I just really love; but for the most part I believe in naming a child what you will call them. When considering the name I never had any intention of calling her anything but [name]Raffaela[/name]. Now tho, I am wondering if it isn’t too much? Is four syllables just too much for people on a regular basis? Does it need a nn?
I knew a [name]Manuela[/name] who didn’t use a nickname. And an [name]Anna[/name] [name]Elisabeth[/name] who went by both names.
In Norway we don’t really use nicknames tough, regardless of name length. Some Alexanders go by [name]Alex[/name], but mostly they’re [name]Alexander[/name]. I think they reason people might be asking for a nickname is because the name is a little unfamiliar. If you were using [name]Alexandra[/name] no one would ask, [name]Alexandra[/name] is expected, normal. [name]Raffaela[/name] is not. A nickname would most likely make it more familiar in a sense. [name]Ella[/name] seems logical, people know [name]Ella[/name]. [name]Ella[/name] is their neighbour’s daughter, someone from their kids class, a great-aunt.
I don’t think it needs a nickname any more than [name]Alexandra[/name] or [name]Isabella[/name] need nicknames, but they seem to always get them anyway.
[name]Raffaela[/name] IS beautiful, but I could see it getting old pretty fast if you had to say the full name 578 times a day. (And I had to scroll back up to see how you spelled it at least 3 times!) [name]Isabella[/name] has been so popular, I’m sure, in part because it has ready made nicknames: [name]Bella[/name], [name]Belle[/name], [name]Issy[/name], [name]Izzy[/name], etc. People just love to nickname - it makes them feel closer to you if they can shorten your name. [name]Raffaela[/name] strikes me as a perfect middle name: you can still give her the name without hearing it shortened or its pronunciation butchered every day.
No, I don’t think it needs a nickname.
I don’t think it needs a nn, but you can’t really help what her friends will call her. Some might call her by [name]Raffaela[/name], and others might come up with some quirky nn. Half the people I know call me [name]Gwen[/name] and the other half call me [name]Gwendolyn[/name]. I guess it just depends on who she knows and how close they are to her. Personally, I think its beautiful the way it is.
I don’t think you need a nickname for it if you don’t want to give one 
When I was in school I knew a Gabrielle and a Michaela who never used nicknames, not quite the same amount of syllables I know but the same idea. One of my friends has a sister who is just Jennifer not Jen or Jenny. Personally, if someone introduced themselves to me as Raffaela then that’s what I’d call them. I wouldn’t automatically start calling them Raff unless they asked me to.
Also, we had to do a piece of coursework at uni about synesthesia. It was really interesting to research and write about. Out of interest, what other names come with textures and colours? Is it every name or just some of them?
If you don’t like nicknames, I wouldn’t force it.
There are plenty of people who go by their full name that have long names. My sister [name]Alexandra[/name] prefers to go by [name]Alexandra[/name] at school/work/professional settings and only lets family call her [name]Alex[/name], and I am the only person who calls her [name]Andy[/name].
I also know a [name]Renata[/name], [name]Chiara[/name], [name]Evangeline[/name], [name]Juliana[/name], [name]Victoria[/name], [name]Genevieve[/name], [name]Amelia[/name], and [name]Jennifer[/name], who all go by their entire name because they do not like any nicknames associated with their names.
I think [name]Raffaela[/name] is beautiful by itself and don’t think it needs a nickname.
I would argue that no name NEEDS a nickname, but with four syllables it will, at some point (and by someone), be shortened. She’ll probably have other nicknames that aren’t name-related, too.
I have synesthesia too! To me [name]Raffaela[/name] is Purple, gold-yellow, soft light green X2, gold-yellow, yellow, dark blue, gold-yellow. I like it color and sound wise. It doesn’t necessarily need a nickname.
This is so fascinating to me. When we’re expecting I’ll have to have a thread for synesthesia feedback on our lists!
Pretty much all names have colors tho not all have textures (in fact only a few do) the ones that do have colors tend to stimulate other senses as well. I call them peripherals because it’s like seeing something out of the corner of your eye. It’s an almost. Like Raffaela; the texture of taffeta is so strong I can almost hear the rustle of it. The color blue-black is so strong I can almost taste it, like ink on the back of my tongue. Likewise, Scarlett is another one that does this for me. It is bright, almost glowing, blood red velvet. The velvet is so strong it has weight. I can almost feel its heaviness against my arms.
Some words are colored, too (none of them have textures tho) and a few numbers and letters as well. I find most words in nature seem to have color whereas manmade stuff does not. I.e. car or lamp post, or light bulb have no color. They’re just flat, plain words (this actually bugs me) whereas something like…tree is a drab olive green. But mountain is not (although mountains are often covered in trees) the word mountain is the color of gray rock. The word rock is also the color of gray rock. They are both the same color of gray but mountain is indistinct, like trying to look at something against the same color background, whereas rock is solid and easy to see. Conversely, pebble, although a small rock, is not gray but bright, clear blue.
A lot of people make color associations but this is not the same as synesthesia which is involuntary stimulation of multiple senses so that when one sense is stimulated a second sense is involuntarily stimulated.
Anyway, to the question at hand…I wouldn’t use [name]Raffaela[/name] as a mn since if I used it at all the mn would probably be Wight which wouldn’t work well as a first name.
If she wants to be [name]Fay[/name], Raf, [name]Raffi[/name], Raffa, [name]Ray[/name], [name]Elle[/name], [name]Ellie[/name], [name]Ella[/name]…or whatever else…she can be. Call her by her full name & know she has many great options if she wants a nn at school or in the future.
It’s lovely, but I think you have to expect friends and family to nn so you might want to pick your fave to steer them in that direction.
So the letters are each individually colored for you? For me although most letters are individually colored (A for instance is always a shiny, primary red, and O is ochre colored, and Z is the color of eggplant) as soon as the letters are jumbled up in a name or a word that is colored to me those letters lose their individual color to take on the color of the whole and the texture (if the name invokes that) as in the case of [name]Raffaela[/name] where although it has 3 red a’s and a pink e they lose those colors when put together in the name and the whole thing becomes blue-black taffeta.
I always find the differences in synesthetes experiences interesting.
As are red for me too! And I agree the letters have individual colors but there is an overall color - sometimes determined largely by first sound, other times by dominant sounds (long vowels tend to dominate for me a lot, and the long and short sounds have related but different colors), [name]Raffaela[/name] is mostly [name]Red[/name] with some light pink and green for me.
I love the name. If you wanted a nickname you could go with Raffa, [name]Raffy[/name], or Fiella
I don’t think it necessarily has to have a nickname. I do think that if a [name]Raffaela[/name] goes to school the other kids will try to make a nickname, but you can still call her [name]Raffaela[/name] and her family will too. My name is [name]Isabella[/name] and I go by [name]Izzy[/name] at school but everywhere else, including my family, calls me full [name]Isabella[/name].
P.S. I also have synesthesia and I have never met anyone else with it so this is pretty cool for me, [name]Raffaela[/name] is Dark [name]Red[/name] with yellow and taffeta too, which is elegant and pretty. Also, for me individual letters have colours but when they become part of a word they lose their colour and the word gets its own colour. For example, M is orange-red, O is black, L is sunny yellow and Y is pale orange, but the name [name]Molly[/name] itself is navy blue.
Synesthesia is the very reason I’m into names.
Raphaella is deep burgundy, but [name]Raffaela[/name] has slightly more powdery grey hints. Individually though the capital “R” evokes an almost black aubergine (which dominates the overall colour of the name), the “a” is red and shiny, “f” is papery and grey (sometimes more purple, green or blue depending on the vowel before or after), “e” is like a clean peach or mandarin and “l” is yellow.
My friend has a similar four-syllabled Latinesque name that ends in “ella” so we call her both by her full name and [name]Ella[/name]. My name is also four syllables long (the Polish/[name]German[/name] form of [name]Dominique[/name], [name]Dominika[/name]) and I think that when so many syllables are involved it’s almost impossible to avoid nicknaming. Especially at school.
I think [name]Rae[/name]/[name]Ray[/name] and [name]Ella[/name] are lovely shortenings, and Raffie has a certain vivaciousness to it. For a boy with [name]Raphael[/name]/[name]Rafael[/name], the nickname [name]Ralph[/name]/[name]Ralf[/name] would also be cool.
I don’t think it has to have a nickname, but I think one would probably form. I can see myself tiring of saying “My little [name]Raffaela[/name]” and end up saying “My little [name]Ella[/name] or Raffie” instead. I mean people drop the a on my name ([name]Diana[/name]) all the time because I guess 3 syllables is too long 
I also adore a 4 syllable name, [name]Euphemia[/name], but always adored the nickname [name]Euphie[/name] as well. I guess if you can’t see yourself liking any nicknames at all, I might not use it? I’m sure her friends would probably try to find something. I had a friend named MaryKathryn and it just got annoying to say MaryKathryn all the time, so she came up with Mer and she’s okay with [name]Maryk[/name].
I have a question I hope doesn’t sound rude.
Does [name]Raffaela[/name] look/feel the same as [name]Raphaela[/name] or [name]Rafaela[/name]? Or does the spelling change it for you? I find I think of [name]Catherine[/name] and [name]Katherine[/name] differently but I might be weird.
My sister wants to have a [name]Raphaela[/name] (she was particular about the spelling) and says she’ll likely call her just that, no NN, or [name]Ra[/name]-ra. She WON’T be calling her [name]Ella[/name], but we know other [name]Gabriella[/name]/[name]Rafaella[/name]/Ariellas who are. My sister won’t because she wants to call a [name]Lucinda[/name], [name]Cinda[/name], and [name]Cinda[/name] + [name]Ella[/name] is kind of awful. lol
Holy cow, I swear before I even read this I was getting a mental image of a very dark, shimmery blue, like a gown. _
Anyways…I think [name]Raffaela[/name] is just gorgeous, and doesn’t need an obvious nickname, although [name]Ella[/name], [name]Fay[/name] and [name]Raffy[/name] are always there, and others will probably shorten it, so make sure you’re comfortable with that. I think it’s much more feminine than [name]Rafaela[/name], Raphaella etc.