11 Year Old Has Changed Her Name

I don't have a middle name either but I am onto my 3 last name!

Until he was 15 and needed to apply for a passport my husband was known by what he discovered to be his middle name. He promptly demanded to be called by his given first name and refused to acknowledge anyone who didn’t use that name. On the other hand, my mother loathes her name and always regrets not changing it when she moved to London after the war. A rose by any other name?

Yes. My oldest daughter switched to her middle name went she went to university, after hyphenating them at secondary school. She also took my mother's surname which was one of her forenames. She called it "turning [her] names inside out." It has not been a problem.

Has she actually changed her name or just used it on social media? It's quite common to use a variation on social media as a way of protecting from identity theft.

I changed my surname by deed poll when I was 15 and used the opportunity to drop my ghastly middle name!

My parents had a messy divorce when I was 11 and starting at secondary school soon after, I announced I was going to use my middle name. Actually I didn't even like the name very much and resumed my real (shortened) name when I again changed schools a year later. One another hand, my dear FIL had no middle name and through his entire 93 years, he was known on official documents, driver's license etc, as "Samuel None Smith" (not actual surname.)

When I met my, now best friend, she was introduced to me as Lillian later all her childhood friends called her a different name. I still call her Lillian, bit odd when I am with her family and friends. My brother was Charles John we always called him John as both my Dad and Uncle were Charles.

Yes my gd did when she about 9 change her name by only responding to the new year. When he moved up to secondary she went back to her other name. She did for a while change her surname because she fell out with her dad. What 15 year old doesn't fall out with dad. Anyway she found it difficult so went back to the original.

My 3rd son desperately wanted to change his name when he was about 9, because it was the surname of a politician who was always in the news at the time. Once he was no longer in the public eye, DS3 is very happy with his name & likes that it is uncommon. We’re both glad now, that he didn’t change it. It wouldn’t have been to his middle name as that’s my father’s name and old-fashioned.

I think in the past a lot of people were named after older relatives as a courtesy (I know I was) and these names were often old fashioned, so they chose to use their other given names. I went to school with friends with first names Gertrude, Nellie and Agnes who all chose their middle names, though I see a lot of names we hated are becoming popular again!

Both my sons use the shortened version of their names as do 3 of my GC.
TBH I always use their full names as that is what I've always called them but fine if they prefer their friends to use the short version.
I never allowed anyone to use the short version of my name either but that is because it sounds like an air freshener!

Good for her. I wish I’d had the know how to do it. I’d have had something completely different if I’d had the confidence.

Yes, which can make things rather confusing.
But we're all relaxed about it.

My sons used the nick names that their friends called them by. Their friends referred to them by their nicknames when they spoke to us the parents. In school they were addressed by their registered names. We the parents called them by their registered names.

My mum was called Beatrice which she hated (family name) so she was known as Jean. As a small child, I was questioning her one day and asked did she choose Jean because she really liked it, to be so surprised when she said no she hated that as well! I still don’t understand how that happened as she could surely have picked one she did like? I think she just acquired that from fellow nurses somehow, she never explained. She felt very sorry for Princess Beatrice when she was christened and would be shocked at the name becoming quite fashionable now.

We always knew my Gran as Mary, it wasn't until she went into a nursing home that many of us found out it was her middle name. Also my aunt and one of my brothers use their middle name.

I deliberately gave my DD's middle names so they had some choice if they wanted it.

I was known by my nick name for many years as I didn't like my first name. Daft really but I think I was was dafter then than I am now ( debatable lol)

People have a choice and and sometimes we just feel the need to do something different, as long as it's not to deceive why not :-)

I used to stand to attention when my mother spoke the full version of my first name. It meant I was in for a disciplinary - so that was often.
Hated the name and except by my family, it was always shortened to a name that rhymed with Fat - I was a 'well built' child! So I tried to call myself by an Irish version of the name. Mother went ballistic and scrubbed it off all my school books - never did find out why she objected so much.
So eventually when I went to college i took my second name, thought she would be pleased as it was also her second name. Pleased? No! Took another 20 years before she would use my second name and only after she had taken over a job I was doing and became known as ******'s mother.
She always claimed that as I was her daughter, she would call me what she liked. Difficult lady.

I had a friend who used her middle name on starting High School because her first name was old fashioned (she said weird).
We used my sister’s middle name from birth because she didn’t look like the first name she had been given when she came home from hospital.
I liked my middle name even less than my first name so simply shortened the first one.

My youngest daughter is very happy with her given name, but wanted to change the spelling as it was so often misread. Our fault when registering her birth. This would mean the first letter would be c instead of k. She looked into it, but abondoned the idea as it was so complicated. When you think of all the documentation e.g. passport, credit cards, driving licence that has your name on it she abandoned the idea.

I have always detested my first name. If I could have changed it I would have. In consequence I gave my daughters beautiful names. They have always loved them.

Respect her wish to change her name.

I can remember disliking my given name at that age and deciding that my friends should call me Christine. It didn't last long as the teachers and my parents told me I was being silly.
Second names were often used back in the early 1900's I think, as both my MIL's were known by their middle names their whole lives.

Yes, two families I know, the girls have changed their names.My nephew changed his surname because it could have been another nickname, and he was in the forces, so that I can understand, having said that it was my maiden name and I didnt get any comments.

You are not alone, MissAdventure. In our family the first, second and fifth child(me) had 2 names, middle 2 had only one each, no idea why. My brother announced, when quite young that he was called John Bob (this was before the Waltons) instead of just John. My niece told me at my sister's funeral (she was just Mary) that her mother had always bitterly resented having only one name. I had no idea!

Not me, but both my parents did

My sister - in her mid sixties - recently changed her first name and reverted to her maiden surname . We fell out spectacularly when I said I didn't actually like the first name she'd chosen . There are lots of other reasons we fell out which I won't go into here but this name change was the trigger . I actually said that although I didn't like the name she'd chosen it was her choice and in the end not my decision to make but this non commital answer was obviously not what she wanted to hear and we fell out. I fear that her mind is going anyway as she has done a lot of odd things in the past few years.