Why? I know it’s an irrational disdain, but it just makes me cringe.
This isn’t about parents giving their children unusual names, or even names they’ve just made up, and generally I’m pretty much in the ‘call your kid whatever the hell you want’ camp. It’s not even about (well not just about) naming your child cutesy diminutives like Teddy or Bobby. It’s about parents naming their child just Alex, rather than Alexander, or just Meg rather than Meghan. If you want to call your child Pete, that’s fine, but for pete’s sake give them the given name Peter. I just don’t get it.
Maybe, for me, it’s about restricting a child’s choice as they become older - limiting their options about how they might want to shorten a given name as they grow into adults.
We call our son Ned. We like that name. So we gave him a given name that can be shortened to Ned. If he decides in the future that he wants to go by his full name, or shorten it in another way, brilliant. He has that option.
I have an Uncle Ted… not Theodore just Ted he has to correct people every so often …my great aunt said she didn’t even realize Ted was short for something else when she named him they just liked the name
I understand but I’m the opposite. If you want to call your son Alex, name him Alex, not Alexander. He can call himself Arthur Pewty when he grows up, but until then, give the kid a name you like.
I don’t understand how this limits the child’s options. If their legal name is Alex and they later decide they would prefer to be called Alexander, what’s stopping them from doing so? Is there a law that says that nicknames can only be shortened and not lengthened?
Oh, boy. Have we had this conversation around here.
Made up names make me stabby. Initial name calling is just lazy. Nicknames for legal names is wrong, wrong, wrong.
All IMHO. (Take no offense if you have these names, is wasn’t your fault after-all.)
Naming babies is a free-for-all. Boggles the mind.
OK, I mean, that’s not what the thread is about, but I can understand your disdain for names that are made up specifically to draw attention to attention-seeking parents, rather than to… you know… give a child a usable name that they have to use every day for the rest of their life.
So, yeah, made-up names of that sort are sort of abusive, but I don’t think naming a kid Sam instead of Samuel or Samantha is in the same category.
My given name is John. Never in my life have I wished it was Johnathan or Jonathan. In fact I’m thankful it’s not so I never had to go through the whole “Johnathan? Do you prefer John? How do you sign it? How do you want it on your nameplate, name badge, yearbook picture, etc.” I’d find that annoying.
In turn we did name our son Alex. Not Alexander for just that purpose. He’s fine with it. In fact he says he dislikes the name Alexander. He actually prefers and goes by his initials A.J.
So on the record I’m the opposite of the OP. The extended formal names that people are just going to disregard anyways I just find pointless and sometimes pretentious. Leonardo, Jeremiah? C’mon.
My name is a name in Hebrew, which is short but is does a diminutive for anything else. There is a very similar name in English, which is what I go by in the US. That name is short for something, and people constantly ask if (or worse, assume that) it is short for something else.
It’s pretty annoying, but I’ve learned to live with it.
John is not short for Jonathan. They’re two completely different names.
And there are a lot of very common names that are nicknames that most folks don’t even know what they’re short for. How many people know what Molly, or Sally, or Peg, or Hal are actually short for?
give them the given name Peter. I just don’t get it.