Possibly risking offending some, but genuine question.

I love the return f traditional names. I'm old fashioned enough to prefer birth certificates to say Arthur, rather than artie, Archibald rather than Archie and so on. I'm perfectly happy for the girls and boys to be known by the shortened form but these lovely names give them so many choices later in life. Elizabeth, Beth, Betty, Liz, Lizzie, Betsy - endless choices from one beautiful, trad name.

iam64

yes! actually gave daughter elizabeth as a middle name just for that reason
over the years she has wandered from one to the other and finally when not using her first name uses lizzie.
gave her an ambiguous first name

i had found my name gave me the option of being female or male and has come in handy over the years.
so i did the same for her
not the same name just one she could play with altho a very common one.

It's funny how differently we all think, isn't it, lam64!
I am the opposite - if the parents have no intention of calling a child anything but, for example, Evie, for the rest of its life, I really don't get why they have 'Angelina' put on the birth certificate. I do get your point about choice in later life, but no matter what their 'official' name, I am sure that today's youngsters will not hesitate to choose a different name later in life if they want to, anyway.

Another annoying auto correct interference there - should say Evangelina, not Angelina. I am getting really p****d off with auto correct now!

My OH, and quite a lot of other folk I know, have always been called by a middle name. Why do parents do that? It just makes for a lifetime of complications and confusions when filling in forms, passports etc.

I`ve always been called by my middle name, so therefore I sometimes don`t answer when someone calls out my first name, such as in hospital or at the doctor`s.
My granddaughter is Jenny, but her godfather always insisted on calling her Jennifer.

I have to repeat some of these names a couple of times before I 'get' them - KVIIIy in particular!

I agree about Cain although I do know a Cain and he is a lovely boy
As for Charon, well, I would have thought the registrar could have had a kind word before committing the name to paper!
Cerberus anyone?

I do know a Damien who hates his name and uses his second name. However, it was probably chosen before the film came out.

My OH, and quite a lot of other folk I know, have always been called by a middle name. Why do parents do that? It just makes for a lifetime of complications and confusions when filling in forms, passports etc.
Oh, doesn't it just varian - DH has always had problems because this is what his DM decided to do.

My friend taught in a school where there was a child (male) named Kreg. When asked where the name came from, Mother replied "He was conceived in our K-Registered Astra". Friend really didn't know where to look!

I think our eldest was conceived at a place called Fools Nook. We joked about making a name from that, but went for a very conventional in the end, thank goodness!

Fool's Nook Mama Caz? In Cheshire? Near a beautiful stretch of canal waterway?

Exactly, chewbacca. That very bit of canal

Both DH and I have been known by our middle names all our lives. I don't know why our parents did it - maybe the names sound better that way. We always say we have two identities, one for friends and family and one official one for doctors, dentists and anything else where full name is needed.

10 minutes from me Mama Caz! Sadly, the Fool's Nook has closed down now. Pity, it was a lovely place to go on a summer evening.

My friend's grandson is called Kristofor. Why?

Do they have any Eastern European connections?

In many Scandinavian and Germanic countries spellings that would be considered "made up" in the UK are solid traditional names. You would be pretty likely to find that your doctor, solicitor or bank manager was named Kristoffer, Kristian, Kristina, Karolina etc

My OH, and quite a lot of other folk I know, have always been called by a middle name. Why do parents do that? It just makes for a lifetime of complications and confusions when filling in forms, passports etc.

In some cultures it is common to place family names first so that the actual name is a middle name. It is common in Sweden and took me a while to realise when I was looking for an address of someone I knew as Jessica that she was listed as Eva

Jalima1108 well that is obviously because no-one knows how the hell to pronounce Irish names, which is hardly surprising when you look at how they're spelt! I know how to pronounce some such as Siobhan and Niamh, but that's about it.

5 yr oldDGS is Stanley and his good mates are Arthur, Edmund & Bill . Other classmates that I know are Mabel, Lorca, Savannah & Gregory.

I went out with a Krzysztof years ago Cold - but yes, his parents were Polish.

phoenix Some of us nanas wonder where our DGCs parents arrived at the spelling I have got an Aimee dgd she is 19 now so this spelling thingy has been going on a long while now.

Feenix - DD's friend Aimée (with an accent) is in her mid 30s now.

My eldest DS is named Chris, but when DD was tiny, she couldn't get her tongue round that, and always addressed him as 'Weese'!
Thirty years on, the family still call him Weese, including DGD who has further mangled it to Uncle Weesie!

Nannandgrampy my DGS2 is Jaxson, my DD's DGF Surname was Jackson (as is my DM's), he is named as a tribute to a much loved DGF. My DD's name can be spelt 2 ways but was also shortened at school, to complicate things a lot of her friends call here by another (chosen) name. My name has 3 different spellings, not an unusual name for my age group but not common either. I have joined a Meet Up group where there are now 3 of us with the same name, one spelt exactly the same as mine

varian I have always been known by my middle name, my initials as a child would have spelt "lid" if my parents hadn't changed the order of my names. As I've lived with it for 62 years I don't have a problem being referred to by my first name in Doctors etc, although my present GP always says Mrs...., perhaps that's because she's younger than me. I chose who can use my middle name these days, friends or professionals, depends on amount off contact.

My sister is a teacher. Several years ago she was teaching at a school and a mum brought her youngest son in to collect the older ones one day. "This is our Gooey" she said, "he'll be starting in September". My sis remarked (tactfully) that Gooey was a very unusual name, and the mum replied proudly that she had read it in a book. A few weeks later, sure enough, the child's application is received - his name was Guy!