And it strikes me as the acme of self-centeredness to think that because you donated half the chromosomes, you get some overriding vote in someone’s conception of their identity. Be glad they’re only looking for a nickname and not a whole new name.
My parents always called me by my full name when I was little. Halfway through preschool, they noticed that all my friends said goodbye using the diminutive and they shrugged their shoulders and started calling me by it as well. I’ll answer to both. (The third variation, however, that ends with -y is infrequent enough that I usually don’t answer to it. Plus, it’s really kiddy sounding.) I don’t have any advice for changing your name except that persistence is key.
I think Dominic was in second grade when he said he didn’t want to be called “Nicky” anymore because there was another Nicky in his class. He’s been Dominic ever since and I don’t think it was very hard for him to make the change. We, his parents, maybe slipped up a few times, but it really wasn’t a difficult adjustment.
When I was in 6th grade, I decided to stop being “Kathy” and start being “Katherine”… most people went along with it but for a long time certain relatives not only insisted on calling me “Kathy”, but they’d introduce me to other people as “Kathy” which really felt insulting and disrespectful. My mom never really made the transition because she’d always called me by the Russian diminutive “Katia” (sounds kid of like “caught-ya”) which she called me before and after the change.
The important thing is that you try to respect her desire to control what her own name is. It’s a very personal decision and means a lot to the person making it. As long as you put forth the effort to make the change, it will all work out.
Fair enough, but I do think that sometimes it’s a “I demand not to be called…” system.
(My real given name has really only one nickname variant – which I dislike – but which is thankfully more a US thing than a local one and so is uncommon here. But on the odd occasion it has come up I have insisted against it).
My first name is Roxanne…I am used to being called Roxy…hate being called Rox, feel like they lopped the end of my name off…my niece is the ONLY one who is allowed to call me Rockee or Rockeeanne (she would not call me Aunt Rockee…LOL) My mother hates her name, Sandra. She goes by Sandi.
I have a second cousin who was named “George John” Lastname. His mother (my great aunt) didn’t particularly care for that name, so she called him, “Tommy.”
As Mom does, so does the world.
Years and years later, Tommy met the woman he wanted to marry. As her family prepared the wedding invitations, the bride-to-be’s father said, “Is his name really Tommy, or is that short for Thomas?”
Bride-to-be tells her father, “Actually…”
'NOTHER TRUE STORY:
My granddaughter is named for my mother. Granddaughter is two now, and Momma’s been gone for thirteen years.
Just about everybody calls my granddaughter by one nickname. I call her by her full name, because Momma went by her full name. Each time I call my granddaughter by name, my heart swells with love, for the memory of my mother, and for the exquisite adoration of my granddaughter.
~VOW
Wow. I am kind of amazed by this entire post. My kid seems pushy to you because she has asked us to call her Ellie? There’s something “off”, obnoxious, and socially awkward about preferring one name over another? As I’ve said, she’s not marching around demanding people call her anything… She mentioned it to us, we liked it and encouraged it, and she started introducing herself that way to new friends at the park, and signing her name that way. I’ve never heard her correct anyone, and she is even shy at the idea of asking her teacher to call her that (but would like to start off the next school year that way). You honestly feel that we’re giving in to entitled behaviour because we agree to call her a name we find pretty and that we specifically had in mind when we named her? We should say no to something we’re pleased about just for the sake of saying no? Sorry, I am more confused now than I was before you explained.
And for the record, maybe I have chosen a bad example in “Ellie”, because the actual name is no more childish than “Kathy” or “Lucy” or “Julie”. Oh, and honestly she has probably never given a second thought to her brother going by a shortened version of his name… I don’t know if she even realizes that he does.
When Hallboy was about seven or so, he decided he wanted to change his name to Jaguar (like the cat), which is in no way, shape or form anywhere close to his actual name. During this period, he insisted on being called Jaguar, wrote it on all the papers he turned in at school and got really, really irate if someone didn’t call him Jaguar.
For some odd reason, it didn’t stick.
I’m giggling like crazy remembering this. I think I’m going to jog his memory…
My name actually IS Drew, legally, and I still get called Andrew by people who assume that it’s my proper name and don’t want to call me by a nickname. Can’t recall ever being called Andy though.
I work with a Dominic, and just called him ‘Dom’ one day out of the blue. I hoped later that he wasn’t annoyed by it, but the next time he answered the phone he identified himself as ‘Dom’, so I’m assuming I guessed right about that. ><
