Sunday, March 27, 2011

all about the nickname

i thought about baby names long before i ever had a baby. when we had ben, benjamin was the one and only boys name that tim and i agreed on. if this next baby is another boy, we are in trouble for names.

i would imagine everyone has their own criteria for name picking. my personal criteria is, "does it sound okay with our last name? (therefore doesn't start with s and doesn't end in a)", "does it work as an adult name as well as a child's name?", and most importantly, "does it have a good nickname?". To me, it is all about the nickname. In life, your name WILL be shortened (unless it's already one syllable) so it's better to plan the nickname right away instead of leaving it up to someone else. I was always Rebecca - no short forms until about grade 5 when some friends overheard my brother calling me "bec" at school. the nickname stuck and i've been bec from then on. i was lucky. this is not such a bad nickname. but think about how cute it would have been to be calling me "becca" as a little kindergartener. i missed out on that one. ;)

so i like a longer name that can be shortened. we will call this kid by the shortened version but when he is older, he can use the longer version for business associates or on his business cards. yep - very important. ;)

so this is my naming obsession. give me a name, i shorten it to one syllable and then decide if i like it. i'd like to give some examples here of names that i like but i don't like shortened...but i don't want to offend anyone. hmm... like cohen. i quite like this name but i want to then call him, "co" and that just doesn't work for me. start going through boys names that you know and you will begin to realize why our list was so short. if only i wasn't so crazy about the nickname - this would be way easier.

7 comments:

Megan said...

haha, we're on the same page as you. I love giving nicknames & it does make it harder when picking out a baby name. I find there are way less good boy names to choose from then girls...

I'm also trying to remember if you call me Meg sometimes:)

theRachel said...

Doesn't everyone call you Meg, Meg?

I love William. Shortened to Will, not to Bill or Billy, which personally, I never quite understood. I feel like Will is the natural shortened form of William, but maybe it's just me.

LaelDyck said...

i am with ya! i hate, HATE that my name can not be shortened and that i have NEVER had a nickname (although i am glad no one tried to call me "lay" for short....especially now that I have Dyck as my last name). even with my name being 2 syllables i still didn't get a nickname. anyways, the nickname thing is important to me and we have taken that into consideration when thinking up a name for our baby boy. i know a girl who just had a son and named him william and are calling him Liam....i have never heard someone short william to liam but it works. anyway, good luck finding a name!! benjamin is one of my fav boy names and if you hadn't named you boy ben we may have. :D

Yvonne said...

Before Tyson was born, I was sure that I could write down Ty as his full name on his birth certificate, and be okay with it. But now we rarely call him Ty, always Tyson. Our kids have other nicknames though that have stuck. Ava was so small, we called her Bug or Ava-Bug, and still do. Tyson was so big we called him Big Guy or Big Guy Ty or Ty Guy - all are used more than Ty. Weird.

Good luck on the name finding - boys are the hardest to agree on for some reason!!

Megan said...

not that many people call Meg, believe it or not:)

Alyssa said...

I love the name Alexander shortened to Xander. But James is not so convinced.

Now that I'm older, I can't believe that I wasn't called Aly as a nickname. I've been 'Lys', 'Lyssa', and 'Alyss' but never Aly. Shoot, would have been so cute.

Ang said...

If you are thinking about naming your kid Dominador,you could shorten it to "Min" or "Dor" :)