Nickname Control

General Name Discussion
1

I keep reading posts that say, “[name_m]Don[/name_m]'t worry about the nn potential. [name_m]Just[/name_m] call her by her full name and insist others do too” or things along those lines.

As a teacher of three decades, I don’t find comfort in that approach.

Yes, I’ve known kids who choose to be called [name_u]James[/name_u] or [name_f]Cornelia[/name_f] in their entirety, but I’ve known many that preferred to be called [name_u]Jamie[/name_u] or [name_u]Cory[/name_u].

And then there are their friends who call them whatever they like. They nickname the child such as the lovely [name_f]Laryssa[/name_f] who her friends always called [name_m]Larry[/name_m] much to her parents’ agony.

And then there’s a nickname that’s not really a nickname, the mere shortening of a name for ease or speed or as a sign of endearment. All my friends named [name_f]Mary[/name_f] I have at some point shortened to [name_f]Mare[/name_f] in certain moments. A [name_f]Suellen[/name_f] we shorten to [name_f]Sue[/name_f] on occasion, a [name_f]Ginger[/name_f], we’ve called [name_f]Gin[/name_f] in a hurry.

And then there’s the first couple of years of high school when many kids (usually girls) shorten their names or lengthen them or go by their middle or change the spelling. The daughter of a woman I used to know changed her own name when she was five from [name_f]Emma[/name_f] to [name_f]Emily[/name_f]. I taught a fifth grader named [name_f]Alexandra[/name_f] who eschewed the name and had always chosen to go by [name_u]Max[/name_u].

And then when the kids are no longer kids, when they are working adults. It’s not as though parents will be briefing their lovers, spouses, colleagues, friends on using the full first name or a nickname the parents chose before birth.

Nickname is both a noun and a verb. I might choose to nickname a daughter [name_f]Magdalen[/name_f], [name_f]Meg[/name_f] or [name_f]Lena[/name_f], and consider that her nickname (a noun).

But her best friend, her first lover, her coworker might nickname her (a verb) something else. And that’s something we as parents have no control over nor in my opinion should we.

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Yes, I’ve thought about this as well, and I agree.

Although parents choose a specific name with love, it’s somewhat out of their hands after that! The child may go by a different name/nickname/spelling or allow others to call them differently than the parents intended. That’s natural and okay.

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Yeah, sometimes you feel like close family members are somehow part of you but they aren’t. You feel like you’re all going along in the same boat. It’s not true everyone has their own boat.

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I know a boy named [name_m]Gunnar[/name_m]. His dad really wanted to nickname [name_u]Gus[/name_u]. That lasted until the kid learned to talk and started insisting that he was [name_m]Gunnar[/name_m], never [name_u]Gus[/name_u].

I know a girl whose parents named her [name_f]Mikayla[/name_f]. When she was 4 or 5, she came home insisting that everyone call her [name_u]Mika[/name_u], rather than [name_f]Mikayla[/name_f]. This was not a phase. I believe for her 15th birthday, her parents officially changed her name to [name_u]Mika[/name_u] as a birthday gift. By that point she had not gone by [name_f]Mikayla[/name_f] in any context and did not identify with the name for about a decade.

Parents can of course influence nicknames. Many if not most times these efforts mean that the child grows up identifying with the nicknames bestowed upon them at birth. But there are exceptions, and in those cases the child’s name is out of the parents control.

5

I’ve changed my expectations when it comes to this since I have children myself. [name_f]My[/name_f] oldest son usually gets called by his full name, but people do sometimes call him “Hjört” or, more often, “Hjörti”. I don’t really mind the last one, but I’m not too keen on the first one.
We usually call our [name_m]Barnabas[/name_m] by his full name or refer to him by his middle name, Húni, as a form of endearment. But when he grows older and people want to call him [name_m]Barney[/name_m] or [name_m]Bas[/name_m]… Not much we can do about it, I’m afraid.

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Well, I was never allowed to have a nickname. I have an unusual and somewhat long name, so literally everyone tried to give me a nickname, but my mom was very firm with people about the fact that my name was __ and if she wanted my name to be shortened version she would’ve named me that. It stuck at school as well. And still to this day. So, it’s definitely possible to control your child having no nickname. I do agree with you though, that parents shouldn’t have that much control over what their child wants to go by. I always hated my name and asked my parents if I could go by a nickname for years (there was one they said I could use but I hated it with a passion - then another one I lobbied for but by the time they agreed I no longer liked it).

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In my country, some parents have recently developed a tendency to call their child only by their full name, and to cite as an example Europe and the United States, where nicknames are allegedly not used. Always laughing

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I used to know this girl with a very controlling mom. She had two sisters, and all of them had long names. Their mom HATED when they were given nicknames, and told their friends not to nickname them.

Didn’t work on the first two—[name_f]Isabelle[/name_f] still went by [name_u]Izzy[/name_u] and [name_f]Gabriella[/name_f] was still [name_u]Gabby[/name_u]. But she never got nicknames, and she once told me that she wished she did.

I feel so bad for kids like this. It’s different when you choose it for yourself, but when a parent denies you the intimacy of a nickname from a friend or someone you love, it just kind of sucks.

9

This is why my favorite names are practically un-nicknameable! :joy:

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And that’s why I would not name a daughter five of my favorite names - [name_f]Rosamund[/name_f], [name_f]Magdalen[/name_f], [name_f]Demelza[/name_f], [name_f]Fenella[/name_f], and [name_f]Theodosia[/name_f]! (I don’t want a [name_f]Rosie[/name_f], a [name_f]Maggie[/name_f], a [name_f]Demi[/name_f], an [name_f]Ella[/name_f], and a [name_u]Teddy[/name_u]).

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11

100% agree that you cannot control what your child eventually goes by.

My brother’s name is [name_u]Michael[/name_u] and was always called [name_u]Michael[/name_u] by everyone, until he got to high school… he became [name_m]Mike[/name_m]. Now everyone he has ever met post age 15 knows him by [name_m]Mike[/name_m]. (Very confusing when we had the same summer job in college and my co-workers called him [name_m]Mike[/name_m], I didn’t know who they were talking about!)

A good friend of mine’s parents insist on calling him [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] when he insists everyone call him [name_u]Alex[/name_u].

And as a middle school teacher, when kids are in the prime of reinventing themselves and choosing their own names/nicknames, I can say that it can be exhausting keeping up with what kids want to go by. A [name_u]Jaime[/name_u] I had insisted on going by [name_m]Jimmy[/name_m], the kids used to call him [name_u]Jamie[/name_u]… when his parents came in for a conference they were very amused that he had decided to go by [name_m]Jimmy[/name_m] that year. Against his wishes, [name_m]Jimmy[/name_m] didn’t stick with his friends, and he reverted back to [name_u]Jamie[/name_u].

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12

This is something I’ve often thought about. [name_f]My[/name_f] name is [name_f]Melissa[/name_f]. [name_f]My[/name_f] mum absolutely hates [name_u]Mel[/name_u], would not let me go by if even if I wanted, and could not stand anyone else calling me [name_u]Mel[/name_u].
Personally, I never cared. If someone ever wanted to call me [name_u]Mel[/name_u], I let them, just warned them never to use it in front of my mum. Aside from the odd teacher, and a couple of high school friends, who took to calling me [name_u]Mel[/name_u]-[name_u]Mel[/name_u], everyone else has always called me [name_f]Melissa[/name_f].

Up until a couple of years ago, it never actually occurred to me that there could me more NN’s for [name_f]Melissa[/name_f] (it was actually thanks to an NB thread that I came to this realisation), and it opened up a whole realm of possibilities.
I like my name. I think it suits me. But I’m increasingly feeling that I don’t feel it best represents me, and who I am right now. And I’m desperate for changes in my life, and I think my name may be one of they keys to those changes.
The problem is I have so idea how to go about telling me people to start ceiling me [name_u]Elis[/name_u], when I’ve always been [name_f]Melissa[/name_f]. I would imagine it would be easier for a kid to start going by a nickname, but I’m in my twenties.

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It’s funny to me that my mom didn’t really care about nicknames when she named my siblings and I. Three of us have what could be considered nicknames as our full names and the other she named a full name that often has a nickname(similarly to [name_f]Katherine[/name_f]/Katie). She’s a big proponent of using the name you’re going to call the kid and has said had she known we were going to exclusively use my sister’s nickname, she’d have just named her that.

She had every intention of calling my sister the full name she had chosen. Sometimes life has other plans, so I’d try to pick a name that I like the most obvious nickname for, just in case.

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