(no subject)

[politicking.livejournal.com]

what do you think about naming your child something that is commonly known/accepted/used as a nickname?

for example, names such as:
Sam
Tom
Rick/Ricky
Elle
Emmy
Alex

any others...

i went to school with a Rickey, that was his full name. his siblings were: Rachael, Rhianna, Raymond & Robert (lol one of those families with their alliteration). which i just found funny that they would name their other sons with names like Robert & Raymond, but he was just Rickey.

Comments

[eleanorgrace.livejournal.com]

I agree for the most part that full names are far preferable. I think naming a kid just Mandy or just Bobby infantilizes your child permanently, at least as far as official paperwork is concerned.

Several people have mentioned the looking-silly-filling-out-forms problem, but I also think the benefit of a nickname is to have a special, meaningful name that people close to you can use. My family calls me Ellie, as do friends I've had from childhood. If someone I don't know calls me Ellie, perhaps because they've heard my sister refer to me as such, it feels awkward and overly-familiar. I tell those people, as well as teachers and employers, to call me Eleanor. I like being able to go by different versions of my name in different situations.

However, I think there are some names that stand alone better than others. Elle, I think, is better as a given name than Ellie (but not necessarily better than Eleanor or Elizabeth). Kate/Cate is better, I think, than Katie or Cathy as a given name. I do think those sound incomplete on their own (less so Kate, I suppose, given its common use), but at least they're not blatantly childish. A lot of nicknames are also so clearly derivations of a particular name (Tom, Sam, Nick) that to use them without the original is... silly, for want of a better word.