You can call your baby Robbie. But will he want to be a 40 year old businessman with a cute name?
Does your wife have any input?
Sarahfeena I used to work with a woman named Sally and it wasn’t till six months later that I found out her name was really Sarah. And oddly enough the place we worked at our supervisors name was Ricky Joe, everyone called him Rick. Do I know you?
My given name is Kristine but was always Kristy untill I started training to take over management at a small resturant and got my nickname Kricket. My nieces call me Aunt Sissy.
My second oldest is Allyssa and I never wanted an Allie. Thankfully she either is called by her name or Lisa.
I have a Sabrina=Breezy, Brina, Beazus, or BeanBean (from friends) Joshua=Josh or Josheyjo (mostly when he was a baby) Dylan=Dyl and Aubreigh=Breigh, Aub, Neigh or Aubey Neigh. Her name is Aubreigh Renee and the last nickname is her how she used to say it when she was a toddler.
Have you thought of the meaning of the names?
Aubreigh Renee means Elven ruler Queen, Allyssa is after a flower Alisum.
Also my girls have part of my name in theirs. Kristine Renee, Aubreigh Renee, Allyssa Krystyne. My sons have part of their fathers names. Sabrina is not biologially mine so I had no hand in that.
My sister is a Robyn and one of Allyssa’s first words was Bob and her face would light up when my sister would come over so she is now Aunt Bob which the kids use even now as teenagers because it gets confused looks.
My brother David got Davier from an ex’s young child who couldn’t pronounce his name and my other brother Darren has no nicknames.
You will find it. Something will just hit you and that will be it. Go through family names way back so nobody feels slighted you didn’t name them after them. Look at meanings, initials, the way if flows, are they going to be explaining it forever? Are they going to have to correct spelling or pronounciation?
I just found what I liked and went with it. Messed up spellings and all. I got lucky in their fathers were agreeable.
Joshua Michael David is a mouthful but he knows he is in trouble and that doesn’t even inclued his last name.
Good Luck!
My wife says she will go with whatever choice I make.
Why do people keep saying Robbie is a name only for little kids ?
I like the name mainly from Robbie Williams and Robbie Fowler who are both in their 30s. Williams is my favourite singer and Fowler my favourite footballer.
I suspect its cultural. Most of us are in the U.S. Here, grown up men don’t tend to use the diminuative form of their name. There are exceptions, but they are pretty rare.
Also, neither Robbie Williams or Robbie Fowler are familiar household names here in the U.S. (at least in my household). And, if they are familiar household names in Austrailia, then they get the “celebrity, singer, and athlete” exemptions from needing grown-up names.
Yeah, I don’t know about that last point. I’m Italian and a very popular name in my Italian family is Madonna. I was born in the begining of 1986. Thankfully, my mother came to her senses when she looked at me and decided I was definitely more of an Angelique than a Madonna.
Now, Robbie is certainly a much more “regular” name than Madonna, but the point still stands. That could have been horrible.
We have a friend whose name is Courtney. He is a 40 year old Heating and Cooling guy.
I think that is a way cool name for a guy.
There was a girl in my grade at school whose name was Nancy. She had a younger brother named Bob and a younger sister named Sally. If Sally was a nickname for anything else, it was never revealed. I always felt like I was in a “Fun with Dick and Jane” book when they came around.
-Lil
I agree. My idiotic grandmother named my father “Billy,” rather than the normal William, or even Bill. He did not appreciate it.
I had a friend name Courtney too. He absolutely hated his name.
My name is unisex too, and there have rarely been any attempts to shorten it, with none at all sticking. However, like Courtney something like 90% of people named Shannon are chicks.
Let’s see, names that don’t get standard nicknames but aren’t ultra-popular… One of my favorite boys names is Owen, but that’s #60 and is on the rise. Another favorite is Avery but that’s going up too and is currently #66. Jared? #137. Jeremy? #115 and losing ground. Devin is at 90 and losing ground too, but I think it’s a great unusual *girl’*s name even though I usually hate the give-girls-boys-names thing. Since it’s #903 for girls, I don’t have much company.
When we were pregnant we were thinking of Isaac or Ashley/Asher for a boy. I had decided on Isaac by the time of the birth, instead we got an Emily.
My suggestions:
Wolfgang
Ivan
Armand
Ike
Asa
Devin wouldn’t work in Australia…it’s what they call bologna. 
We have a Devin in our (U.S.) playgroup. My Australian husband cracks up every time I mention him.
[Edited to add that I meant to quote elfkin in that post.]
There is a difference between what I will call a “standard” nickname - as in “my full name is Slamadamadingdong but everyone just calls me Slam” - and a not-so-nice nickname - as in “my real name is Isaac but everyone just calls me Sicko”. My nickname in school was “Big Bird” and it has absolutely nothing to do with my real name.
I do agree that you can’t overthink it. Ultimately, your child is going to be called whatever he wants. And just to throw my suggestion into the ring, I’m a big fan of “Henry”.
Henry is my son’s name…we call him Harry.
Why?
Because that’s bonafide, genuine nickname for Henry. If you want the longer answer, we wanted to call him Harry, but we didn’t want to name him Harry because that’s a nickname, not a real name. We thought about Harrison but it sounded stupid with the middle name we wanted to use (my late Father-in-Law’s middle name). So, we went with Henry, because it can legitimately be shortened to Harry (there are lots of them…really!!).
We do? I think you’re talking about the thing I call Strasbourg (or simply Straz) but I couldn’t confirm this through Google - I did find mention of bologna being called Fritz in South Australia. One of those regional things, apparently. Anyway, in my vocabulary, there is no association between “Devin” and any meat product but I haven’t conducted a poll of friends and family on the topic so it might just be me.
Just to chime in on the Henry = Harry thing - Charles and Diana’s son Prince Harry was christened Henry, and King Henry VIII was called Harry.
Hmmm. My husband is from Dubbo, raised there and on the Central Coast, and went to Sydney University. We lived in Australia for the past three years and we actually just moved back to the U.S. a few months ago. It must be a NSW thing, but when I went to the deli counter at our local Woolies or Coles, I ordered 6 slices of Devon (for my older son…a Devon and sauce sandwich addict).
Incidently, I watched Antique Roadshow (American Version) today.
Someone had an official document from 30 years ago (approximately), when Jimmy Carter, born James Earl Carter was running for president. The state of Maine ( I think) wanted him listed on the ballot as James Earl Carter. He refused. He wanted to be listed as Jimmy Carter. Part of this was due to the relatively recent assassination of Martin Luther King by James Earl Ray. Seems like there might have been another reason, as well, but I don’t remember it. Maybe something about appearing more approachable and everyman by being “Jimmy” rather than “James Earl”. He was concerned that fewer people would vote for James Earl Carter and that he would not win the election.
So certainly there can be disadvantages to having a “paper name” that is different from one’s name as generally used. (My college roommate referred to her “paper name” when needing to use the long form of her name, which she hated.)