If you choose a nickname for your child...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call people, children included, the name by which they introduced themselves, even if I hear others call them different names. Only if children are too young to express a name preference do I defer to parents' wishes.



I'm a secondary school teacher, so each of my students have 7+ teachers. The students are not always consistent with the nicknames they tell each teacher to use. And parents don't always know that their children use certain nicknames/alternative names. For example:

1) Student's given name is Andrew. He told me and another teacher that he goes by Andrew, told another he goes by Drew, and another that he goes by Andy. The parents called him Andy. I called him Andrew because that's what he told me he goes by.

2) Student's given name is Mckenzie Anne. She told all her teachers she goes by Annie (a diminutive of Anne, I suppose). Her parents had no idea who we were talking about when we referred to the student as Annie.

3) Student's given name is Ji-Hyun. She told some of her teachers that she goes by Jeanie and others that she goes by Ji-Hyun. The parents were offended by us calling her Jeanie, but a 14-year-old is old enough to decide what she wants to be called.

4) Student's given name is Michael. He told ALL his teachers that he goes by Michael, but the mom insisted that we call him by his middle name because his father (from whom the mother was estranged ) was also Michael. The child insisted on being called Michael, but on us using his middle name in any communication home.

3, parents should be offended and you should call by proper name.

Really? The student is 14. She told some of us to call her Jeanie. Why would we call her a name other than what she told us to call her?

[Anonymous]

My son's legal name is Andrew, but he's rarely called that. He goes by Drew, though obviously he must tell teachers on the first day that he goes by Drew. On occasion, someone will call him Andrew and it catches us by surprise a little because we just don't hear that. It doesn't bother me, but if someone I knew well insisted on calling him Andrew, I would find it a little odd, just because no one ever uses it, though I fully admit we named him it to begin with.

If you're a very close friend or family, you'd actually call him a nickname of Drew instead He even refers to himself using that particular nickname to his family and very close friends.