My older brother was named after my father so, when I was born, my father pretty much left naming me up to my mom. She chose “Jasmine” simply because she thought it a beautiful name and liked it very much. She gave me “Turquoise” as a middle name for the same reason. My buds call me “Jazz” for short, which is just fine.
When my son was born I told someone his name was Scott. The woman shook her head and told me as much as she likes the name, she could never name her son Scott, since everyone would call him Scooter.
My son, Scott, is 29 years old. Nobody has ever called him Scooter.
I know a woman in her twenties named Abigail. Do not dare call her Abby!
In my experience, babies get called Scooter if they spend a significant amount of time scooting instead of crawling. Nothing to do with their given name.
I think there was a very popular book about that time about a girl named Maude. It’s amazing how many outrageously popular books of their time are completely forgotten today.
Odd, since Scooter Libby (of Dick Cheney’s staff fame) was named Irve Lewis, and Scooter Rizzuto (of baseball fame) had a first name of Phil.
So that’s your real name? One of the very few to do that, I’m guessing, here or elsewhere.
I briefly knew a girl named Fiji. The name was her father’s idea, and she liked it.
I’ve known a number of “Scotts”, and I never heard anyone call them “Scooter”, either.
Yep, and it goes back to the “BreakupGirl” days when I first started posting on line. There a gazillion “Jasmines” out there, so it certainly doesn’t reveal anything about me as an individual that someone could use for any malevolent purpose.
My grandmother (b. 1873) was a Maude. It might have come from the Tennyson poem (which became a popular parlour song Come Into the Garden, Maud), or from its being given to one of Queen Victoria’s grand-daughters.
That business about you can use any name you want to as long as there is no intent to defraud - still true. But it never said anyone else had to use whatever name you chose - banks and driver license agencies and employers and such have always been entitled to ask for ID and use the name that is on the ID. They didn’t always do that but it started way before 9/11. What happened since 9/11 is that you needed ID for purposes that you did not need it before and some entities became real stickers - before 9/11, everyone acknowledged " Billy" was a nickname for “William” and if the proof of residence I took to the DMV to get my license in 1980 said “Billy” and my birth certificate said " William" , it was no problem. Nowadays, if my airline ticket and ID don’t exactly match, I might have a problem at the airport even if the discrepancy is that one has a middle initial and the other doesn’t.
I haven’t either , but my husband’s actual , on the birth certificate name is “Danny” . Causes lots of problems.
…and Lenny Henry is Lenworth.
Yeah, it can be a nickname for Scott, but:
- A number of well-known “Scooters” are/were not actually named Scott
- It doesn’t seem to necessarily be the go-to nickname for Scott
I might guess that the woman that @kayaker met happened to know one or two Scooters, and for her, at least, it was the obvious/expected nickname.
I always assumed it (Guy) came from diminutive of Guillermo (Sp), Guillaume (Fr) or Guglielmo (It) with the last giving rise to Guido. The only reason I’m familiar with those names is that they are Romanized versions of my name - William/Wilhelm. Tell someone in Spain your name is “Bill” and they look at you like you have 3 heads.
Whereas I’ve known two adult Scotts who are called Scooter by friends and/or family. I also know a woman who insists on being called Scooter, much to the embarrassment of her adult daughter.
My great-uncle Guy was Gaetano.
I’ve never known a Scooter, and I’m old. The only one I can think of (who I definitely did not know) is Scooter Libby. And his actual first name is Irve.
We just started watching a police procedural from France called Astrid on PBS. There is a French character named William. Not Guillaume.
A former White House worker named Ivana was nicknamed Ivanka. Her mother, also named Ivana, is famous for her unconventional burying place.
It has been fashionable in France to adopt Anglo-sounding names,for sone years - particularly Kevin, for some reason. And Patrick rather than its French equivalent Patrice. On the other hand, French conventional diminutives for given names are a whole different story (don’t call M. le Président Macron "Manu", by the way)