I’m fine with my first and middle name. My middle name is very common, but the most common fit with my first name.
I dislike all my individual names, although my given names are completely normal. However, when spoken together the names balance each other in a way and it ends up sounding good.
My mother made up my first name. Most people think it is pretty, but I hated it, because it was so unusual. When I was teenager, I wanted to change it, which caused arguments and drama. I guess my parents felt hurt that I didn’t want their lovingly chosen name. We eventually agreed that I would go by my middle name. I don’t think it really suits me, but it is a very common name, and there are never any issues with it. When I got my driver’s licence, I asked them to put my middle name rather than my first name on it. That gave me photo ID with my preferred name, so I never had to change it legally.
I have a Dutch surname that starts with Van. I recently found out that when the clerk agreed to put my middle name as my first name, he also decided to put the Van as my middle name. When it’s printed out, it looks fine to a human, but to a computer, it’s a different name. So I actually have an alias, you might call it, that only computers know about.
I rather like my name. My first is a classical Irish name, while my middle is after my maternal grandfather.
My wife, otoh, wants to change hers. She was named after a soap opera character her father had a crush on, but her mother insisted on mangling the spelling so people wouldn’t think she was named after the First Daughter at the time. And her middle name is Jordan. Which she just doesn’t like.
Yeah, me too, although I basically like the name. But I have no middle name and sometimes wish I did.
I have a really common first name, but apparently it caused a shit storm when my parents gave it me me. My g-great grandfather gave it to his son who gave it to his son, my grandfather who went by his middle name, but gave it to my uncle who only had one girl at the time.
My parents tried to explain that I was being named after the then Mormon prophet. Which apparently is true because they gave me a middle name with the same initial.
However in the pre-net days with no google, they guessed wrong and I wound up with a different middle name.
I hated that as a child, but now that I’m a former Mormon, I think it’s great. As a bonus, it works well as my Chinese name.
A lot of people are called by the diminutive form by their family and as they grow up decide they prefer the formal version.
I’m the opposite, I was called the formal version as a child and go by the diminutive now. Fortunately that also works out better in Japanese.
I hated my name when I was a kid and I only used my nickname. Then at 19, I dated a guy who didn’t like nicknames, so he called me by my given name. I’ve used it ever since.
My folks didn’t give any of the 5 of us middle names, and I kinda thought that stunk. Now, I don’t care.
What I do find interesting was that after my dad died, I learned he’d wanted to name me Roxanne, but my mom nixed that. However, my first grandchild was born this week, and my daughter named her Roxanna, not knowing about my dad’s wish.
My first name is fine. It’s a bit boring, and I don’t like any nickname version as it can’t be shortened, only lengthened; but it’s a fine, decent, unremarkable, and somewhat international name.
My middle name is distinctive and almost certainly unique. It was sourced from my Uncle, who in turn was named for a Maori Chieftain from a few centuries ago. I don’t believe anybody else has used the name but us, and he’s gone now. It’s long, weird to say, and difficult to spell, which annoyed me for a while in my childhood. But since getting out and about in the world, I’ve seen far more people have similarly weird complicated names than I realised were out there, especially places like Bangladesh, Malaysia, or Scandinavia, so I have no reason to complain.
Congratulations!
Also, that is quite odd about the Roxanne/Roxanna connection. That’s like a one in a million thing! Do you know why your dad liked it? What was your daughter’s inspiration?
My first name is Jon, not John, nor is it short for Jonathan. It’s fine, I like that it’s at least the more unique version of an incredibly common name…my (very minor) issue is that I been called by my middle name my entire life, and actually, the shortened, informal version of my middle name…and I like that name a lot…the issue is my “legal name” is Jon (Last Name) and it just rubs me the wrong way when I have to use it (doctor’s office, DMV, legal documents, etc.) as I was only called ‘Jon’ by my parents when I was in trouble…
Every time I’m called “Jon (Last Name)”, I flash back to first semester freshman year, when my History 101 prof was taking roll for the first time, he’s calling, “Jon (Last Name)? Jon (Last Name)??”, I’m thinking, “Man, I KNOW that dude” and was looking around the room for someone familiar before it dawned on me…
Hated my entire name as a kid because my first and last were so common. Hated my middle name because I didn’t like the way it sounded. I’m still not crazy about it. I wish I’d had a different nickname. I always said to myself that if I ever married, my new surname wouldn’t be so common. My husband’s surname is very common in another country but its spelling tends to make people mispronounce it unless they know how it’s supposed to be pronounced. I now share a first name with both a SIL and a niece. The SIL has the nickname I always wanted. Niece is called by her full name.
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I always had that issue with my last name (maiden) - an Italian name. I always dreaded the first day of school because no teacher EVER pronounced correctly the first time. Now my married name is a very common last name in our region. I miss my maiden name. Even my husband has said a few times over the years, “we should have given the kids your maiden name”.
I was always called by the common nickname of my given first name. My given name is a very pretty name, so I’m not sure why my parents never called me by it - not even as an infant. BUT in school, I was always called by my given name. I often wonder as a little kindergartener going out into the world for the first time, how I knew that it was even my name!!
I don’t think I’ve ever disliked my name, but there have been times when it was a pain. My first name is gender neutral, which sometimes leads to confusion. My middle name is quite unique and shared by my dad, myself and my son. It could have been a family name, but no one is really sure why my grandmother chose it (she died when my dad was young). I am a “junior”, which can also lead to confusion - like when my credit report and my dad’s got intermingled. I didn’t saddle my son with “III”, but did pass on the unique middle name.
I hate my name. I have always hated it. I don’t like the way it sounds, don’t care for the meaning behind it. People invariably misspell and/or mispronounce it. It’s a perfectly normal name, not wildly popular but not unheard of either. But I truly loathe it. I probably should have changed it at some point but I was always too lazy. And I didn’t really want all the hassle in the family about why I wanted to change my name, having to remind people of a new name, etc.
Brad. By all accounts I should have a yellow cardigan draped around my shoulders, good tan, and the nonchalant aire that only comes with an overly-comfortable trust account and ivy-league connections. It’s a curious name that I’ve never really liked, but whatcanyado? No point in changing it now.
My first name is uncommon but not by any means rare, and I like it fine.
My brother and I are both grateful that my parents did not succumb to initial temptation and name us Claude and Owen. Owen wouldn’t have been that bad, but Claude? Eeesh.
Not me, but friends of mine growing up, brother and sister. She hated her middle name, something like “Penelope”. So she convinced her brother to swap with her. They were both in high school, so it wasn’t a case off anyone taking advantage of young sibling.
His middle name was “Milton”, which he didn’t care for much either. They were both happy with the swap, so she became Becky Milton, and he became Jack Penelope. Good on them!
My brother and I wish that our parents had shown your parents’ restraint: they thought it cute to give us the same initials*. It was not cute. Especially as kids in the '80s when video games were everything and you established superiority via your initials.
(Both of our first names could be shortened to three letters, so we started using those instead of our initials.)
*We have the exact same initials as each other, and the same first and last initials as our father (who has no middle name).
Hey, it is never too late. I had a great-Aunt named Juanita who, in her 70s, decided she didn’t want to be called that anymore, declared she had never liked the name, and wanted to be called Katie out of the blue. Kate was her mother’s name, so everyone was all 
She said people always pronounced it like “Wan-neeter” and she hated it and couldn’t take it anymore. It took a while, but eventually everyone began referring to her as Aunt Katie, and she lived the next 20 years happier for having taken that stand.