I’ve already addressed the second part (hooray for sending letters to credit agencies to correct fuck ups on behalf of stupid store clerks!), but to the first: amen. My name is Angelique, but it is always a trial when someone over the phone is trying to take down my name. Like I said, my name isn’t an odd spelling, it’s just a different name.
“It’s Angelique.”
“Angeline?”
“No, Angelique.”
“Angela?”
“No, Angelique. A-N-G-E-L-I-Q-----”
“L-I-N???”
“NO! A-N-G-E-L-I-Q-U-E.”
“Right. Angelina! Got it!”
“GODDAMNIT, NO. THERE IS A Q. A Q. LIKE . . . “QUARTER”.”
“Oh, so a C. Angelica, I’m sorry!”
“AAAAAAAH, A Q!!! MY KINGDOM FOR A Q!!!”
It’s the Q that really fucks people up, let me tell you.
In my teaching career I had several Maxes, some just-plain-Max, a couple short for Maxwell. My two favorites (namewise, but they were neat kids too) were Maximillion (yup, that was the spelling) and Maximus.
I love how threads about names so often feel like Twenty Questions.
“I’ve got a formal name with a common nickname…” “My name is the moral equivalent of Mary Johnson…” “I have a four-syllable Slovenian last name with a first name that isn’t Slovenian-sounding at all…” “I won’t tell you my actual name, but it kinda sorta rhymes with Fried Eggs…”
Second, and less purely personal taste, my grandmother’s given name was Jessie. That’s how it was recorded on her birth certificate, which I have seen so I know she wasn’t exagerating. Throughout her life people insisted on changing it to Jessica. Government documents, that required her waiting on lines to correct ( I can still hear her saying “You show me where I filled out your form with my own name wrong and then I’ll pay a fee to get it fixed!”), newspaper articles, yearbooks, an expensive brass memorial in my home town. . .
If he’s called Alex plenty of folks will assume it’s Alexander anyway.
Go with Alexander for the name on his birth certificate, but feel free to call him Alex. (Don’t go with Alexandor. So-called “spelling variants” are indistinguishable from misspellings.)
IMHO, people shouldn’t be named a nickname, because nicknames are by definition informal, and aren’t appropriate at formal occasions (like when the person is being sworn in as President).
Don’t ever forget that a name for a child needs to work for the child, the adolescent, the young adult, the experienced professional, and perhaps the elder statesman.
Picture your child as a Supreme Court Justice. What sounds better–Justice Alexander [Lastname] or Justice Alex [Lastname]?
The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is Romania-born Alex Kozinski. As far as I can tell, his legal name is “Alex.” So Judge Alex Kozinski isn’t too far off from your example.
Perhaps let him decide. Have all 3 of you together, ask him and just see what happens, you may get a feeling towards one or the other in agreement with your spouse. Or maybe have a way that he can select, maybe put him on your wife’s breast and see what nipple he goes to.
Having to correct people constantly is bad enough , but my husband had a couple of jobs where the first few paychecks were made out to “Daniel” instead of “Danny”.
I like the name Alexander Armstrong. This is probably in part because one of the main characters of a series of YA books by Richard Peck that I loved as a kid has the same name. I’m not sure if anyone will notice or care about that, though.
The more I think about it the more I have to go for the full name. A name that is only just a nickname sort has the feeling that something is missing, one not worthy of a ‘real’ name, and it will come up in his life many times, and having to admit that you have been given only a nickname conveys a certain context of inferiority.
Nothing much to add here. Another vote for Alexander, which has a slew of variants that the tyke can choose. And never having to explain, “Actually, Alex is my full name.”
TBH I don’t even get why someone would consider the shortened name. I know Jims who are never James except on legal documents, but they have that option. Alex is either Alex, Lex, or Al. He gets more options with the full name.
Creatively spelled names will only lead to countless life hours squandered explaining how to spell it, and quite possibly, bloodshed when he snaps at 33 when his paycheck can’t be cashed because his name is misspelled. And as someone upthread mentioned, people are going to assume that mom and dad weren’t smart enough to know how the name is spelled.
And bless you for not bringing another Cayden/Kaiden/Jaden/Braden into the world.
I know of three boys, the oldest of which is barely 2 – a William, an Edward, and an Alexander. Known as Will, Eddie, and Alex respectively.
Go with the long name. Think of when he’s an adult, not just a wee newborn. Also, those names give me hope for the future – they’re so normal and not misspelled. Ahhhh. Not that I’d have said one single word to the mothers in question if they’d gone trendy, but I’m glad they went the way they did.
I strongly advise against unusual spellings. Credit snafus should be sorted out with the combination of last name + first name + birth date. But an unusual spelling will mean that half of the time, official stuff will be misspelled, and every time he has to give his name, no matter how trivial, he will have to spell it out. Everybody writing down the different spelling will think his parents are pretentious or illiterate jerks.
Oh, and if you give him one or more middle names, not only does he have more choice later on, you also make mixups less likely.
No one ever calls him anything but Alex, unless he’s in trouble.