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I mainly go by Betsabé.

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Only certain people are allowed to call me Betsy.

I myself have never had a nickname. A nickname is possible for my name, which is Janice. Some Janices are called Jan. I was talking with a waitress once whose name tag read "Jan." I asked her if Jan was short for anything. She said, "Yes, Janice." I said, "That's my name. But I'm never called Jan." She said, "Oh, I'm never called Janice."

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So that nickname is possible, but I have never ever been called it by anyone and I don't want to be.

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Both of my younger sisters have nicknames, Patricia who is always called Patty and Pamela who is always called Pam. My father's name was Joseph but he was always called Bud.

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My two children both have nicknames, Victoria nn Torrie and William nn Will. When I think of my nieces and nephews, though, none have nicknames---but only one has a name that lends itself at all to a nickname. John, Andrew, Shane, Heather, Jaime, Colin, Trevor, Mara, Brenna, Kaylen, Janine. The only one that really does is Andrew, but he's called Andrew.

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My SO has a totally unrelated nickname, and so do many of his friends and family members, but he comes from a particular subculture in which that's common.

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If I had to guess, I'd say maybe thirty percent of people have nicknames.

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In my family, everyone is almost always called by a nickname.

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My name is Rachael, but everyone calls me Rach. My brother's name is Jesse, but everyone calls him Jess. It's just the way we are.

After thinking it over I have come to the conclusion that most of the men I know go by a nickname (Mike, Dave, Dan, ect.) while most of the women go by their full name. Womon over 50 are more likely to go by a nickname (Jan, Cathy, ect.)
I go by my full name all the time. There are only 2 people in the world who call me Storm rather than Stormie. I don't mind but I do prefer my full name. My parents and their sibs have fairly nickname-proof names by design. MOst of the rest of my family go by their full first name as do most of my friends.

That poll isn't going to be entirely accurate because not all names have nicknames. Like mine.

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I've been thinking about nicknames a bit lately. I found it interesting to think that we call our son by a nickname all the time, and so does everyone else. But several names that we would use for future children will have nicknames, but not ones we'd use all the time. I just thought it was interesting to have the two different situations that would be going on.

I go by my full name, Rachel. There isn't a whole lot you can do to shorten that name. Occasionally I might get, "Hey, Rach" or "What's up, Rach?" but nobody would ever call me that regularly. There is also Rachie, which I absolutely detest, and won't answer to. My sister's name is even less nickname-able than mine, but that is okay since we like our names. My parents have names with common nicknames. My dad will go by both, but my mom prefers her full name (which people almost never use, even though she always introduces herself that way).

On my side of the family (British) quite a few use nicknames, but on my OHs side (Danish) no one uses nicknames. Nicknames are not common here at all. If someone plan on calling their child by a "nickname" they will just use that name as a first name.

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If someone uses nicknames for my girls, like Else or Elsie or Arw, I correct them - If I had wanted them to call my daughter Elsie I would have named her that!

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Yeah, nicknames are a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Funnily enough, my first name (Luna) was originally a nickname (for Lunabella), but I've legally changed it, since I've always only gone by Luna.

This message was edited 10/29/2010, 4:16 PM

I voted full name because only a few people shorten my name and I rarely introduce myself to others with a nickname.

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In my family it varies. My grandad was ALWAYS Alf, never Alfred. My other grandpa is often Ken, not Kenneth and at my granny's funeral I noticed everyone referred to her as Phyl, not Phyllis. My mum never shortens her name now but did sometimes when she was younger. My cousin mostly goes by her full name. My brother tends to get his name shortened but then Christopher is quite long. I use both to refer to him and I notice on FB he uses Christopher and not Chris.

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With friends and colleagues I'd say most friends with longer names seem to shorten them (Jess, Steph, Alex, Ben, Allie, Will, Nette, Pete) etc.

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So, after much rambling, I'd say nicknames are more common.

I intensly dislike it if people shorten my name; I've only ever let 2 people do it consistently.

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:0)

Well, in Croatia full names are definitely more common. I and all my family members go by full names regardless of the name length (for example we use full names for Darinka, Jadranko, Katarina, Anamarija...). Here it's more common for diminutives to be used among family, especially children, but those are usually longer than the full names (from my family - Sanjica, Petrica, Ivanica, Ivica...). And it's considered extremely rude to call someone by anything but the name they introduced themselves by (I've noticed that American's seem to give people nicknames even when they introduce themselves by their full name).

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From what I've observed English speakers seem to use nicknames much more (even in official situations that would be unimaginable here -like a president going by Jimmy or Bill). I have a British boss named Leslie (a male Leslie!) and he came to the office and said call me Les. Now, everyone in the office is Croatian and we all call him Leslie. He's the boss and you don't call your boss by his nickname, his wife calls him Les.

This message was edited 10/29/2010, 4:05 PM