Abbreviating your name
 

Does your name have abbreivations/short versions/nickname versions? (James -Jim, Margaret -Peggy etc) And if so, do you like them/use them?

My name has three syllables, I generally like to hear them all. Beest shortens it a little to the most commen nickname version in the UK (two syllables). Since I moved to the US. some people try to use just the first syllable. That s toally not happening. I get quite precious about that.

yes it does and my Nephue HATES it when i call him Topher ( He Has the same First name as me )

I don't but my boy Charlie has taken to being called Carlos for some reason.

people call me jimhelm

It's because he's WINNING!!!

He's got tiger blood and Adonis DNA!!!

I only get called by my full name at formal occasions and if my father is pissed off with me (still). Other than that I go by a single syllable of my three syllable name.

I only have a two syllable name, but it's okay, I'm not suffering from syllable envy.
I use a derivative of my formal birth name as my chosen name.
I haven't changed it on official documents, but most everyone uses it (except the 'rents, and even they do sometimes - it was one of Mum's pet names for me when I was a babba after all).

Sometimes I have to explain it to people.
They would never question why a man called William would be called Bill, or a woman called Margaret might be called Peg. But change Cheryl to Cherry and people think it's odd because you suddenly have two names - one for everyday use and one for best maybe? No, it's an accepted contraction. Especially if you have big red cheeks.

And have had to correct people on the pronunciation all your life (no, CHeryl, not SHeryl) because your awkward parents decided that was the way your name was pronounced. Backed up by the Oxford Dictionary of names, it's true. But you would be surprised how many people are prepared to actually argue with you about your own name!

Chip on my shoulder? No, just a vast cauldron of French Fries.

Still, even my formal name is miles better than being called Cheggers, which I was when I was at school Keith Chegwin was on TV and used the same sobriquet.

I still get called Chez or Chezza (grrrrrrrrr), but I can deal with those. In fact it would almost be nice to hear those again - it would mean I had friends confident enough to tease me. [/pathos]

My brother is generally called Steve these days - even by his wife.
I refuse to butcher his name in this way.
I started calling him Ste years back and that will do for me.
(Stevo if I'm feeling particularly pleased with myself)
Bless him, he's so sanguine I dioubt he even notices the stand I've taken.

There are a couple of shortened forms of mine. One I use here: Dana. Mostly at home my family call me Dani (pronounced Daynee). Amongst mates I prefer Dani (pronounced Dannee).

I have an abundance of names if I wanted to use any of them. Danielle, Sara, and Eleana.

I honestly don't mind what people call me. They can call me Danielle, Dana, Dani (either version) Dan. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. I find it depends on context as to what people use. I have a mild preference for Dani (Dannee). But if my surname is also used, then I prefer Danielle, as Dani sounds odd with my surname.

As a kid I hated my name: Danielle. It sounded clumsy and too rounded/big. That first syllable especially sounded round and clumsy. Maybe it's to do with the accent that was saying it, surrounded as I was by people with broad Lancashire accents (it basically came out as Dan|yell). But when my family used it, it didn't sound as rounded and clumsy (Daneeyel). Possibly because my family have quite slight accents, and on Dad's side a very correctly pronounced, but slightly exotic anglo-Indian swish. Gran for instance sounded almost like Deniel.

There aren't really any abbreviations for my name. I've always wanted a nickname. For a while in college my friends decided I could be Otis, but it didn't stick, and it has nothing to do with my real name anyway.

(Otis)

Andy Griffith?

Infi, there are pet names for every name out there, even if they aren't abbreviations.
The family who lived next door to us when I was growing up had a daughter with the same name you have. It was longer than her given name.

Leecee-lou

Oh yeah, I am 'sis' or was 'sissy' in my family. Brother couldn't pronounce my name quite yet, and it stuck. I hated it when I was younger but I love it now. Only girl, you know.

'Vana, actually Animal House, when they walk into the bar and the band is Otis Day and the Nights. "OTIS, my man!" they'd yell. :)

My mother calls me 'Ree' and spells it as such, my friends sometimes call me 'Annie' and since I set up home with my partner my daughter has started calling me 'Dad'.

Like Dana I have a selection of other names I could use if I really wanted.

That made me smile.

Most people just end up calling me Les. I think. Its usually only when someone says Leslie that I notice. It doesn't roll off the tongue as naturally as Les. As a young girl I always thought it was cool that Les was also my initials. I thought my Mom planned it that way.

momwolf's name was Eileen. There are no good abbreviations for that, but was called Sissy or Sis by her siblings and Aunt Sissy by the nieces and nephew.

My name is very short, three letters, two syllables, not very abbreviable, but some folks who think that was not short enough just used the first syllable. Actually, there was really only one guy, one of the day ambulance fellows at the nuthouse, and in return I would call him "Ant". He was never a Tony, always Anthony, which I found kind of interesting.

siswolf also has a three letter, two syllable first name, and does not have any nicknames. Her name doesn't lend itself to further shortening. "Aim" is not short for Amy. I just noticed ... she has two consonants and a vowel, I have two vowels and a consonant. We both have been shortchanged on vowels in our last name. I do not anagram well. The anagram finder tells me there are only 10 variations, and none of them make a good sentence.

I really don't like it when people call me Dick.

Now if people wanted to start calling me "Big Dick", that might be okay. At some point in time, all implications of the phrase are correct.:p:

I did have some relatives who called me 'Richie' until I was well into middle age.:headshake

I have been called 'Steve' on a number of occasions.

At work I am sometimes called just 'Levy' since we have quite a few 'Richards'.

I have a one syllable name that lends itself to rhyming taunts similar to sean, sean, the leprechaun. or sean, sean sure as your born, and so on.

I have always made up nick names for friends, family and co-workers that stick. Sometimes they can be complicated mash ups of similar sounding suffixes and prefixes and a dash of whatever the linguistic zeitgeist is.

years ago one of my friends became "Crustacea B" after an encounter with seafood bisque soup left him worse for the wear. At first he was called Crustacea Bisque, then shortened to just Crustacea B.

We went through a phrase in late high school/uni when anyone's name that could be shortened to one syllable was and people with an 's' as the final letter had that exchanged for 'z'/z sound.

So Barnabus would be rendered how?

I used to get called danish bacon sometimes. Because my family called me Dani (daynee).

Back in the day I was called Cherry Bakewell.
By people thinking they were the first to come up with it.
The "joke" was old, but did not weary me. Better than Cheggars, after all.

Oh, I checked with Ste. No, he had no idea I refused to call him Steve.
I'd like to say he was bemused by the conversation. But in truth he was indifferent in a good-natured way. That's ma bro.

I think we should all just call you Dave from now on.


Hello Dave? Is that Dave? My wife wants to use your toilet Dave

My wife says your toilet has a block...

*grins*

I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that...

I have a very short name, lends no nickname. When I was younger, I was a clutz, well, according to my sister, and she would call me these names every time I trip or etc. Over a period of time, one term stuck and she used it as my name. That's according to my memory. She doesn't even remember why she called me by this nickname, and she's the only one who calls me this. Where I live, there's this bunch of girls. When we were younger, they started giving people nicknames. That happens when people live and interact with each other for so long, I guess. Since I'm so tiny, and the littlest of them all, they called me Smurfette. I tried to ignore it at first, but after a while, I gave in and responded to that name. So, my name now is either Smurfette or Smurfy. :p:

Barnz

We used to just add a 'y' or 'ie' to someone's surname. So, I would sometimes be called Coombsie. I still call my bro that sometimes :p And if referring to his family as a group I call them the Coombsies.

Michael B would be called Brooksie. My SiL's maiden name was Hogan, so Hogey. J became Smiffy (smith).

That one's a more general trend though. Johnathon Ross tends to be referred to in the papers as Wossy (because he pronounced his R's as W's).

The other common one is to convert the first or second name into an 'ezzer' or 'ozzer' sound. Like...I sometimes try and wind Sundae up by calling her Chezzer :p But pronounced with a manc accent so it sounds almost like : Chezzor.

My bro had a mate years ago who was known to all as Hyphenated. Because he had a double barrelled name.

In Bolton/manchester we tended also to give people suffix or prefix names. So, Nutty Paul, Mad Sharon, Fingers Geoff, Nervous Pete, Little Pete, Kenny the Burglar, Dancing Max. They were genuine names btw. That was the group I hung with in Bolton.

I was delighted when I started watching Ideal , a sitcom with Johnny Vegas based on a manchester pot dealer, that his supplier was a full on Manc by the name of Mad Paul. That rang very true to me.

My maiden name was very common, and my first name even more so. Nevermind all the other girls with my same first name, I actually went to high school with another girl who shared my first and last name.

So around 2nd grade I picked up the nickname Fergie, shortened from my last name, and it stuck all the way until graduation. Teachers used it too, and I had some friends who didn't even know my real name. (This was, incidentally, during the time that Princess Fergie in the UK was commonly in the news, but the Black Eyed Peas did not yet exist.)

I don't use my real first name at all (unless it's for legal/banking stuff). When I was born, everyone in the whole world named their kid the same thing my mom named me. In one high school class, there were FIVE of us.

By that time, I'd taken to using a nick I got as a tyke in Texas - NOBODY had that name. Imagine my disgust 40 years later, when everyone's giving their damned kids my name (boys and girls alike).

Guess I'm a trendsetter, but sincerely, I'd rather they just ignore me and all my awesomeness.

Now that you mention it, that's what we do too, but our first names. So, indeed, I do have a nickname. It's my name with the "y" or "ie" tacked to it. :D

lol

I can relate to that. When I was little there were very few Danielles around. I was the only one in my year, possibly the only one in my primary school (5-11). Even at secondary school(high school) I think there were probably only a couple of us in the whole school. Nowadays you can't move for Danielles :p

a friend of mine went to HS with a guy named Doug Rosenfeld who was aptly nicknamed Drug Resinfilled

So, now we're going to need a set of Smurfy's Laws:

#1. If anyone can get small, they will get small.

Let's get small.

Oh I loved that concert. I must have watched it a hundred times lol

Me and my Bro used to know it practically by heart. I think there was about a month where we mostly communicated through lines from that show. Drove Mum mental :p

Smurfy's Laws (cont'd):

#2. When someone says you light up their life, it means they've gotten one of your flashlights.

http://cellar.org/attachment.php?att...1&d=1303012784

Your childhood nickname was Jaydan?

Re: Steve Martin ... I also went through a Let's Get Small period ... loved everything up to about Cruel Shoes, then he became a serious actor and moderate author. When people ask me for advice I tell them To be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Jordan?

Brayden?

Morgan?

My parents gave me Jennifer and still call me that but I will answer to Jenn, Jenjen or Jay (Jae?). Most of my friends know me as Jenn. I will NOT answer to Jennie/Jenny, though I do have a friend who insists on Jannie and calls it valid on a technicality. I do have other commonly used nicknames... my favorite of which was already taken when I first joined the Cellar.

Wolf?
Obvious guess.

My given name is Maria. It was the first name that popped into my mother's head when it turned out "Mark" wasn't going to be such a good choice for her newborn girl. I never liked it for a variety of reasons -- that my mother had picked it at random, that I was always one of several in each of my classes, that people liked to come up and break into song with one of the many "Maria" songs, each one thinking he was original. There aren't really any nicknames to go with it, but I started going by Mia in high school and it has stuck. Only family and the few friends I still know from high school still call me Maria. Some people have tried Mary or Marie, but I never liked either of those.

Mia is one of my all time favorite names, too. :)

I was going to be called Mark too!

I hated the name Maria for at least five years thanks to the Evil Ex, who kept breaking up with and getting back with a young woman of the same name. All chewing gum and badly painted toenails.

But the 'rents cat as called Mia (and Mia-cat works so well as a nickname) that I love it.

Had we been friends I might have called you Marry-ah.
Except if you didn't correct me it would have caught on and then annoyed me that everyone called you by my pet name.
The above is not pathos, just experience.

Or me being a sulker.

Full marks!

That and some derivatives... Wolf, Wolfie, Loba, Okami...

It was one of my favourite names too until everyone (including bogans) started calling their kids Mia/Mya.

I'm called by my abbreviated name much more often than by my full name, although those closest to me tend to use my full name.

Mia is actually one of the top popular names in the US these days. Ah, well. It wasn't common back when I picked it.

Sundae -- a woman from the bank was one the phone with me one day and kept calling me "Marry-ah." I kept trying to correct her, but I only succeeded in getting her to call me "MAAAAAAAAAH-ree-ah." Sigh.

... and they call the wind, the wind.

I was asked today what name I would like to have as my log-in at school (these things are only done once a year.) I asked for my derivative, which I see far more as my "real" name than my birth name. Which was fine with out IT peson, who always calls me that.

It does bug me a little that the Office Staff call me by my formal name, having been advised of my preference, but I guess that's because all the paperwork they handle uses it.
Something like a Criminal Records Bureau check does not allow for abbreviations.
But they don't call Mrs I Joanna, they call her Jo.
Still, she's been there for 11 years and I haven't officially been there one.

I'll win them over.

And I need to find some more windmills to tilt at, this one's getting old.

I think everybody abbreviates their name? my names ana'ly but everybdoy calls me annie or anne, my dads name is agustin but we all call him augy or my mom is lilia but we call her lil and my sisters sofia goes by sofy
I'm big on pet names so yeaaa...(:

My name is monosyllabic and doesn't lend itself to nicknaming. But to one little girl and her mother, who both once acted in a play I was in, I'm Mister Owl. I like it.

Mine is two syllables, and also does not lend itself to a nickname.

And as long as Tootsie Pops don't enter the conversation, what was the name of the play?

You showed up a little late.

I've used it here since the early 90s.