I saw on social media the other day someone decided to go from a nickname to their full name. The reasoning behind it was they initially wanted others to be able to pronounce their name easier, but they prefer to be called by their birth name. I thought this was a great idea as I’m learning to give people to grow, change and evolve.
Storytime: I remember in grade school when my teachers took attendance I always knew when they were about to call my name because they would stop and look confused. In their defense it didn’t help that due to my first name containing 9 letters and my last name containing 8 there was a letter or two cut off from my first name on the roll. So, they weren’t sure if they should say Lawrence or Lawrencia. 😩
Fast forward to now, people occasionally happily share with me my name is difficult and to their comments I’m often unsure of what to say because like you all reading this – I didn’t have any input in my name. Our names are given to us by parents or someone else as we arent even old enough to chat at birth.
I truly believe you can’t even get to know someone until you know their preferred name. The best thing to do is to ask them – that’s it!