See the results of this poll: Did you or your children switch from nickname to formal name into adulthood?
Respondents: 45 (This poll is closed)
- Yes: 23 (51%)
- No, continued to go by nickname: 22 (49%)
You cant do anything about your children having nicknames, more so when their younger. But i really do think if you have a son named [name]Steven[/name], and you call him [name]Steven[/name], never steve or stevie then when people try to call him that he will correct them. I know when i was a child and this is still true now, i was always jes nor jessie which was still a nickname but people who thought they were cutesy would call me jessie and i would correct them, im jes or jessica, not jessie. So i really think even if a name has a nickname, while people may try to use them, if your child is used to their full formal name then they will correct them.
My family is anti-nickname, but I voted no because I can’t think of a single person I know who had a nearly always used nickname and switched to the full form. Despite the fact that some of them have much nicer full names. I CAN think of a few who only used nicknames occasionally that stuck with the full form but only if the full form was the main one used throughout childhood anyway.
Examples:
[name]Corrie[/name] not [name]Cornelia[/name], [name]Katie[/name] and [name]Katy[/name] not [name]Katherine[/name], [name]Becky[/name] not [name]Rebecca[/name], [name]Jill[/name] not [name]Jillian[/name], [name]Kat[/name] not [name]Kathryn[/name], [name]Joanie[/name] not [name]Joan[/name], [name]Susie[/name] not [name]Susan[/name], [name]Ben[/name] not [name]Benjamin[/name], [name]Libby[/name] not [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]Matt[/name] not [name]Matthew[/name], [name]Joe[/name] not [name]Josiah[/name], [name]Micky[/name] not [name]Michael[/name], [name]Bob[/name] not [name]Robert[/name] (young), [name]Dick[/name] not [name]Richard[/name](I know nuts but he’s a lot older so it’s generational I think), [name]Aly[/name] not [name]Alison[/name], [name]Jessi[/name] not [name]Jessica[/name], [name]Lacy[/name] not [name]Jacqueline[/name], [name]Jackie[/name] not [name]Jacqueline[/name].
Oh, I can think of one now… [name]Shelly[/name] a family friend usually goes by [name]Michelle[/name] now, but it was [name]Shelly[/name] for a huge part of her adulthood too not just childhood.
My name is [name]Raquel[/name], my nn is/was [name]Rocky[/name]. EVERYONE called me [name]Rocky[/name] growing up, and now it’s really only some friends that knew me as a child and some family. I’m [name]Raquel[/name] to everyone else. But my nn is pretty extreme for a woman, so I won’t introduce myself as [name]Rocky[/name] to anyone anymore!
My son is almost 7, and we call him [name]Jacob[/name] - some family members call him [name]Jake[/name], and he tells them he doesn’t like [name]Jake[/name], to call him [name]Jacob[/name] instead.
I think it completely depends on the person named. My sister, for example, was known by her full formal name, [name]Valerie[/name], from the time she could talk. We would try to shorten it to a nickname, and she would correct us, saying “my name is not [name]Val[/name], it is [name]Valerie[/name]”.
My husband, similarly, has gone by his full name his entire life as well. Family members and close friends have their own little nicknames for him, but he is known by his full name to everyone else.
Conversely, we had a family friend growing up (a couple years younger than myself) who’s name was [name]John[/name] [name]Jeffery[/name]. When he was a kid, he was known as JJ to everyone, as a teen he decided to go by [name]Jeff[/name], and that’s what everyone called him. As an adult, he has decided to go by [name]John[/name], and that’s what everyone knows him as now.
I think it is out of the parent’s hands once the child has a sense of his/her self. They will make their own decisions regarding their name and identity!
I am [name]Allison[/name], always have been, never [name]Alli[/name]. My sister is [name]Jessica[/name], always has been, never [name]Jessi[/name]. If you don’t call them by their nickname, no one else will.
I think that if you call your child by her full name, then she will be known by that name. It might take a few, “No, my name is [name]Elizabeth[/name], not [name]Liz[/name], [name]Lizzy[/name], or [name]Beth[/name]” to get the point across, but it is absolutely possible!
I know an [name]Elizabeth[/name] who goes by [name]Elizabeth[/name] (she is only occasionally called [name]Liz[/name] by very close friends), a [name]Jacob[/name] who only goes by [name]Jacob[/name] (literally never [name]Jake[/name]), a [name]Rebecca[/name] who goes solely by [name]Rebecca[/name] (I also know one who generally goes by [name]Rebecca[/name] but is occasionally called [name]Becca[/name] or [name]Becky[/name] by her family), and I know a [name]Catherine[/name] who has never been [name]Cathy[/name], [name]Catie[/name], or [name]Cate[/name] (in fact, her mother, also named [name]Catherine[/name], is [name]Cathy[/name]). It is certainly possible in my opinion to use a full name as just that - nicknames aren’t a necessity if you don’t want them to be.
I have a name that people often mispronounce or try to shorten to [name]Angie[/name] or [name]Angela[/name] - [name]Angelle[/name] ([name]Anne[/name] - gel, not angel). I’ve always gone by my full name and started correcting people as a very young child. That said, I have one auntie who calls me [name]Angie[/name], as do my younger brother and step-dad…I gave up correcting them! As an adult, I’ve had more nicknames and been far more tolerant of them. A long term boyfriend in the past called me Ang or [name]Ange[/name] (with a long A sound at the beginning), at a job where I worked for many years I would sometimes be called Jello or Gelle (pronounced like gel), and my husband and step daughter call me Gelle almost exclusively since when [name]Lily[/name] was learning to say my name she couldn’t handle the whole thing…now she can say my name properly but chooses to still call me Gelle and I don’t mind. I still always introduce myself to people with my full name and outside my family everyone calls me by that.
My mom always introduces herself by her full name and people shorten it invariably. She works with another woman with the same name who goes by the nickname as well, so they are called first (nn) and last name. At least that’s my impression. The other woman is my mother’s friend, insofar as they talk outside of work and I’ve never heard my mother call her just nn, it’s always nn-last name, one word. My grandmother and I remember my grandfather and my uncle (her brother) call her by her full name.
My dad recently said her name out loud to me and it sounded weird, and I remarked he always calls her “Hon” or “Mommy,” like that’s her name in the third person, at least when he’s talking to me - that’s what I call her. I guess that’s neither here nor there. She has one of those names that people always shorten, like [name]Dan[/name] or [name]Joe[/name], and has had difficulty (she’s just very polite to people) nagging people after they use her nickname to call her what she prefers. I guess that’s what she would consider nagging and not in a friendly tone, just correcting people.
That’s pretty much all I know about that. I wanted people to call me “[name]Kari[/name]” when I started high school, but I didn’t know how that works, and people just thought of me as [name]Karen[/name]. I imagine if my parents called me [name]Kari[/name], it would have been more natural to go from [name]Kari[/name] to [name]Karen[/name] if I liked it better as I got older to use my full name, only because it’s not the type of name people spontaneously nickname, like [name]Becky[/name] or [name]Jen[/name]. I knew a lot of Michelles for example, and only one went by [name]Shelley[/name], her father called her that.
If you want a name that can have a nickname but doesn’t automatically cause nicknaming, there are probably a lot. If you used [name]Rebecca[/name], I think people would call her [name]Becky[/name] even if she didn’t, and she would either go along (like my mom) or correct people all her life. If she went by [name]Becky[/name] as a child, she would be correcting people as she wanted to go by [name]Rebecca[/name] once she’s grown into it. If you instead liked [name]Michelle[/name], you could probably call her [name]Shelley[/name] for a long time, and if she wanted people to start calling her [name]Michelle[/name], all she’d have to do was start a new school year, go to college, or begin a job, where people would automatically call her [name]Michelle[/name] (or maybe Mish - sometimes) unless she specifically said, “please call me [name]Shelley[/name].”
It’s more difficult to say with [name]Katherine[/name] what would happen. Of course it starts out [name]Kathy[/name], but it’s been a long time since that was the predominant nickname - but it’s natural. With [name]Elizabeth[/name], I suppose it would be [name]Liz[/name] unless otherwise informed. It’s difficult for me to imagine someone using [name]Kathy[/name] or [name]Liz[/name] as immediate tags these days as they are out of fashion - or for calling someone [name]Kate[/name] or [name]Bess[/name] out of the blue if you just met a person and wanted to call them something short when they introduce themselves by their full long names. I believe those nicknames come from the parent, or sometime in their life decided and it stuck, and the person calls themselves [name]Katie[/name] or [name]Elsa[/name] and tell others to as well, and otherwise people are calling out their names in full.
I know a [name]Peter[/name], [name]Gregory[/name], [name]Leslie[/name] (male), [name]Thomasina[/name], [name]Antoinette[/name], a few [name]Roberts[/name], a few Michaels, a [name]Christopher[/name], [name]Matthew[/name], [name]Daniel[/name], [name]Stewart[/name], [name]Richard[/name], and [name]Patrick[/name] - all or most of these names seem to be of the variety people shorten instinctively, but they do ok avoiding it somehow. I didn’t know them as children, so I don’t know if any of them formerly went by nicknames. At least one [name]Michael[/name] was very strict about his name and don’t dare shorten it to [name]Mike[/name].
My father and brother go by nicknames, but somewhere along the line, they switched nicknames. Pretend their names are [name]Daniel[/name], and my father was [name]Dan[/name] and my brother was [name]Danny[/name], so now it is the other way around - except just like my mother’s name is Mommy when my father speaks of her to me, my brother’s name is still “[name]Danny[/name]” in the third person, he prefers [name]Dan[/name]. My father goes by either, I’ve definitely heard both. [name]Just[/name] to round out the story, in the third person, my mother refers to my father as “your father,” not “Dad.” I suppose that’s another topic. I’m starting to creep myself out, but I guess it’s normal?
Two of my aunts switched to using their full names in their 40s, and have both been very successful with it. However, I”ll admit that I still call them by their nicknames - but simply because I”ve know them as that since I was born, so I am extremely used to it. Realistically though, if they asked me to start calling them by their full names, it wouldn”t be that hard. I may have to bite my tongue a few times, but I”d get used to it. So I definitely would not let that influence my name choice.
Great topic!
I know of a:
[name]Kitty[/name] who now goes by [name]Katherine[/name]
[name]Betsy[/name] who switched to [name]Elizabeth[/name]
[name]Allie[/name] who now prefers [name]Alice[/name]
I also know a:
[name]Victoria[/name] who has always been [name]Victoria[/name]
[name]Elizabeth[/name] who has always been [name]Elizabeth[/name]
Two Katherines who have always been [name]Katherine[/name]
Have a good night! 
If there had been some sort of in between option, I would have chosen it. That is because I am [name]Katharine[/name] and I use my formal name, but am still sort of stuck with my nn, [name]Katie[/name]. My story is that my dad did not want anyone to call me [name]Kathy[/name], so my parents chose to introduce me as [name]Katie[/name] and had everyone call me [name]Katie[/name], firends, family and school. Of course, by the time I was 12, I decided I actually disliked [name]Katie[/name]. It just did not feel like it suited me. But, when you are 12, it’s pretty hard to essentially change your name. I would try every once and a while to get someone to call me by a different name, but it did not work. It was only when I went out of state for college and “reinvented” myself that the fated change occurred. [name]Ever[/name] since then I have used [name]Katharine[/name] in all academic and professional settings, and thus with anyone I have met since college. However, my family and pre-college friends (and anyone associated with them) refuse to use it. The sad thing is that they all admit that [name]Katharine[/name] suits me better, but after years of exclusively calling me [name]Katie[/name], they can’t make the change. So, I have two names with two different groups, one foot in and one foot out!
Of course, fast forward to the new generation and the opposite has occurred. My daughter is [name]Lilianna[/name]. We call her [name]Lily[/name], Lilypad, [name]Lil[/name] or Lilwen (Welsh for White [name]Lily[/name]), depending on our particular mood We don’t typically call her [name]Lilianna[/name], although we do introduce her with that name so that she can use it someday if she wants. Despite our use of nn, my family only calls her [name]Lilianna[/name]! When asked why, they have said “Why shorten such a pretty name!” LOL, well you did it to me!
My sister is [name]Katherine[/name] but has always been [name]Kate[/name], She even put [name]Kate[/name] on her flights and had to pay to have it changed.
I wouldn’t use a formal name if I didn’t like the nicknames.
my name is jacey, i never really had a nickname
I’ve gone by a nickname my whole life, but I wouldn’t say that means that my full name is meaningless or “invisible.” I don’t use my full name in everyday life, but it’s on all my documents for anything slightly formal, and I’ve always felt like it’s part of my identity. You can’t always control what nicknames your kids will have, but that doesn’t mean that their full names are irrelevant.
My eight year old is in the process for switching to his formal name, we called him [name_u]Teddy[/name_u] as a baby, but he wanted to be [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] when he started Kindergarten. Unfortunately he didn’t want to write [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] on his homework (it is a lot for a Kindergartener) so all his classmates got use to calling him [name_u]Teddy[/name_u]. Through the help of his first grade teacher he managed to change that some last year and hopes to get his friends to call him [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] by the end of school this year. It took some reminding from him to the family that he wants to be [name_m]Theodore[/name_m], but (with the exception of my grandmother and aunt) we pretty much call him [name_m]Theodore[/name_m] or [name_m]Ted[/name_m], which he approved.
It is hard to change when everyone knows you by a certain name (your family may never fully drop the nickname) but anytime you are going into a new environment: new school, new job, new town, you have the opportunity to introduce yourself however you want
When I was a kid for some reason I hated being called Stephie, or even [name_u]Steph[/name_u]. I wanted my full first name, [name_f]Stephanie[/name_f]. Now i’m an adult and don’t mind being called [name_u]Steph[/name_u] or Stephie. I don’t know why I hated it so much as a kid, to be called by a nickname.
If it bothers a kid they’ll just correct it most likely. I wouldn’t worry about it personally.
My brother went by [name_f]Patty[/name_f] when he was younger, but now goes by his full name, [name_m]Patrick[/name_m]. Our family still calls him [name_f]Patty[/name_f] or [name_u]Pat[/name_u] most of the time, though.
I picked yes on the poll but it really is a case-by-case thing. It depends on what the person with the nickname wants to be called
My name is [name_f]Catelin[/name_f], has been shortened to [name_f]Cate[/name_f] my whole entire life and I’m pretty sure I’ll use [name_f]Cate[/name_f] forever.
Besides my own name I really don’t like names being turned into nicknames at all. I want my kids to go by their full name.