I find this discussion fascinating from all sorts of angles.
My firstborn is
Hannah Jane. We call her
Hannah or sometimes
Hannah Jane. If she were going to be one of many in a class I would rather she were
Hannah Jane than
Hannah C.
Hannah is not a name that nicknames easily.
For my husband and I names seem to come easily and nicknames not as much. Our second son is
Peter Sidney III. Grandpa (whom we see at least twice every week, and lives next door) is always
Peter. Daddy was
Pete or PC growing up (to distinguish from Grandpa) and one uncle called him PJ. We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what to call our son to distinguish him from the other Peters, both before and after he was born.
Pete Sid.
Sidney.
Simon. Pi. PC.
We pretty much exclusively call him
Peter. Grandpa calls him Petey 3, and his aunt calls him 'Puter sometimes. It is confusing to call everyone
Peter, on occasion, but nothing else has stuck.
My given name is
Jessica Jane. I've gone by
Jessi since before I could talk. I don't like it as an adult with my current taste in names. As far as I'm concerned,
Jessica is made up and way too popular;
Jesse is a boys' name (and one that's been growing on me). I mentioned to dh that I might like to go by
Jane (which is a family name) and I think it freaked him out.
I've eliminated names from fn consideration because I don't like nicknames (Josiah/Joe) or we couldn't agree (I like
Jem for
Jeremiah, he thinks it's girly, and I can't stand
Jerry). Nicknames are useful for distinguishing with family names--we want to name our next son
Benjamin.
Benjamin is my BIL; he goes by
Ben; we will use
Jamin. Our next daughter will be
Rebecca. My sister
Rebecca goes by
Becky. I like
Becca but DH does not, so she'll be
Rebecca.