A mother has complained about the nicknames other people have given her child in a Mumsnet thread called “Am I being unreasonable to be irritated by people adjusting my darling daughter’s name?”
Taking to the parenting site, the mum explained her frustration: “My daughter is called Megan. Other people seem to think it’s OK to change it to other versions: Meg, Meggy, Megs.”
The annoyed mum then asked if other parents in the group thought she was being unreasonable to expect others to “just call her by the name her parents use, and not make names up?!”
“It really bloody irritates me,” she concluded.
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Unfortunately for the mum, she didn’t get much sympathy from the group, with many observing that the names were natural abbreviations.
“Meg as a diminutive for Megan is hardly making names up,” one person noted. “If you pick a name with an obvious shortening, then I’m afraid you have to expect that people will probably use it. Your [daughter] may also use it when she’s older.”
Others called on the mum to “chill” with her irritation. One also pointed out that “calling her by a clear diminutive of her actual name, e.g. Meg, is just people being friendly, and could be a term of endearment”.
“So yes, chill, for goodness sake,” they added.
Another group member called the woman's issue "uptight and ridiculous", and a second person went even further, calling it a "bit of a first world problem".
One group member tried to be reassuring: "It’s a compliment to her, and could be a comfort to you if you let it."
There was one mum who agreed with the woman, and wrote: "It would annoy me too. Megan is a lovely name. My son's name gets shortened and it's annoying, so I get it.”
How do you feel about other people giving your children nicknames? Tell us in the comments below.
Top Comments
my husband is Richie his sisters call him "DikDik" like the tiny antelope.
it's always a bit weird when people call him Richard, and I can't see him at all as a Ricky. hjs parents tend to use Rich.
his sister, Danielle is Dids most of the time, sometimes Dani or Dan.. one niece is referred to throughout the family as "Roo" even though her actual name is completely different (when she was little, if you said to her "you do it" she'd point to herself and say "Roo do it" so she's always been Roo.
I can fully understand shortening Megan. especially when pronounced the American Way. Mee gan. yack.
on the other hand, a friend, Katherine, is pretty much always Katherine. she hates Kath, Kathy, Kate and similar. she will accept, from children, Rene (her nephews use this) , and I, her longest term best friend, Either call her Kat or Katherine. I think if it was my name, I'd use Kit or Kitty. not that anything is WRONG with the name Katherine, it's just quite formal. but she is quite formal, and it suits her. so I only tend to abbreviate when typing. sometimes just K. that's fine too.
names are very personal. but on the whole it's between the person with the name and the friend everyone comes to an agreement on what abbreviations they are comfortable with and which they are not.
As a now-adult with a name that people insist on shortening, it would annoy me too because it does annoy me when people shorten MY name. My name is Jaklynn, and you would be amazed how many people read my name and immediately call me "Jackie." I HATE being called Jackie and growing up no one ever called me that, and it annoys the crap out of me. Jackie is not my name, just like Meg, or Meggy, or Megs is not this child's name.