it comes down to individual opinion i suppose, and i can see why she feels that way.
personally, i think thereās absolutely no way to determine how your child will feel about his or her name. maybe millie wishes she was amelia, but maybe bernadette goes by birdie, and it fits her so well, that she feels she doesnāt need the extra stuffiness of a full name. sheās also assuming every child will someday climb the corporate ladder. which isnāt true!
i think parents should choose a name based on the love they have for it in their heart of hearts, and disregard opinions that tell them otherwise. sure, later their child might change it, but i donāt think naming your son gus instead of augustus makes him any more likely to do so.
i just think itās kind of dumb !! like i get where sheās coming from completely but alsoā¦ first of all, nickname names are super normalised in certain regions and cultures, including mine. i am entirely capable of seeing adults with nickname names and respecting them - i do it every day!!. it feels like the real problem in this situation is āmisogynistic older man will not respect a woman in the workplace if she has a name that makes him think of a childā. which is a problem yesā¦ but i donāt think the onus is on parents to compensate for a hypothetical misogynistic boss thirty years ahead !! since i would say that person is going to be demeaning or misogynistic regardless !! maybe iām just projecting here because i have a nickname name myself, but i could never imagine being philippa. that isnāt my name, and i would hate to have it on forms, and definitely not read in my wedding vows. basically, with anything you choose, your child might hate their name, so you might as well choose what makes you feel right.
(bonus: i think there is a distinction between ānickname namesā (e.g. millie, pippa) and āpet-name namesā (e.g. sweetie, darling) - i think the latter can cause problems if used as first names because they are such general terms of endearment, they could be very difficult to use professionally or constantly hear as endearments)
eh, i think her mindset is a little limited, personally. children may become adults in the corporate world one day, where one may put more stock into the professionalism of a name, but also not! children can grow to be anythingā and choose any name. if your sarah grows to prefer sadie, what is the difference from being named sadie in the first place? i do understand the different kinds of nicknames, whereas millie is just as professional as mildred, sweetie should probably be left off of the birth certificate. but as that wasnāt the point of her article, opening with jake << jacob and the like, i find it to honestly be a little ridiculous. iām certain sheās met plenty of kateās and belleās who havenāt been katherine and isabelle, for example. if your rosie turns out to be a strong, confident lawyer for exampleās sake, who cares if she was born with the name rosanne or just rosie?? people arenāt their names, their names are them. the same person will do the same things no matter being named tommy or thomas.
Name trends are always changing. Right now, nickname names may seem unprofessional, but in 20-30 years they may not be! As a name becomes more established and used it will naturally gain ārespectā and people will more easily be able to visualize it on an adult. Naming kids based on professional standards of today, when they wonāt be entering the workforce for decades still, feels weird to me
I completely agree with this! Parents now are forgetting that their children are going to be adults some day, and will have to be taken seriously by older ones. They can have a childish nickname and a REAL name to use as an adult. Of course it depends on the nickname; if theyāre using a name that can technically be used as a nickname but is established as its own name, there isnāt anything wrong, but naming the baby a name that is only thought of as a nickname isnāt fair to them. But what I think is even worse is all the ridiculous parents naming their daughters āBruhxleighā or āAcelynnā and their sons āIronā or āFireā
I think its great to consider as many things as possible then decide if a name seems right. [name_m]Ot[/name_m] definitely doesnāt seem like as big a deal as sheās making it out to be. I go by nickname everywhere and have never felt it held me back??? Men go by nicknames professionally all the time.
I do appreciate that she says in the article that this might not be right for every parent but is just something she thinks should be given some serious thought because it is personal preference and there are nickname names that work just fine on an adult, but she does have a point that sometimes people seem to forget theyāre really naming a future adult because their baby will only be a cute little kid for a fraction of their lifetime and its important to choose a name that will work for them throughout their life.
Her point about the annoyance of having to correct that āthis is my full nameā is totally valid. I know a Just Sophie who people constantly assume is a Sophia (which is extra annoying because Sophie is a full name in itās own right) and a Just Alex who expressed dislike of his name being a nickname. But there are also plenty of people who exclusively use a nickname because they hate their full name and wish they didnāt have it, so it goes both ways.
To each our own is my general take here. A name doesnāt define a person. A person defines a name. And, through history, this has been the case! Thereās utterly nothing unprofessional about a nickname-name, same as thereās utterly nothing anti-fun about a traditional, longer name.
So, adverse to the original TikTokerās point in her clipā¦ it is ludicrous to me to think that a Millie would be āhinderedā in life any more than an Amelia for her name. Thatās a far too harsh hill to cry from.
My friends called me so many nicknames in my life (Queenie, Sunny, Pesce, and so on) and at school people shorten my name even though it isnāt very long. For me it is fine, but I would call my child a full name unless their name was like Elisabeth long or something.
Where I live there are some very popular nickname-names: Elisa, Nina, and I have also heard Lina and Leo and Sophie.
But of course to everyone their likes! I feel like she has been a bit too exaggerated with this
frankly anything written in the [name_m]Daily[/name_m] Fail should be taken with the most enormous handful of salt 
Iām in the UK. Nicknames as first names are extremely common and have been for decades. The [name_m]Daily[/name_m] Fail also loves to show articles like this, but I find this one annoying as theyāre a [name_f]British[/name_f] media platform showing an article based on an American womanās opinion when the country the media platform is from have used nicknames for ages!
im a teenberry, living in the uk, and amongst my friends id say those with nickname names almost outnumber those with āfullā names. for example, over the years i have been close friends with an effie, a millie, a tess, a tilly, a sophie, a daisy, a minnie, a maisie, a gracie, a pippa and many more.
maybe itās just more commonplace to have nickname names here but i as a teenager in the uk have encountered so many ānicknameā names and nobody has batted an eyelid. even as we are getting now into our later teens, sitting exams, researching for universities, no one has taken any of my friends with ānicknameā names less seriously
and also anyway, itās a daily mail article soā¦
In my culture people in 95% arenāt given nicknames as full names but as far as I know it has never been a problem in [name_f]English[/name_f] speaking world. The lists of popular names from more than a century ago include (and not in last places) [name_f]Maggie[/name_f], [name_u]Johnny[/name_u], [name_f]Polly[/name_f], [name_u]Nick[/name_u], etc. It is unlikely that all these people suffered because of their names.
Sounds mostly snobbish to me, sorry. But itās the [name_m]Daily[/name_m] [name_m]Mail[/name_m] after all.
I get part of what sheās saying but a lot of it seems a bit dramatic and honestly kind of weird to me. It does depend on the name of course, for example I would agree that names like [name_m]Mikey[/name_m], [name_m]Howie[/name_m], or [name_f]Lulu[/name_f] do sound childish and I guess could have some impact on peopleās impressions of someone. But this idea that nicknames are ONLY for children is outdated, like, 70 years outdated, and Iām kind of surprised there are people who still think that. There are tons of highly respected figures who have nickname names and have been for years.
I think there are lots of other valid reasons to reconsider nickname names that probably would have made a much better argument than this.
Ok, despite the fact its by the [name_m]Daily[/name_m] [name_m]Mail[/name_m] (yuck) I do think sheās right. Obviously there are differences between names, like a baby named [name_f]Kate[/name_f] and a baby named [name_f]Mimi[/name_f] are going to have different experiences obviously. I think if youāre calling your child an established short form thats been around for many decades as its own name: [name_u]Jack[/name_u], [name_f]Eliza[/name_f], [name_f]Kate[/name_f] then thatās acceptable, especially as thereās options within these names to become [name_f]Lizzy[/name_f], [name_f]Katie[/name_f], etc. I do think you should always put the formal name on the birth certificate, because while [name_u]Frannie[/name_u] may be cute when sheās three, once sheās thirteen she may very well want the option of [name_f]Francesca[/name_f]. [name_u]Or[/name_u] not. But the important thing is she can choose, and isnt legally limited by your choice. I myself have a nickname name and hate it, its juvenile, it doesnt fit me and I do feel like it gives people a ācutesyā first impression of me. I hate it so much that Iāve changed it back to what the full name shouldāve been, and i feel like that fits so much better, and gives me a more āseriousā impression.
I agree; while I personally would not use Honey or Franny as full names, I have myself nickname names I like: Elsa, Greta and Margot just to list some examples.