Stop trying to nickname my kid!
This is going to be one of those posts where I complain about something silly, so bear with me!
I get it. I decided to give my kid a ‘different’ name. You have never heard it before and it sounds weird to you. That’s fine!
Just do me a favor, when you ask for a child’s name and are then told what the name is, just accept it. Say, “oh okay, Hi, _____”!
Most everyone knows my son’s name now so this doesn’t come up as much, but it used to drive me INSANE. Every conversation would go like this:
“What’s your baby’s name?”
“Leopold”
“Oh…Are you going to call him ‘Leo’?”
“Nope. Just Leopold.”
It’s a valid question, Leo is more recognized than Leopold. But if I was going to call him Leo, I would have introduced him as Leo. His name is Leopold and if one day he decides to go by something else, that’s entirely up to him.
What really gets under my skin is when people continue the conversation past my ‘nope, just Leopold’ and feel the need to say ‘well he is going to change it when he gets older’! Or even ‘why would you do that to him’?
9 times out of 10 the people who say rude things about his name (even if they don’t see it as rude) are well over 70. I feel like they are used to old fashioned, simple, classic names. In the last couple of decades people have been getting more creative with their children’s names.
In fact, here is a list of 25 boy names that have seen a huge increase in popularity just this year:
-
Kyd
- Benajah
- Sulien
- Koa
- Gunther
- Cassian
- Beauregard
- Albie
- Issac
- Lucien
- Ragnar
- Alden
- Dante
- Marcel
- Xander
- Bowie
- Kane
- Arrow
- Sherlock
- Mateo
- Franklin
- Sayer
- Cassius
- Callum
- Aurelius
See the rest of the list here.
I hear a lot of moms complaining about the same problem.
Even parents who give their children more ‘normal’ names like Madison, Oliver, or Elizabeth. If I didn’t introduce him as ‘Leo’ that’s just not his name. Leo and Leopold are two different names. Honestly, I don’t like the name Leo at all (No offense to any Leos out there). We jokingly call him ‘pold’ on occasion just because of the amount of times people have tried to stick him with ‘Leo’.
If we can all just teach our children to be kind, accepting, and confident, we shouldn’t have to worry about them getting picked on for having a different name. I often imagine the older people in grocery stores who have rude things to say about Leopold’s name are the ones whose children were bullies in school.
I know that most people aren’t as annoyed by this as I am, but I think I’ve just heard the same things over and over again that it has gotten under my skin. Some parents give their child a family name out of respect of duty to a legacy and then decide to nickname the child. Some nicknames happen and then just stick. Does your child have a nickname? Have you had the same issues as me with people trying to change your child’s name?
Jennifer B says
May 26, 2017 at 1:47 amI can totally relate with you on this topic! Madison’s name is, well, Madison. Not Maddie. My family knows that we don’t call her Maddie; therefore, they don’t either. BUT the teachers at her daycare do. I dont have the heart to correct them because I embarrass easily over stuff like that.
Chris and I do have nicknames for her though. But they are ours, and only ours. They are Mad, Mate and Mader. Don’t ask where those came from, lol.
Ayana says
May 26, 2017 at 6:14 pmhaha! It’s funny how nicknames can evolve! We often change his name to ‘cold a pold’ or ‘pold a pold’ or stupid stuff like that but like you said…that’s just us! I actually thought of yall when I wrote this! I knew you would agree with me!
Zhade says
May 28, 2017 at 1:57 amI have a similar problem with my oldest. She is smaller than most other kids her age. She went through chemo when she was 9 months old. She may or may not catch up and that’s okay at least she is growing. Clearly this is something we have noticed. Strangers always ask how old she is and when I tell them she is 3.5 they act so weird. “Oh she just seems small for a 3 year old”, “oh I thought she was a lot younger” “Shes a tiny little thing”…. Seriously. Can you just accept her age and move on? I cant just change her size for you. I get this a lot from other moms and I have to hold my tongue and not throw my daughers whole medical history out at them to try and make them feel bad.
Ayana says
May 30, 2017 at 5:56 pmOh wow I’m sure that is tough!! I kind of just wish strangers could just leave it alone. Like sure ask us the questions but don’t badger us after we give you the answer. Why would I lie? Someone said that about Leopold not long ago ‘oh, he is so small for an 18 month old!’ but I told her ‘well, his doctor says he is exactly average so i’m not worried’
Zhade says
May 31, 2017 at 2:39 amI wish I could tape the things people say and then replay them. I think most people would be horrified of the things they say to others without thinking how it sounds first.
Ayana says
May 31, 2017 at 5:10 pmha! I should try that next time. Ill pull out my camera and say ‘can you repeat that? I want you to hear how inconsiderate you sound!’ I wonder if then they will think I’M rude?
Hailey says
May 30, 2017 at 8:43 pmI am always overly formal and only use nicknames when I am explicitly told to. I completely agree, if you wanted people to call him Leo, you would introduce him as Leo. And if he chooses to shorten it when he gets older, that’s his business then, not the strangers right now!
Ayana says
May 31, 2017 at 5:09 pmThank you!!! People really just don’t think before they ask questions sometimes!
Trixie says
June 13, 2017 at 10:18 pmI get so annoyed when people do this, too! People don’t try to nickname adults they just met, so why do they try to nickname kids they just met?
Ayana says
June 16, 2017 at 5:44 pmSeriously! Just accept my answer and move on!
Alan says
June 21, 2017 at 12:39 pmYes! Our Leopold gets shortened to Leo all the time. But we call him the German nickname of Leopold which is “Poldi”. We love the pold part of the name too.
When he’s old enough he will introduce himself as: my name is Leopold but you can call me “the Leopold”
Ayana Nell says
June 21, 2017 at 5:43 pmOh wow I love that!!! Haha ‘THE’ Leopold! I love Poldi too. When I was in Germany that’s what people called ‘Podolski’ for short and I thought it was so cute. And yay for Leopolds!
Maite says
December 15, 2018 at 8:32 pmWe also have a Leopold at home. But being German we pronounce it differently than an English speaker which takes some getting used to. In general we have great reactions to the name here in the UK. Strangely, Leo as a short form is not used by a lot of people we meet but by members of my family constantly, which is even worse.They know that we use Poldi as a nickname.
Ayana Nell says
December 26, 2018 at 7:57 pmOh man that’s annoying! I’ve only just run into a situation with a friend whose child calls mine “Leo” and she refers to him as such, but I haven’t brought it up with her yet because we just met. I need to nip it quick! My son now knows his nickname is “Pold” because we had so many people ask in the beginning if he would be called “Leo” that we decided to nickname him to “pold” out of spite. Haha!