By any other name

My sister once had a boyfriend called Richard Head - we were young and innocent at the time (early 60s), and never realised...

My son was called Nicholas, but every one called him Nicky.
Even me and dh and d, I only said his full name when I was cross with him. Often wish he was still here so I could call him in for tea.

Every year we got six Christmas cards from "Sue".
For the past few years we have only received five!
The trouble is we don't know which Sue has stopped sending a card as nowadays often there is no indication on the envelope from where the card was posted.
A Plea to all Susans.
Please either call yourself Susan or state your surname too.

Perhaps something more bizzare is when parents look for very obscure and ungrammatical ways of spelling a child's name to be 'different'. Sadly the child and the parents are then forever 'judged' and not usually in a good way.

Before I got married one of my best friends name was Jill, my name is Gillian but I call myself gill, it was very funny if we met 2 boys and they asked our names, and we both said gill, they thought we wad joking with them, and I used to say I'm Gill with a .G

When we got married, both for the second time, I kept my maiden name and use the honorific Ms. Both my husband and myself are happy with this as are our children. However, some of our friends and relatives can't seem to accept this and insist on calling us Mr &Mrs. followed of course by his surname. I find it infuriating especially if I also get called by his initial or even full mame as well!

My boy was born. The midwife asked me his name. Ben I replied, off she trots with him. Hello Benjamin
Seriously. I’ve heard of names being shortened but not lengthened

I have an unusual surname, which almost everyone gets wrong. When I was in hospital after my daughter was born, I was told by a nurse to collect a sample pot and fill it. There wasn't one with MY name on, but one with the usual wrong name. I was asked why I hadn't done my sample, so I said there wasn't a pot with my name on. I checked a while later and there were 2 pots, both with different wrong names. I had to go and spell out my name for them. Just as well I wasn't having an operation, I might have had someone else's operation by mistake. That nearly happened to one person I know. She almost had a hysterectomy by mistake!

It doesn't seem to happen so much now, but at one time people would give their child two christian names, call them by the second one, and expect you to know this. Why??

Children are registered in school by the names written on their birth certificate, so if the name is Joseph that child would be entered as Joseph in the school register, a legal document, and the teacher would address the child by that name before she got to know him. She would also make labels for drawers, name cards, coat pegs etc. in the holidays before term started, so if a child is unable to recognise an alternative form of his name it would help if the aggrieved parent notified the school office of the preferred way to address him, or perhaps went through the very difficult process of changing his given name.

So much easier to blame the teachers, though.

I don't recall showing my kids' birth certificates to their schools.

Minibaggs had a baby nickname that we were still using when she started at nursery school. Her name card had that on one side and her 'proper' first name on the other. Everyone at school called her by her nickname because I did and that's what she was used to. Two years later we moved house and she decided she wanted to be known by her proper name at school. We simply told the teacher this but said that they might hear us using the nickname.

None of this was ever a problem. Teachers who care will find out what needs to be known about a child.

I was brought up to believe that it was very rude not to pronounce and spell a person's name correctly. Judging from this thread, so was everyone of our ages.

Perhaps this is one of the courtesies that have disappeared?

A long time ago, just before Christmas a contractor joined our department at work. His name was Mustafa Turkei. Of course everyone went round saying “Must have a turkey for Christmas”

I`ve always been called by my middle name, but then in official letters or in hospital I get the first name, in hospital it took me a day or so to realise they were talking to me, especially when during the night for BP taking.
My eldest daughter is Lynne, we thought it couldn`t be shortened, but when she was old enough to play out with other kids, they immediately started to call her Linny pinny.

My DD is Rebekah but is generally known as Bekah. My DB once suggested calling her Boris too but thankfully it didn't catch on!
I work in schools and all the ones I know have on their computer systems the pupil's legal name then their preferred name as a separate entry, so this shouldn't be a problem. Maybe some teachers are too lazy to check.
I once had a pupil who told me she wished to be known as 'Fluffy'. I was reluctant but eventually complied as she was quite difficult if I used her actual name. She eventually grew out of it.
I also had a boss who's surname was Head. One Particularly rude student (who probably didn't know his name) called him a 'Dickhead' in response to being given a detention. His response was to simply say "I'm so glad my parents didn't name me Richard." The student didn't get it at all!

On the subject of shortening already short first names I think this takes the biscuit. My son's name is Iain forever being shortened, would you believe, to 'E'. Not by me I hasten to add! He's 43 for goodness sake.

A friend called her DD Zoe. It can't be corrupted, so she thought. Zoe got called Zo-Zo.
I was given the commonest name in the baby boomer years and once there were 5 of us in the same class. We got called by our surnames - horrible!

Ok this may be very outing if my dd ever looks at Gransnet but here goes. DD knew twin boys as a school child. One was called Andrew but known as Drew because, I think, he'd been named for his father who was known as Andy. The other was called Christopher but known as Chris.
The parents didn't really twig what they'd done until the boys went to school and then habitually got their first name diminutive attached to their surname... which was Peacock.

Wow Eazybee. how to put a downer on a lighthearted thread.
All my six children went through the same school and I never showed a birth certificate for any of them. I registered Joe with the school as Joe because that is his name. The three teachers he had before the one I mentioned all called him Joe from the start.
I simply thought that it was an amusing anecdote for my first thread. I wasn’t particularly aggrieved and as number 3,4&5 son and number 1 daughter went up into her class it became a bit of fun between us checking their names, they are all short diminutives of people who had special meaning to my family for example as well as Joe I have a Bill and a Dan.
She actually came up with the nickname we still use 24 years later for my daughter. She shortened Rose to Ro when she moved up to her class as a bit of fun and it stuck.

My eldest daughter was constently called by a mispronounced name by any new teacher she had. Eventually the whole class would correct them by shouting...no it's ..... They all thought it funny, I think, that teachers never got the name right.

I'm surprised that some parents haven't had to produce a child's birth certificate when registering children at school, as it was a mandatory requirement in every county I've lived in.

My son is a Gregory....not a Greg... if I wanted to call him just ‘Gregg’ I would’ve used the double ‘gg’ as jusnoneed has with her son. Her lad gets his name lengthened , and my lad gets his name shortened. As my son was the only Gregory in his school you’d have thought they could have used his real name. He was always ‘in trouble’ for not answering to ‘Greg’ . People!!!!

....on another note on names ...my granddaughter is called Lyra...no opportunity for messing with that you’d think... but she gets called Ly. How much shorter than four letters do people need.

I only said his full name when I was cross with him
Not the same thing, but similar principle; my dog (bitch) had "Jessie" on her name tag, obviously shortened to Jess in casual conversation, but expanded to Jessica, with strong emphasis on the last syllable, whenever she was naughty. This was accompanied by my command to sit in front of my feet, but she'd choose to initially sit about 5ft away at first and then move forward one foot on each repeated command to sit again. It was hard to keep a straight face throughout this ritual. When she was "released" from her lesson she'd bound away tail wagging, obviously pleased that she had passed her test! Miss her!

One of my favourite poems, by one of my favourite poets:

Names by Wendy Cope

She was Eliza for a few weeks
When she was a baby –
Eliza Lily. Soon it changed to Lil.

Later she was Miss Steward in the baker’s shop
And then ‘my love’, ‘my darling’, Mother.

Widowed at thirty, she went back to work
As Mrs Hand. Her daughter grew up,
Married and gave birth.

Now she was Nanna. ‘Everybody
Calls me nanna,’ she would say to visitors.
And so they did – friends, tradesmen, the doctor.

In the geriatric ward
They used the patients’ Christian names.
‘Lil,’ we said, ‘or Nanna,’
But it wasn’t in her file
And for those last bewildered weeks
She was Eliza once again.