A woman at work decided to call me Stan one day, because she forgot my actual name. Now I’m Stan to her, to the bemusement of other coworkers. But it’s all in good fun.
Nicknames can be arrived at by a very convoluted process ! I’m reminded of the “Jennings” series of humorous school stories, which were popular in Britain some half-century ago. There’s a character in those – a boy with surname Temple – his initials are C.A.T. Since this spells “cat”, his chums alter it to “dog”; “shorten” it (actually the complete reverse) to “Dogsbody”; and then truly shorten that to “Bod”, which is the nickname he goes by. One feels that the point being made here, is that schoolboys can be very silly…
I occasionally encounter a nickname (preferred by the bearer) which makes me cringe; but reckon that it’s up to the person – I’ll just go along with it, inwardly groaning. A good many years ago, I had a friend who belonged to a social club; with which outfit he was more than a little obsessed: he discoursed endlessly about it, down to its smallest and most trivial doings. The folk in this club sounded like would-be stylish, show-off types – altogether, it felt like an organisation from which I would have run a mile. They awarded themselves, for “club” use, somewhat florid nicknames; my friend, real name Robert (Bob to all his “normal” associates), had the “club” name of Ambrose; he spoke of fellow members correspondingly titled “Oberon”, and “Gertie”. I couldn’t have endured taking part in such a scene – happily, I had no wish to.
An uncle of mine acquired the in-family nickname of “Poop-deck Pappy” after his WWII service in the Navy. In ensuing years, that was simply shortened by his siblings to the first word.
I hope everyone will believe that this is too embarrassing for me to make up.
A Physics prof in college got my name wrong which has stuck around as part of my “full” user name.
There’s a couple at the pool I’ve befriended. The guy knows my name but I’ve noticed that the woman thinks I have a different name. I’m letting it ride to see how long it takes before someone else corrects her. I think people overhearing her call me by this other name might cause it to spread!
Yes, it’s rude to address someone by a name that ē dislikes, finds demeaning, has bad associations with, etc.
By the same token, it’s a type of rudeness and an expression of control to want to force someone else to speak a name that ē dislikes, finds demeaning to say, has bad associations with etc. If you push me too far, then what I’m going to do is avoid having to interact with your name at all.
Each of us is a human being with a unique relationship to every other human being. It’s entirely appropriate to have names within the context of those relationships that are different from those in other relationships.
To take extreme examples, I’m not going to address someone as “Acsenray-is-a-shithead Jones,” or “Whites-are-superior Jackson,” or "“Hitler-didn’t-go-far-enough Peterson,” no matter how much ē sincerely wishes to be addressed as such. On a less extreme level, someone who is unusually reserved or squeamish might wish to avoid addressing “Richard” as “Dick,” even if that is Richard’s preferred nickname.
Oh no it isn’t!
Wikipedia: Because the name Jonathan is sometimes abbreviated as Jon, John is often incorrectly considered to be a short form of Jonathan. John comes from the Hebrew name Yôḥānān, whereas Jonathan derives from the Hebrew יוֹנָתָן Yônāṯān, which means “Gift from YHWH” and thus is a longer version of Nathan.
Or ask my son Jon.
John
Then WHAT should we call YOU?
Your legal names are neither “stuntman” nor “mike”.
I sorta ought not tell this. Mr.Wrekker is not known by Mr.Wrekker in our RL, not surprisingly.
His buddies, old work mates and hunting camp friends call him RIC. Short for ricochet. Because he once shot himself in the leg. He shot at a target deer. You know, a big lifesize deer model thingy? They had set up one at the camp shooting range. He shot.The bullet hit the fake deer in a weird spot where a metal support piece was and it ricocheted and came back and shot him in the thigh. Fast talk and a police report were required at the hospital. He will never live it down. It bothered him for a few years. He’s learned to live with it. Altho’ he hates telling the story.
I don’t know about that but it may just be a difference in terminology.
For me, a nickname is something applied to you by other people, i.e. you don’t get to make it up yourself. You might however voice an opinion on whether you like it or not and express a preference if there is a choice of several.
You preferred term of address is a different thing and I see that as being a clarification on which of your names you like best and any versions thereof.
So for me it would be fine to ask people to call you “Dave” instead of “David” but if you ask people to call you “The Dominator” or “Dream Weaver” then I’ll think you are a bit strange unless those names were originally coined by your friends and family and you’ve come to accept them. It may seem like a small and fine distinction but it is a key one for me.
Well, my preferred form of address was picked by my parents when I was too little to have an opinion. The US government considers it an alias; their list of aliases for me includes versions that I would never consider my name, in fact several which I specifically have told people are not my name. The Spanish government used to consider it one of multiple valid variants and after a legal process to badger them into printing that particular variant in my ID now considers it the preferred variant of many (they’d consider it an alias only if it wasn’t an “evident variant”, like Dave for David in your example). I’ve worked for multiple corporations which considered it a nickname, as at the time it wasn’t the form of my name shown in ID (depending on the ID, time and location, the forms printed on said ID varied).
Whether it was originally created by the person who bears it or not is nowhere as relevant to me as that it’s what that person wants to be called.
My brother’s name is Larry, that’s what is on his birth certificate. In first grade a teacher freaked out on him, telling him he couldn’t go by a nickname, and had to use “Lawrence”. My mother had to meet with the teacher, then the principal in order to straighten things out.
One of my great aunts had a nickname of Sis. I’m guessing short for sister. I never knew if I should call her Aunt Sis or use her her real name when referring to her.
Like I, and others, have said “Cat/Kat” is a perfectly normal shortening of “Catherine” and related names. When I hear “cat” as a name, I don’t even think of the animal, which I presume is where your objection comes from. I also have a friend who has always been known as “BJ” (personally and professionally) and I don’t think of oral sex every time I hear his name, either.
“Moose” I suppose I can somewhat understand–it’s more of a fratty type of nickname. But, like I said, my ears have been inured to it, so it doesn’t register. As I said before, a guy named Moose Peterson is an important and well-known mentor in my industry (plus, now that I think of it, I had a high school gym coach who was called “Moose,” but I suppose it’s probably not as noticeable in that setting.) So that doesn’t really register to me. I suppose a name like “Racoon” or “Rattlesnake” might register, though.
Same thing happened to my mother back in the 1950s. Her name may look like a nickname, but it’s her real legal name (and my grandfather took disrespect to his daughters very seriously, so the teacher who accused my mother of not using her legal name on the “official” graduation record probably got a blistering rebuke).
I knew a Larry. He’s an attorney and really pissed because it’s not “professional.”
When I was in band in high school, the band director announced on the first day of class that the freshman tuba player would be known as Henry. The kid’s real name was Tom but there were already too many Toms and he needed to distinguish them so Tuba Tom was now Henry. For four years he called him that and the kid responded, even out of class, without any apparent animosity. Most of us thought it was his real name. But when he got to college, the first time someone called him Henry, he snapped “My name is Tom!!”. Apparently it had always annoyed him even if he didn’t show it and he was done putting up with it.
Funny thing is, he really looked more like a Henry than a Tom.
I can’t agree. No one is trying to control you by expecting you to call them by their name. It’s a basic form of respect that we afford to everyone.
Someone’s name is part of their identity. Their claim of being demeaned by being called by the wrong name is much stronger than any claim that having to say a certain word to refer to them is demeaning.
Yes, you can contrive situations as you did where someone gives you a fake name just to try and demean you. But that is extremely, profoundly rare. And their lack of sincerity is a legitimate out. You clearly aren’t going to hurt them by ignoring their attempts to troll you.
The beauty of this is that you don’t need some special rules for the giant elephant in the room: trans people and deadnaming. It would be rude to call them by the wrong name, no matter how uncomfortable using their real, preferred name might make someone.
I’ll end with one practical note: it is extremely common that someone with a nickname would find their given name acceptable, or wouldn’t mind a more functional title. So it’s not unreasonable to simply use those. But if they insist that isn’t the name they want, then I say we should respect that.
The situations where you could reasonably have a sufficient objection to using that name to override the basic respect they deserve is just so profoundly rare.
I had an uncle called brother within the immediate family. He had 4 sisters and was the only boy. Makes sense if you think about it.
I think it’s a Southern tradition.
My nncle has been known as Sonny since birth, as he was the first boy after two girls. His kids use his real first name but everyone else has always used the nickname. I probably was 10 before I knew his real name. In his professional life he always used his real name.