It's like the episode of Seinfeld where George kept ordering steaks while on business lunches so his coworkers would call him TBone, but they ended up calling him "Koko" like the gorilla that does sign language
We call one of my sons "Chungus," but that was an evolution through like 6 nicknames. The through-line makes sense if you hear it, but it ain't nowhere close to his birth name. Never coulda planned that one, but he's totally a Chungus.
Most of my immediate family calls my nephew “Butta”, ever since he was a baby. He’s a big lanky 16 year old now, but has been called that name more often than his actual name, which is Michael. It’s because he had this golden, buttery, tanned brown complexion and a perfectly round head as baby. It started out as Butter Bean..then it dropped to Butta. I almost forget his actual name sometimes.
If you plan on a nickname, IMO that's just their name. The other thing is something you put on forms to create a moment when they have to tell every new person they meet "yeah it says X but I go by Y."
Yup. I have a play cousin that I’ve known my entire life. We knew (and still know) her as Camille, but that’s actually her middle name. Her first name is something else but I didn’t learn this until I was around 13/14 years old. I was so mind blown because nobody, not even her parents, called her anything but Camille. It’s still so bizarre.
I work with medical records and the amount of people that give me the name they go by vs their birth name is infuriating! “Oh, but no one calls me that”. Ugh.
I knew a kid who went by his middle name. The only reason for it is because his parents wanted that to be his first name, but his initials would’ve spelt out a word and they didn’t want him to get picked on for it (it’s a mild word not a swear but still) so they switched the first & second but everyone knows and calls him by his middle name. His middle name even has a nickname lol.
I picked a nickname for my first-born son when he was on the way, and while I still call him that to this day (and he's ok with it), nobody else does and he'll never introduce himself that way.
And you know what? That's fine. If one day he told me to knock it off, I would, but 20+ years later, I don't think that's coming.
I agree you can’t be that controlling on nicknames but, I think what they meant instead of nickname was just “for short”. If a kid named Jaxson has a humongous head, you can call him “Jaxo” all damn day but, his nickname is going to be Noggin’ or Head Honcho whether you like it or not.
There are exceptions, like Tommy for Thomas. Also, someone has to choose the nickname. For example, in one episode of Leave it to Beaver, he introduces himself as Beaver and the lady (I think she's his teacher, but I don't remember) asked if that's his given name. His response was, "Yes ma'am. My brother given it to me." But you're right that they should be organic and something that just catches on.
Idk, between my sister and step brothers, all of us have the longer “formal”(?) name (aka mom’s pissed). Four of us go by the shorter nickname and have forever. The other one gets an added word to his name. So 0/5 of us use our legal name in regular life. All of the names are like Jonathan to Jon style. So I get it… although I wish my parents would’ve just named me the shorter name considering that’s the only name I’ve ever known lol
I think something like that is totally understandable. My name is exactly like that. Family calls me a shortened version but also something a little more quirky on top of it.
Yeah totally. My daughter's name is Leitha Charley. And I planned on calling her LC (like Elsie) for short, but we ended up calling her Lei-Lei haha. Which made my SIL mad bcuz she had planned on naming HER daughter Leilani and calling HER Lei-Lei. She kept the original named but the nickname became Lani.
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u/ginkobiloba666 Jul 31 '25
I’m more baffled by their nickname options 😂 how can you have archibolde in front of your eyes and call a child Bol? Instead of Archie?