Nicknames

Marty is a nickname person. This proved to be a tad frustrating through the process of deciding on names for our little ones because he has a series of nonnegotiable "rules" about names.

1. It has to be a "formal" name that can also be shortened. One name that we both really liked (and almost went with for Lucas) was Jack. I liked just plain Jack, but Marty insisted that it needed a longer, more formal version (because according to Marty's name rules you can't just name a kid something that sounds like a nickname, even if it's not actually a nickname. You have to also have a formal version appropriate for a professional setting). We couldn't agree on a longer name for Jack, so we ultimately scrapped it all together.

2. The nickname has to both sound and look good. Another boys name that we both love is Nolan (which was Lucas' planned name until about three weeks before he was born). But we were in constant debate about how to spell the nickname, which we loved when it was spoken. We went back and forth about Noel (Marty insisted that people would say No-elle when reading it) and I thought other versions like Nol, Nole and Knoll were goofy. This was ultimately the demise of Nolan, which was sad because we both really liked the formal and nicknames of this name.

3. Love the nickname. While the name has to have a longer more formal version, you have to love the nickname because Marty loves nicknames and doesn't actually like calling people by their full name. Even if there is no logical nickname for a name, Marty will make one up anyway, so you might as well have a shorter version that makes good sense. He calls his sister Amy - the shortest name ever - Aim. So you have to make sure that the nickname is something that you are going to like using on a regular basis. For example, a possible name we'd chosen for Elise was Addison. We both loved the full name but because both of us weren't completely in love with Addy, we decided it was best to rule it out altogether.
Cousins: Morgan, Emma, Cory, Elise and Kam

Taking all these rules into consideration, we chose names for our children that had formal versions, with nicknames that we loved and liked the way they were spelled (whether or not the spellings actually make sense in relation to the full name). While we do use their full names about a quarter of the time, Elise has pretty much been Ellie and Lucas has been Luke since they were born.

When we started Ellie at a new day care when she was 14 months old, there were two little girls in her class named Ella. The teacher thought having two Ella's and an Ellie would be confusing, so she wanted her to be called Elise at school. We didn't think much of this, because, hey it is her name. And we do call her by her full name sometimes so it's not like she wouldn't know people were talking to her. I worried a little bit that she'd have identity issues being Elise at school and mostly Ellie at home, but she's smart and children figure things like that out pretty quickly.

It hasn't presented any kind of problem for us until recently, when our little angel began correcting us when we called her Ellie at home. "I'm not Ellie. I'm Elise, Elise Lawler Molloy." Ooooookay. So apparently she's taking the full name thing to an extreme. We tried to explain to her that sometimes people can be called by more than one name. Like Lucas is sometimes Luke. But she is not buying what we're selling. She is pretty insistent that we call her Elise. So we have been trying to make a concerted effort to call her by her given name, at her request. But as you can imagine after three years of calling her Ellie most of the time, this is pretty hard for us to do.

What this whole thing has also made us realize is that we call our children so many different nicknames it's amazing they would actually have any idea what their real names are. We call Elise: Ellie, Els, Elle, E, Buddy, Bud, Bubba, Bubba-boo, Boo-Boo, Sweetie, Sweetie Pie, Ellesabub and Looper (really long story behind that one) , to name a few. We call Lucas: Luke, Lukey, Lu, Lu-Lu, Lus, Boob-a-Lu, Lukey-Lu, Sweet Potato, Cutie, Buddy and the bud. When we asked Elise which nickname she liked best (because we have to call her some nickname - see the above rules) she chose Sweetie Pie. Marty has received special dispensation to call her Els.

Something tells me we're not going to be regularly calling her Sweetie Pie Molloy. Just a guess. Elise calls her brother Lucas most of the time, but if she does call him a nickname she usually goes with the one she made up for him which is Lu-Lu. My cousin pointed out that this nickname for a boy will probably get him beat up in school if it catches on. Perhaps this is an intentional big sister thing. In the meantime, Sweetie Pie, LuLu, Mommy and Daddy are having a great fall.