I’m a woman and I voted that I don’t hate my given name. I don’t like it all that much but would never change it, that would make me feel pretentious. It’s a cutesy diminutive… but at least it’s very easily pronounced, classically used in America, and hasn’t been in the top 100 females names since the 60s. People almost always use silly plays on my name to address me, but I don’t mind.
The only thing I hate about my name, Robert, is that it has been falling out of favor for a while now. I like the name, and don’t want to see it fall into disuse. My middle name really doesn’t fit me, but I really feel like a Robert. Kinda helps that it’s the male name in my family; if you’re a male and not named Robert, then you’re either a later son or married in. I feel particularly lucky, too; because there were so many Roberts, a lot of my family members get stuck with the four standard diminutives-- Rob, Robby, Bob, Bobby. When I was born, the four diminutives were in use, and the most prominent Robert had just passed away, so I got to keep and use the full version of my name. OTOH, the ubiquity of the name in my family made me really sensitive to how people address me. I really dislike people shortening my name, since I associate those names with other members of my family. One girlfriend felt slighted because I wouldn’t allow her to call me by a nickname; she felt that I was being too distant by asking her to use my full name, instead of using a more intimate “Rob.”
My ex-wife, Lindsey, liked her given name… it was her family name that she disliked, so she happily took mine, and kept it when we divorced. Every woman I’ve dated since has hated her given name. Heather hated her name because it was too common; she also disliked her family name, because it not only wasn’t euphonious, but it was quite uncommon and blatantly connected her to the family of politicians that she wished she could be separate from. Stephanie hated her name because it wasn’t dramatic enough, and made her think of cheerleaders. Karen hated her name because she thought it made her sound “old.” Sarah hated her name because she was Jewish, and apparently 50% of the girls at her synagogue when she was growing up were named Sarah (the other half were Rachels).
I’m a guy and my first name is in about 99.9% of the time is considered a female name. Ya, I hate it and now that I’m back in the US of A where everything is First Name middle initial Last Name, I get to hear it all the time.
I like both my first and middle names (Sarah Elizabeth) but didn’t like my first name as a school-aged child in the late 80s and early 90s because there were so many Sarahs in my classes. In fifth grade almost 25% of the class had the name, a lot of us with the same last initial, so I went by my middle name that year.
I think my boys will probably hate their names at some point, too. The oldest because there are so many girls in his age group who share a form of his name (he’s just Alex, not Alexander) and the younger because his middle name is Lynn (family tradition, so he’ll probably appreciate it someday… maybe).
I have a coworker named Erin. He shares your pain.
When I was younger, I hated my first name because it was so unusual. I insisted in going by my middle name (Jane), which is so extremely normal that it fails in the other direction. The only real problem I have with it, though, is that it doesn’t have any nicknames. I’d like to have a nickname.
If you’re not Irish the spelling and pronunciation of my name is difficult. I’ll present an ID or write out my first name and people still miss an “r” or put the “ei” around the wrong way.
Dearshay, Deeandray, Deedree, Deeaydra … people just struggle along - please call me “D”.
I love my name, and if you can pronounce it like I do you can call me that, although no one will know who you’re talking about because many people can’t.
Guessed yet? Deirdre. A common Irish name. It was a toss up between that and Aisling.
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The only people I’ve met who disliked their name didn’t dislike the name, so much, as the diminutives people choose to use - generally against their will.QUOTE]
Somewhat same situation here. I’m okay with the “regular” version of my name, which is one that has exploded in popularity in the last few years and which no one had heard of in the 70s and 80s. The diminutive of it, though, is really “dorky” in my opinion, and it didn’t help my already low self-esteem as a kid. I really think names have a huge impace on a person’s self-actualization.
Even today I have some relatives who insist on using the latter, no matter how many times I ask them not to. It’s extremely rude and insensitive.
Ha! Not Roxanne, and I don’t know if bad Sting impressions would be better or worse than what I hear.
I only get a few jokes about my last name (people tend to go for the obvious first name giggles), but almost nobody can pronounce it right. It’s Welsh, but pretty simple if you just say it and don’t think about it too hard. It’s pretty common to get mail with my last name spelled wrong, too, even if it’s coming from people that I spelled it for.
You remind me of a co-worker, named Siobhan. I’m one of the only people in our office that can pronounce it correctly, and it’s just painful sometimes listening to everyone else butcher her name. She’s worked here for years and they just can’t wrap their heads around it. I’m pretty sure she’s given up at this point.
Course, the thing with Deirdre is that there’s an English variant, fairly common among women in their fifties and sixties, which is spelt exactly the same but with the second syllable pronounced to rhyme with ‘see.’ Like the character Deirdre in Eastenders.
I only get a few jokes about my last name (people tend to go for the obvious first name giggles), but almost nobody can pronounce it right. It’s Welsh, but pretty simple if you just say it and don’t think about it too hard. It’s pretty common to get mail with my last name spelled wrong, too, even if it’s coming from people that I spelled it for.
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Yeah, no one ever pronounces my last name correctly, either. It’s Irish – which no one ever guesses – and only four letters long, and pretty straightforward, really, but people just don’t know what to do with it. Lots of times, if I’m waiting to hear my name called for something I’ll just assume that the “Jenny/Jennifer” without a surname is me: sometimes the name-callers don’t even bother trying to say it. I don’t usually get mail with it spelled incorrectly, but it’s happened once or twice. The most common mistake is for the last letter to be left off.
Oh, to marry a “Smith” (who probably always gets asked if he spells it “Smythe”)… 
(I will say, though, that the one benefit of having my last name is that people tend to remember it. Even if they don’t always place it (or me) right away, they’ll remember/recognize my name. That comes in handy every now and then.)
I love my name. My mama named me after her favorite childhood dolly. I remember the way I cherished my own doll so it made me feel so special.
I like my last name too, despite the attachment to my father’s side. It’s still my name, and I’ve been married twice without giving it up.
My name is Regina, and I’ve always hated it. I hate the two most common nicknames for it – Gina and Reggie – and I die a little inside when people pronounce it the British way, to rhyme with “vagina.” Gaaaah. I don’t have a middle name to use instead, and when I went through a phase of trying to get people to call me “Rina” it didn’t stick, so I’m stuck.
I was sure your name was Perry, until I realized that your username predates Phineas and Ferb.
And, Bamboo Gut: you mean no one guesses the usual pronunciation of Dee-dra? Or the less usual but still popular Deer-dra?
Now, if both of those is wrong, I can understand people being confused.
BTW, my name has a more usual pronunciation, but most people get it right now, unless they are from a certain ethnic group.
I don’t mind my name, Victoria, but I loathe the nickname Vicky. It especially irritates me when I introduce myself as Victoria and the other person replies, “Hi Vicky.”
I dislike my name because it’s frequently misspelled as a girls’ name. So I guess I hate that people misspell an easy word on a regular basis.
Well at least you weren’t called “Mulva”.
Mine’s Jonathan and I don’t hate it but I think I’d have preferred something else. It doesn’t really matter in Australia because people will come up with some odd nickname regardless.
I very much dislike my first name- my *full *first name. Which I didn’t even know about until I was five. I like my middle name, and I’ve come to like the nickname that everybody knows me by.
When I was younger I hated my name (Nicholas) but I’ve come to like it.
Interestingly, if I had been born a boy, this would have been my name.
I have a similar “used to hate it” history, but I am comfortable with my name these days. I think there were two factors in me not liking my name as a younger child: 1) I’d constantly get references to a cartoon villain in response as a kid, and 2) I was the only child who didn’t get a maternal ethnic name, so I didn’t feel like my name fit in with our family and family friends’ names. After a certain point, I realized that wishing for a female ethnic name that English speakers could pronounce was a tall order, and that my name was pretty and relatively uncommon, but not so uncommon as to be considered strange.