Why do people.........................

[MWB]

Why do parents name their children Katherine, for instance, then proceed to call them Kathy? Or name them Steven, then call them Steve?
Do they not like the name? Why not call them Kathy or Steve in the first place?

[WaldoMcFroog]

Why call yourself 'MWB' when your parents gave you a perfectly good name... ;-)

[brionon]

Because MWB stands for Monumentally Wobbly Bum ?

[redhead23]

friends etc normally shorten the names not the parents
my names gilbert (im female) im called gill

[spudqueen]

My children both have names which can be shortened. Their friends use shortened versions of their names, I usually use their full names, but sometimes (especially if their friends are round) use the shortened versions. I knew of one family who always called their three eldest children by shortened versions of their names, so when they had a fourth child called her Jill - only to end up calling her Jilly!
It's nice to have a 'proper' name, I don't see a problem with it at all.

[blazebabe]

My brother and his wife christened their daughter Evelyn, but we all call her Evie, I think it is so the child has a choice when they are older if they want to use the more formal name which may suit them or their job better!

[pastafreak]

I agree with RoaldoM....we called our daughter Cassandra...when she was small she knew that as long as we were calling her Cassie she wasn't in trouble!!!

[ecoman]

My real name is Ecomandia, but my friends call me Ecoman for short.

[~Wingnut~]

Their my kids, I'll name them what I want and call them what I want...... within reason of course ;o)

[wendilla]

I tried to find names that couldn't be shortened.Karen and Alan so what do they get called kaz and AL.

[JOEYGREEN]

Family and close friends shorten our sons name and we do too although we have more of a nickname for him. It's a term of endearment (I think that's the right way to explain it). If you don't know someone well then you'd call them by their full name.

[MWB]

But PASTAFREAK. Why did you name your daughther Cassandra but call her Cassie? Do you prefer the name Cassie or Cassandra? If you are going to call your child Cassie, why didn't you name her Cassie?

And what's this "formal name" business?

I'm not being a pedant,.I just don't understand why parents name their child knowing they will be shortening it. It's different if you name a child & intend to call them that but find yourselves calling them a nickname or whatever.

[oldfashioned]

There very few names that can't be shortened. One of my nephews was named Sam. No problem with shortening names, my daughters Rachael and Catherine are quite happy being called Ray and Cathy.

[Octavius]

Personal preference/affectation/distinction.

My mum and my older aunts/uncles always use my full name and the only other time I hear it is at the doctors.

[spudmuffa]

You nearly had me here. Christian names are normally named after saints. and they are normally the names put on the birth certificate and generally all future personal documentation. So you didn't get St. Fred or St. Tony or St. Mac
Now comes the good bit. Our heart and lungs are only good for a certain length of time. Then we pop our clogs. By shortening words, especially names, we save that little bit of our heart and lungs and quite possibly the brain.
This is where dialect or slang derived from. Slang was taken to an extra level in Liverpool, where everyone's name ends in "ee, ie or y ". So we get Stevie, Paddy, Jimmy, Tony Porky, Peewee etc..
But there are exceptions like Johnny for John, Charlie for Charles and Michaelangelo for Michael. It is all to do with prolonging your life. Hope this helps.

[Octavius]

I have a friend who has a child whose name is, lets say Christopher Jeremy Smith, and they always call him CJ.

That always irritates me, more so than if they called him Chris.

[LostSheep]

My name's Craig - don't think that can be shortened in any way. Only used by family, work mates and medical people because everyone else uses a nickname that I've had since I started school!

[annie0000]

Hi Lost Sheep, my son is Craig and gets called Craigie or Craigie b (short for craigie boy) all the time. My other son is called Ciar but always gets called moose or moosie as he had a little jumper with a moose on it when he was about 6 months old and it has stuck. What is your nickname?

[saxy_jag]

Our son is named Kenneth, but we have always called him Kenny because that was the name we liked. Now he's grown up, he can call himself whatever he likes, and if he chooses Kenneth, that's fine by me. If we had only named him Kenny, that option wouldn't be there.

I was given a very short, unshortenable name - Jane. As a teenager I hated it because all my mates could shorten their names into something cool - Caz (Carolyn), Wen (Wendy), Soo (Suzanne), Andy (Andrea) etc. All i could ever do was lengthen mine into a silly, girly Janey. Apparently my older sister chose my name. I have never forgiven her for it.

[CushtyFred]

I was christened CushtyFred