Did You like Your First Name When You Were a Child?

Funny you ask. No I didn't like my name, but my adult daughter has informed me that she doesn't like her name, so I asked, what would you like it to be and she said something pretty.

My response was, that's why you have kids...so you can give them names you like and they can grow up and tell you they don't like it.

In elementary school I thought my name was "old" C.. There weren't any other C.'s there... So it must be weird. I used to fantasize about being named "Ruby" or "Diamond." Something everyone would be impressed with off the bat. :) Now I laugh and think how I was totally lame and wanted a stripper name. Hahaha

I loved my name. It's always been on the unique side of things. The only time I've been "upset" about my name is when I ran into a male D.. I was a child and didn't like "MY" name being a "BOY" name too.

My daughter is 7 and used to get a little...huffy that there are other people in the world with the same name. She's gotten over it now that she was 2 Wyatts in her class. She now sees how it's possible.

Edit: My family's big on nickname and pet names. I'm D., Day Day, DooDee, BooBah, BahBah Doo, Leroy, and Spot. Even my kids have a massed nicknames and pet names. We're weird.

HATED it. and 'suzy' sounded so little girl to me. when i hit my early teens i insisted on 'sue' because at least it sounded more grown-up.
once i really DID grow up, i came to like suzanne. but then the internet age rolled around, and in addition to being too lazy to use caps, i'm too lazy to type 'suzanne' each time.
i've been S. for a couple of decades now. i like it just fine.
but geez, when i was a kid i was really butthurt at my parents for not naming me 'aurora.' how could they NOT have known? stupid parents.
:) khairete
S.

I didn't. I remember being in kindergarten and wishing that my name was "Bernadette." It sounded very sophisticated to my 5 year old self, LOL. Now, I don't mind my name. I occasionally have come across other M.'s - it was a fad name for Jewish girls born in the 1960s. Of course, when the Mork and M. tv show was on, it made me miserable. "Where's Mork?" people would ask. You know, I had someone ask me that LAST YEAR. I was like, really dude, the show has been off the air for 30 years, can we move on?

I can remember my youngest being in, maybe first grade, and telling me that he liked his name because it was only three letters so it didn't hurt his hand to write it LOL!

Well, NOW I like my name, growing up...not so much. V.. Think of the playground nick names I got to live with. Well, until I decked them. At a new school, just about every year there for a while, I would quickly ask the teacher to call me Ginny. The funny thing is, when I met my husband & told him my name, he said he liked V. better than Ginny, that V. was "grown up". I was 18 & very smitten. And I liked being "grown up". So I'm Virg or Virgie to my buds. I've only met a handful of V.'s in my life & most have used Ginny as their nick name. I don't think I've ever met one younger than me. I'm 53.

We spent HOURS going over every conceivable combination of nick names for our girls before we picked one. We threw out a couple that we both loved, because we were able to find nick names for them that we knew would be hard to live with. Guess I'm a little sensitive. One name, Stockard, we both really loved, but we kept coming back to a little girl being called Stocky. And if she was chubby....so it was scrapped.

I've always liked my name and never gone by a nickname. I was named when Amanda was very popular, so there were always a few of them around.

I hated it when I was little, it was my grandmother's name and therefore always felt "old" to me.
I don't mind it so much now, it's dated for sure, but also classic, which is nice: T. :-)

Never did. My family was always sort of artistic and intellectual, at least by the standards of the tough working/middle class suburb where I grew up. None of us fit in, and my name didn't help. My given name is also long and sort of feminine/exotic; it was always ill-suited to a shy tomboy like me. Now, I just adore my mom so much, and I appreciate that she gave me a beautiful, international name with a wonderful literary history. And yet, it's still not "me."

Mine is J. (one of what seems like millions, I know) and I liked going by Jenny when I was younger. In school though, the teachers didn't do nicknames so I was J. there (and at home when I got in trouble). I liked being Jenny, but as an adult, it doesn't sound right to me. Plus when the movie "Forrest Gump" came out, anytime I was called Jenny it was said with a southern accent like in the movie. When asked I tell people to call me Jen or J.. It's just who I am....for now. Maybe when I'm older I'll want to be Grandma Jenny or something like that.

I like my name. My mom told me she wanted to name me Laura and call me L., but my grandmother told her to just name me L..

I like the name Laura. People call me Lori all of the time. In middle school it made me mad, I finally just let it go.

Of course back when I was in school, there were a lot of L.'s, Lori's and Lorrie's. In college on my dorm floor, there were 5 of us.. They called me "Crazy L.", the shoe fit.

Didn't like it then. Don't like it now. I've always hated my name.

I'm a Jennifer (one of many) and was called Jenny until high school. I always liked my name and never minded that I was always one of several Jen/Jenny/Jennifers even in my small school. For a while I was "young" for my industry and didn't work with a lot of people with the same name but am sort of settling into a stage where a lot of my colleagues are my peer group in age so we're getting back to needing to differentiate me from the other Jen's by last name or initial. Most of the parents of my older kids' friends are older than me by enough that there aren't many Jennifers in the mix (at ton of Donnas and Kristens though LOL), but again with my younger kids, more of those moms are within a five-year range of my age so there are more Jennifers in the mix there as well.

I have always liked that my name was easy to pronounce, easy to spell, and lended itself to childish and adult nicknames (Jenny vs. Jen).

It's funny my oldest son is named Christian and he HATES when people try to call him Chris. I figured that he would shorten his name to Chris at some point but nope, apparently that's not happening.

ETA @ Amanda, I have 4 friends named Amanda! All born within the same 3-year age range (1973 - 1976).

I love my name, its beautiful and unique! Growing up teachers could barely pronounce it at first glance but would always complement me after I corrected them. Now that I'm in my child bearing years. I want to name my children names that are just as beautiful, sophisticated and unique as my name.

I never minded my name.

It was funny though, because my cousin was my best friend and our name is the same, but one has an "a" added to the end... And we both answered to the same shortened nickname.

Eventually, even my grandma started calling me "Red," because it was getting annoying to have us both answering every time anyone tried to call one of us. (We were together about 80% of the time.)

I've always liked my name, but I didn't like that the only possible nickname is a boys' name.

I still roll my eyes when people ask me if it's short for Christina or Christine. Even had one lady argue with me that it COULDN'T just be C. on my birth certificate. Yes, it's *just* C..

Yes, I love your name. It is somewhat obvious what generation you are from, but I like that. Jennifer and Amy are also names from around the same time, unless you are a bit older and had more Lisa classmates. It is not as common as those names, yet I did know a lot of Kirsten, Kristie, Christina, Christine, and the boy names.

I did not like my name as a child, but I am fine with it now.

to Amanda H, thank you for going by Amanda. It is such a beautiful name. The nickname does not hold a candle to it.

I always liked my name and have never had a nickname.

I went through a very brief period roughly 3rd grade where I wanted to be a tough girl, which was impossible to do with a name like Theresa.

Since then, I've decided I like being a girl, especially with a name that's somewhat floral, but with substance as well.

:)

No, I do not like my first name. My middle name is actually JaneAnne, but I go by J.. Lots of my family call me Annie. So paired with my first name, it is a mouthful. Your mom would not like me. Haha.

I was not a fan of my name growing up. I desperately wanted to be a Jennifer, Jessica, Sarah, or Heather like everyone else! I like my name now, particularly the spelling. It does drive me nuts when people get the spelling wrong, especially on emails where the proper spelling is in about three different places in previous messages! EriKa, please, not EriCa or EriCKa.
The only common derivation I have heard is Ricky, which I hate. I don't have many nicknames, but they are all something totally different from my name. My best friend from grade school is the only one who calls me by something close to my name, Ree.

Nope.
One summer, around age 8 or 9, I decided I wanted to be called Tory. I think my grandma just laughed at me and everyone else just ignored me. I've been a Vicki since I was a baby, I guess.
I have a few people that I have met as adults that prefer to call me Victoria, and I kind of like it. But it doesn't bother me either way anymore. My husband calls me both Vicki, Victoria and Victron, depending on his mood and who he is talking to.
It's just a name, but it always seems to carry so much weight, doesn't it?

My daughter has Victoria for a middle name. Her first name is a name that is often shortened to a nickname, but we have never shortened her name or used nick names for her (except clowning around and calling her things like Alli Babba). She has friends who have the same name, but go by the more common nickname. She is happy with her name as is as far as I know.

Love my name, which is S.. However, in HS seemed there were a bunch of us running around. I could never find those license plates with it spelled S.. It was always spelled Stacy.

Don't run into a lot of us anymore.

I'm still not crazy about it.
My friends/neighbors/family all call me by my nickname.
I save my formal given name for my business associates.
My husband thinks I should have changed my name to be officially my nickname when we married since I was changing my last name anyway but I didn't think of it then and I don't want to bother with a name change now.

I'm K., with two "i"s. My mom said it was because I had two big, blue "eyes". I was always neutral about my name, neither disliked it nor liked it. Didn't even occur to me to HAVE an opinion about my own name. It was what it was. Growing up in Japan and going to an international school, I didn't meet too many "K./Kristens".

But when I got to college here in the US, it seemed like 4 out of 10 people had my name. Out of curiosity, I actually made a little chart of the most common names of people I knew. "K./Kristen" was second only to "Jennifer"!

And I'm still neutral on my name. No great love nor hatred for it.

I think I was fine with my first name as is, though I was a bit particular about it being spelled "A. with an e", not 'the wrong way' (Ann). There were a few A.'s around in school days, and no one had trouble saying the name. I HATED the nickname Annie, however, after the musical Little Orphan Annie came out when I was in 4th grade and we had to sing the song Tomorrow in chorus. I thought the song was stupid and therefore decided I didn't want to be called the name. I guess I was a pretty opinionated kid! Then again, to this day, I have not seen the musical and prefer not to be called Annie, so I guess things haven't changed that much :) .

There is one friend from grad school who got into the habit of calling me Annie, and it seemed fine coming from him.

My name is Malia. Try having a Polynesian/Hawaiian name on an Irish/Scots/English-German redhead! (It is pronounced like "Maria", except with an "L" instead of an "R")

When I was young, I thought it was neat that my name meant "Mary" in Hawaiian/Polynesian.... until the kids started saying "Mary, Mary, quite contrary!" (Yes, I had the temper that went along with the red hair.

And... to top it off, my last name was German, and was CONSTANTLY mispronounced..... as was my first name. I dreaded getting new teachers, and having them constantly mangle my name. One teacher, in Junior High, mispronounced it, then corrected herself... only to have a mean classmate say, "No, it's Malaria!" ..... and I was called/teased by kids calling me "Malaria" all through Junior High......

Needless to say, I really didn't like my first name..... as I grew up, though, it wasn't really an issue....

I liked my name then and still do. It was a little bit common growing up, but not too common. In elementary school I was the only one. Later in 5th and 6th grade when we did more socializing with kids from the other elementary schools, I would often hear of the "other S." who went to one of the other schools. She had a complicated double last name that I still remember to this day, even though I never did meet that gal.
By High School there were 4 of us, and that got a little annoying. 2 in my grade and 2 in the grade above. I had an Irish sounding last name so I always felt like the most "legit" S.. And unfortunately for 2 of the other ones, they had the same common last name.Plus there were about 10 Lisas roaming the halls, lots of Jennifers, Rachels, Jessicas, etc. So it still didn't feel overly common.

I was the only one I knew in college :) and ever since really. I'm definitely not running into many young people with the name, I'm just waiting for it to be rediscovered for a new generation because I think it is very pretty!

I did not like my name growing up. I thought it sounded old-lady like....my name is Rachel.

I really don't love or hate it now, but I can't imagine being called anything else.

My boys don't say anything about liking or not liking their names, but my daughter sometimes gets frustrated with her name. She is not a fan of her middle name (Cierra) and her first name is similar to yours where she is always correcting people. Her name is Kaelyn, not Katelyn. So she gets annoyed having to correct people. BUT - all of her friends tell her they LOVE both her names, so one day she may grow to like them.

I like my first name just fine. I grew up in Southern California so a LOT of people called me "La-ooo-ra". The spanish way! My husband is from Mexico and that's how he says my name, still makes me swoon a bit.
BUT....I HATE HATE HATE my middle name. My cousin, who is a couple of years older than me, has my middle name as her first name. She is a wretched person, a thief (she stole jewelry off my dead grandma), a horrible mother (she lost custody of her kids by choosing to stay with a man who abused her kids), and just an all around bad person. I hate that my middle name always makes me think of her.
L.

I've never liked my name and still don't. But, I don't care enough to do anything about it. It's just a name.

most people dislike their name because they hear it over and over again.
I started going by a nick name in 7th grade...loved it.
To this day, I hate when people call me by my real name.

I always liked my name, even though it was unusual when I was a kiddo in the 60s and early 70s. In high school I reverted to "Kris." And in my 30s, I reverted back to "K.." My family still calls me Kris, but I really prefer K..

K. with an "e."

OMG I hated my name! It was different and did not end in an ie sound like so many of my friends... Nikki, Debbie, etc. I hated that there was no nickname for it. Now I am ok with it but still don't love it.

I guess my name was pretty popular growing up but I never seemed to notice. I always went by my nick name growing up but started going by my full name in college, I now use my full name at work but my friends call me by my nickname.

I like my name just fine now, but it was tough growing up as a KIRsten in classrooms full of Kristrens. Back then, it was a bummer having a name that could never be found on pencils, keychains, etc. There is no real nickname for it, except maybe "Kirstie", but nobody called me that. And it was just a little different from one of the most popular names around, but close enough that people who didn't know often got it confused and called me the wrong name. It's not like now where some names are really popular but more unique names are more the norm too. Growing up in the 70's, seems every girl was either Jennifer, Kristin, Michelle, or Nicole. Or Stacy. Or Heather. Or Amy. Or Lisa.

I hated my name, and I changed it before college. I still go by my "new" name. ;)

Always hated my name as a child because it was easy to rhyme with other not so kind names. Now, as an adult, I don't mind it at all. I don't love it, nor do I hate it. It's definitely unique, and has many possible pronunciations, and no one ever gets it right...at least what my mom says is right and what I was intended to be named, not even of all people my own mother. But it's only a name. I gave all of my children very normal and easy names. :)

I never really hated my name but never really loved it either. 99% shorten it and my mother calls me by my full name.

My oldest son is Ty and most people say oh "Tyler" or "is that short for Tyler" and we say no "it's just Ty". Very irritating.

I have always hated my name-still do. It doesn't fit me. The only people with this name are of a different race than I am so that's why I feel it doesn't fit me.

I never had an opinion about my name until, maybe, middle school. Then, I decided that I liked it. As an adult, I have come to love it and see it as not just my name, but also who I am.

I liked my name, but honestly there were a lot of girls at my school with the same name. I think there were 10 M.'s in my graduating class. Now I hate the nickname Shelly, just hate it. It's OK for someone else but nobody calls me Shelly. OK, one person on this earth (a dear lady that lived next door when I was growing up) thought it was cute to call me Shelly and I never had the heart to correct her, but she is the only person that can get away with it.

M