My family was not at all big on nicknames, my mom in particular. In fact, I think she’s said that one of the reasons she likes my name is that it’s a little difficult to turn into a nickname.
(Whereas a name like Jennifer is inevitably shortened, even by people you’ve just met.)
I can only think of one person in my entire life who has shortened my name: my boss at Nordstrom used to call me Kris sometimes.
The only other nickname I can think of is one from my dad. When I was a little girl, he affectionately called me “Toots”, pronounced like a shortened version of tootsie roll.
And that one gives me warm fuzzies. 🙂
My dad had two nicknames for me: Fatso and Slim. Figure that out. Oh, also Poopie. And Jo-jo.
My dad would call me Suzy Q .
My grandma would call me Sissy
Some of my family call me Cinny
My brothers gave me lots of nicknames growing up, but we won’t go there 😉
I intentionally gave my children names that don’t need nicknamed (as opposed to my husband’s name, Jeffrey) – Jenna, James, and Lydia. I used to work in higher ed (with thousands of students) and always struggled with knowing whether to call people Tim or Timothy, Phil or Philip, etc. But I do often call Jenna “Sweets” and James “Buddy”. I hope those names give them warm fuzzies someday, too.
We aren’t big nickname people either. I’m a Jennifer who NEVER, and I mean NEVER, gets called Jennifer. Jen is it–always! Then there’s Jenny-but I won’t even answer to that. Our kids are Brooke, Sydney, Payton, and Sawyer. Sydney does get called “Syd” on rare occasions, but she is always quick to correct people. And, in fairness, Sydney’s middle name is Paige and she often got called “Sydney P”, which got shortened to “Peep”, and I often called her “Noodle” but she was the only kid that had any sort of nickname. I refer to them all as “sweetie” or “bud” at times but I don’t count that. But how does one nickname Brooke, Payton, or Sawyer? Well, let me tell you: Brooke is often “Brookie” to her friends, and Payton is almost always “Pay” or “Payt” to his sweet new wife, a nickname given by college friends. Sawyer is our only holdout, but he’s a sophomore in college so there’s still time! It irked me at first but I’ve come to realize that we generally give nicknames to people we love so, instead of thinking of them as “nicknames”, I’ve chosen to think of them as “terms of endearment”. 🙂
Oh my… I once made a list of all the nicknames I could think of given to me by friends and family, and literally came up with “at least” 30, if not more! And my name is simply Robyn. But it’s amazing how many variations I’ve been called – plus other types of nicknames: Robbie, Robella, Robo, Roberta, Bird, Rob Roy, Robina…. to name a few. I’ve also been called Sissy, Pierre Pup, Hob-a-Long, Hobbie, Nybor (my name backwards), and Gertrude!! 😄
That is an impressive list!
I have always hated when people call someone by something other than their “real” name (Jenny/Jennifer, Dave/David, Shell/Michelle, etc.) – I named my first son Ethan to avoid this mess. My second son is named Andrew and I warned everyone while I was pregnant with him that his name was Andrew and NOT Andy.
Ethan became Bubba, Bubs, Ethiopian, and Ethan Pie.
Andrew has never been called Andy but I’ve been calling him Drew since he was little. He also gets Drewbilee, Drewbs, Drewby, Jew, Squish, Schnook, and some other ones I can’t even recall (can you tell he’s the baby of the family?)
I agree with a previous poster that they aren’t nicknames but terms of endearment!