Annoying name shortening trend

It has been around forever. Pete for Peter is no different. My aunt Emily was called Em by most people and Florence was Flo. It definitely isn't new.

Haven’t really forgiven my parents for my long christian name. Fortunately it can be shortened to 3 letters and I never answer to anything else. All our GCs have shortened names despite their parents insisting on the full versions when young - parents use them too.

If i call my dh by his full name he looks at me as if he has forgotten something or done something wrong.
It never fails to make me laugh.
And my mother was the same with my dad,and he would look at me and say oooh what now, i still find it amusing but sadly they aren`t here any more.

I chose short, 3 letter first names for my daughters partially to prevent shortening and also due to having a long surname. Having worked in a reception class at a school I had always felt sorry for the children with long first and last names who spent most of the writing time putting their name on the page. My daughters names were often lengthened as children and still are to this day . Some are even more than one word! You can’t win at this naming game ?‍♀️ It does make me laugh.

My father and sister shortened my name with a Z ending. Since he died its only my sister that does it. It would annoy me if I let it.

My friend's brother and his wife are called Ian and Sheila, they call each other I ( Ee) and She ?

My husband gets really annoyed when his name is shortened from 'Ian' it 'E' lol, l couldn't get my head round a person who was known by his initials JD and someone still insisted on shortening it to J ? ?

I picked names for my children that could be shortened. I made sure I liked the shortened version. Only my eldest Andrew has never been called Andy. He’s mainly know as an abbreviation of his surname.

In the 1900s to 1920s neither my father or his four siblings were called by their given name; they all had "family" names. When my mother died my son wrote a poem for the cremation with verses beginning "You are" starting with her given name as a child, her "family" name, the name my father called her and on to You are Mum and You are Nanny. The last verse is:

She is - not was
The very best we all knew
From everyone you touched, I say one last “love you”

Names matter to the people that use them and the people who carry them not to those who have no part in them.

My name is Caroline and friends shorten it to Caz - I like it and it seems friendly. Do you think this lockdown is making you short-tempered and irritated more than usual? I know it is with me. The other day I had to turn off a loved comedy programme because a female comedian's hairstyle irritated me!!

Funnily enough - I'm the one who shortened my name from Gwenda to Gwen!!

Funnily enough - I'm the one who shortened my name from Gwenda to Gwen!!

I’m grateful for my shortened name-my longer name reminds me of being in school or being told off. My friend Eve is less grateful for being lengthened to Evie!

I think the shortening of names, and then adding an S at the end has come from Australian soaps.

I get irritated when footballers add letters to the ends of names of their team mates’ surnames. It’s certainly a strange trend.

My parents and their families all had totally different names to their given names, it was only after my Mum died that I sent for her Birth Certificate and found her real name, even she didn’t know it.
My name was shortened when I went to secondary school, but at home I also had a family name, my cousins all still call me that (grrrr).
My shortened name is good , no one can spell or say my given name and explaining it all is tedious.
So I have a 3 letter name shortened from an 8 letter one. Sorted!

This has gone on for the last 50 years or more , so it's nothing new .

I agree- I have spent my entire life refusing to answer to Haze.
My name is Hazel not some sort of air freshener!

Hi there my name is Elvira not Elvera bloody hate when people call me Vera ....It’s Elvira with an i...why can’t people be bothered to ask how it’s pronounced...just laziness I think.. Rant over ?

My husbands name is Andrew it absolutely irritates me when people refer to him as Andy. He does not like it but is too polite to say anything I snap at them straight away.

I have my own theory about this. It's not only people's names that are shortened. The English language does not like long words; more than two syllables and they will often be shortened.

brolly, pub, tv, uni, spagbol, pram, sci-fi, mod cons

there are many, many more.

In other languages, e.g. Scandinavian and German this shortening does not happen to the same extent. Words in these languages are often joined to create very long ones and it doesn't seem to worry the speakers. We like to chop words up. Perhaps they become more digestible that way!

As I said, just my theory.

My daughter's name Abigail got reduced to Biggles for a long time, a young acquaintence couldn't pronounce it and as we thought it was funny it stuck!

Much worse is the trend to name and register children with shortened names. For example, Vicky who is not even called Victoria or Alfie, Archie, I could go on. And they and their parents don't even know the real names they have used and abused.

I think this abbreviatng names is much more common in England than certainly N.ireland. We moved to England in 1975 and noticed immediately how many people did it with my husband's name. We moved back to NI to retire and everyone uses his first name. Nicknames, if not unkind, I like. My husband was a teacher and, when our son, Patrick was a pupil there my husband's nickname was The Paddy Daddy! Needless to say our son's fellow pupils all called him Pat, Paddy or Patch, never his full name.

Greta your last paragraph made me laugh. The daily challenge on a cruise through Germany was to find the longest word we could pronounce. My brother, who lives in Germany told me to try ‘Der barkenpantensniffersnatcherwagen’ which he told me meant ‘the dog catcher’s van’. No wonder I didn’t believe him!

Once trying to put a new member of our sewing class at ease I asked her name. She told me it was Winifred. I then asked ,again trying to be friendly, if she was ever called Winnie. She took a step back and said"Why would I want to be called Winnie when I have told you my name is Winifred "!
She turned out to be great fun and I now totally respect what she did.