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What do you go by?
Elizabeth -
How did you come about using that name?
It’s my given name -
Any particular reason?
I’m stubborn…the more people tried to call me Liz, Lizzy, Beth, Betsy, etc. without asking me first, the more I dug my heels in that I was Elizabeth. By the time I was in elementary school, there was no changing my mind. I would raise my hand to ask a question and a teacher would say, “Yes, Liz?” and I would look around the room like I was trying to figure out who they were talking to. When I was an adult I had a manager who used to call me “E” and that was Ok. I think because it wasn’t one of the standard nicknames. It caught on at the office and I was E for a while, but I don’t work there anymore and no one calls me anything but Elizabeth anymore. No one dares.
In my case it’s more a question of choosing to go by my given name. You see…my mother named me Anne. Quite a good name I think, other then the ugly tendency of people calling me Annie :mad: . But while she named me Anne she called me Amy. Not my middle name. Not anything, she just wanted to call me Amy. So for the first ten years of my life I was Amy. Then I decided I was grown up (a rather premature decision as I’m not at all certain I’m grown up now) and didn’t want to be called by my “baby” name. It took some time but inventually even my grandmother made the switch.
The thing was, while I see no connection between Anne and Amy (beyond the first letter) for years a lot of people who never knew me as Amy mistakenly called me that. It was weird.
Beyond that I also have a pen name (and/or a camera name). But that’s a different question.
Why am I not surprised the amazing floozy godess is a Cat? Is there a hot tin roof involved anywhere 
?
I would love to be called Cat. But as I’m not a Catherine I couldn’t get away with it (perhaps that should be an addtional question…what modification of names are acceptable and what come of as pretention?)
I only use the last half of my name nowadays because the first half is next to impossible for Japanese speakers to pronounce. My official documents all have my full name, but business cards, email, etc. all use the shortened version.
My full name is Kathleen, after my grandmother, but it was always my parents’ intention to call me Katie, so that’s what I am.
I’ll answer to Kate (and did when I was coxing…two syllable names seemed to be beyond the abilities of my crew) but not Kathy, Kitty, Kat or Lenny.
This is a Deep Dark Secret…but since nobody will remember this post anyway, I might as well 'fess.
My actual IRL “given” name is Marsha.
I F**KING HATE IT.
I’ve only met two other Marshas in my life, and they were both when I was so young I didn’t feel at liberty to bitch/bond with them.
Nobody understands what hell this name really is, so I won’t bother explaining. There’s no point. You won’t get it anyway. You’ll think it’s funny/amusing/minor/petty/what-the-hell-ever.
All I can do is ask you to imagine if, every time you met someone, they felt compelled to ask you, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
It’s already a tired cliche. You’d smirk/chuckle/take it with a smile, etc…for about half-a-million times.
And then you’d want to strangle them.
And they’d think that’s even funnier.
So you’d just have to be gracious and smile and hope the urge to ask “Why did the chicken cross the road?” passes quickly. Before you make Random Person X pay for 27 years of torture all at once. Before you just start screaming and cannot freakin’ stop.
That’s my life.
(Now I should mention that I bartend, so I encounter more new people on a day-to-day basis than some other occupations, but still. If you want to have some fun, just put “Marsha” on a name-tag and wear that name-tag for a whole day. Wear it to a meeting or, ideally, a convention. Multiply that day by 27 years and feel my pain.)
So, long story short, every time I start a new job I intend to start from scratch and call myself something else. Girlfriends call me “Mischka” or “Ree.” (My middle name is Marie.) I always forget and new bosses/co-workers always call me by my given name before I can stop it, but some day…SOMEDAY…I will swear that I’ve never even met a Marsha. Even people who hang out with me get sick of hearing the jokes.
FTR, this is the reason that regardless of what your name is, if it’s “My Ass Itches Jones,” I have never made fun of anyone’s name. Period. End of Story.
But yeah, re: the OP, my chosen name is anything but my given name.
Cruelly, inevitably, sometimes that’s the biggest insult.
I go by Katie. My real name is Yujie, but it’s Chinese and nobody at my kindergarten could pronounce it so they got around the problem by ignoring me (the fact that I knew no English didn’t help). So my teacher wrote about 20 girls’ names on a piece of paper and got my parents to choose one. It doesn’t really suit me but I’m stuck with it now.
MY name, of couse, is Richard.
I’m called “Rick” now mostly because I was called “Ricky” when I was a kid, so people started changing it to “Rick” when I hit puberty. To be quite honest I don’t really get riled up if people call me Ricky or Richard. For some reason when I joined the army I was commonly referred to as “Jay,” which was okay too. I’m not fond of “Shithead,” though.
I went down the Rick-y path mainly because my Dad was a Rick. HIS Dad was also a Richard, but went by Dick, which (a) has its own problems and (b) My Dad hated him, for good reason, so he wanted a different diminution. My great-grandfather was also Richard, but for some reason everyone called him Feathers.
This all led to merry confusion when I started working for my Dad. Having two “Ricks” with the same name is confusion enough, but to add an extra bit of comedy, we sound the same on the phone, so anyone calling had to ask, “IS this Rick Jr. or Senior?” My Dad tried to combat this by getting people to start calling him “Richard,” but it never really caight on.
Then, in a further hilarious twist, we brought on board a psychometrist named Rick. With a last name that sounds almost identical. So we’d be Rick, Rick and Rick Jones, Jones, and Jonas. At first, people thought we were kidding.
My parents got around this by naming my brother Mark (like my dad) but calling him Joe. Everyone on the planet calls him Joe except schoolmates and his wife.
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I go by my middle name.
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I always have, so I assume my parents started the habit.
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I’m a “Jr.” and my dad always went by his/our middle name (which is decidedly cooler and more interesting than his/our first name), so that probably had something to do with it. Curiously, my dad’s nickname never caught on with me.
Funny you should mention. I have a mostly decorative student government position and one of my foreign classmates who had worked in an embassy pointed out that the proper address for a Senator is “Your Excellency.”
So now that’s how a bunch of my classmates address me.
My first name is Thomas. When I was in kindergarten, they gave me three place cards and asked which one I wanted to go by. Thomas had too many letters, Tom the fewest, and Tommy was in between. I went with Tom.
I flirted with Tommy, but between a few bad experiences - in kindergarten, I got yelled at for writing ‘Tommy’ on a paper because I CHOSE ‘TOM’; I think it’s unbefitting a bearded, hulking brute like myself; an ex applied the name to my genitalia - and the fact that it’s just a little childish, I’ve never gotten to like it.
I don’t like being called Thomas, and when I do need to use it for something official, I use my middle initial for cadence purposes. I’ve also taken to signing emails with my initials.
‘Tom’ is a great name. It’s strong and simple. I’ve just come to like it.
However, my Art Vandelay name is Alex, which I adopted in honor of Aleksandr Kareline.
My given name is Robert and, whacky souls that my parents were, I came to be called Bob. Some people that knew me when still call me Bobby (my brothers, for example).
I go by my given name, but it’s amazing how many people don’t pronounce my first name correctly. Really, is Marie too hard to say? My professors either call me Mary or Maria. When I correct them, they always get this confused look on their faces. Is Marie not a common name or something? 
My name is Martina.
As a little girl I was called Tina by family and friends in North America and Martina by my German relatives. In first grade there were two Martinas in class (which was very surprising, because at that time it was fairly rare in Canada/US). Since the other girl was already known as Tina by most of the kids, and I was new (having gone to a different kindergarten), I was called Martina – and I have preferred that ever since. Only my cousin is allowed to call me Tina now, because he was my best friend when we were little. Anyone else calling me Tina will get pummeled to death.
In high school, my friends Debbie, Darcy and Kathy decided that I needed to have a name that ended in * too, so I became Marti. The instant I graduated and went to college I dropped that like a hot potato.
So Martina it is. With one exception. My elderly neighbor – who must be at least ninety – calls me Maddie. He gets a free pass for watching out for my house, giving my puppies treats, being an all around good guy, and just plain living that long. He simply cannot remember Martina, and I can’t see torturing him over it.
- John.
- It’s what I was named.
- No
I guess it’s served me well as people seem to remember it without any problems and I’ve never though much about changing it.
I’ve wondered briefly how it would be if my name had been Maxamillion, Paddington, or Chuck but all in all not enough to change it.
I go by my middle name. My first name is unusual (inspired by the Hobbit, and I was born in 1967, long before the Lord of the Rings was considered even remotely cool) and growing up as a nearsighted pale skinned redhead, I got tired of being saddled with a weird name too. So whne I started middle school, I started using my middle name, which is a common Southern girl middle name of one syllable. I like it, it’s short and I chose it. My relatives are still a little baffled by the change and usually manage to avoid addressing me directly by name.
My first name is Charles and that’s what everyone called me up through graduation from high school. When I moved to Austin, everyone started calling me C. R. And when I moved back to Houston, everyone started calling me Chuck.
Now the only people who call me Charles are my mother, my sister, and SWMBO when she’s really, really pissed off. 
My name is Claudia and that’s what everyone calls me. My mother hates nicknames and named both me and my brother (Joel) with this in mind. She even wrinkled her nose when I told her we were naming our son William and calling him Will. I’ve had a couple boyfriends who called my Claud and one who just called me C, but other than that I’ve remained true to my given name.
My first name is William (after my dad’s dad) and my middle name is Russell (after my mom’s dad). My dad is Bill, his dad is Will, and my mom’s dad is Russ.
Until the age of 24 I was Rusty, and always hated the name for many reasons, not the least of which is that I don’t have red hair. European Vacation made it worse with the scene on top of the Eiffel Tower.
Anyways, when I moved to Atlanta in 96 I went to an orientation at a local college and, on a whim, introduced myself as Will. I’ve been Will ever since, and mildly happier because of it.
The way it works is that my family and friends who knew me before I moved down here still call me Rusty, but all my Atlanta friends and coworkers know me as Will. Works fine for all involved.
Since I posted in the thread the OP referenced, I’ll post again… with a little more detail.
My given first and middle names are Robert David, my father’s are Robert Samuel. I grew up being called David… not Davey, not Dave… David. My father was Robert, referred to as Bob. Around my senior year in high school, I started socializing more with people that I hadn’t grown up with. I became Dave by the fact that these new people called me Dave… and I found that I liked it. In the many years since then (30 year aniversary of my graduation coming up in June '06) pretty much everyone calls me Dave… including my mother who took about 20 years to change. The only time I ever get called David is by a certain female best friend when I irritate her (which I do on a regular basis).
One great thing that I’ve discovered about going by my middle name, whenever the telephone rings and the person asks for Robert, I can tell them he’s not home.