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Who decides a child's nickname (not referring to pet names, only nicknames)? The parents/siblings or the child himself.
~Well, family members did with my children.
Promise -> Missi came from me simply noticing that "mis" was in the name. Fun nn!
Keraden -> Keren (pro. like Kiran) because almost no one has ever heard of Keraden and Kera wouldn't be a boy's nn. So Keren it became!
Escapade -> Essie was James's choice to call her. It was under conditions that I could name her Escapade if he could call her Essie. I didn't argue my love for Essa anymore.
Treasure -> Azure, as I was complaining about her needing a nn and my sister decided this one worked fine. I wasn't happy with the Z at first, but since viewing my other options, I decided this one was the best of them. From there it's morphed in Zura though and I call her that more than Azure.
Harmony -> Mona (pro. like Monna) came from mostly Ciarda's searches of nicknames because I'm a nn kind of girl. I nn most everyone and then call them by their full name (It's a naming curse I have). Mona was just cuter than Hary or Rony or anything else they could come up with. We've also taken to calling her Hummy.

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When usually is the nickname decided upon? Birth or before child can talk, or when child decides it himself?
~Well, Missi, Keren, Essie, and Mona were all nicknamed before they were born, but Azure wasn't nicknamed until she was late 3/early 4-ish. hehe.

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Where do you live?
~Salty Myrtle Beach, SC. Nothing fun.

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-Seda*

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~The Kelley Episodes~

Seda: Has anyone seen the telephone?
Promise: *points to receiver* Maybe someone needs to find a way to attach it to this thing so it won't get lost.
Seda: *shakes head* Maybe we are becoming stupider with time.

Who decides a child's nickname (not referring to pet names, only nicknames)? Any one can give you a nn. But unless you have a really really long name (Charles-Edouard, Marie-Cecile, Alexandrina...) you probably won't have one.

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When usually is the nickname decided upon? Birth or before child can talk, or when child decides it himself? From birth to death :)

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Where do you live? Paris, France

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~~ Claire ~~

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My ! are Alia, Eidel, Enola, Israel, Dudel, Yuri, Lina, Lorelei, Leilani, Owen, Julian, Glorinda, Mirinda
My ? are Hillel, Meshullam, Johnny, Ginny, Cordelia, Fiammetta, Yocheved
My ~ are Tehila, Tilda, Hailey, Gillian, Huldah
My / are Aglaia and July

We decided on our boys nicknames at the same time we decided on their full names-to-be, while I was pregnant.

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Maxwell would be known as Maxx and Jacob would be known as Jake. We don't do nicknames on our girls. Those, for some reason, have come more like a pet name. Like I sometimes call my Nina, Neeners. But I would never fill that our on a form for her like I would with the boys names.

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Crystal

Who decides a child's nickname (not referring to pet names, only nicknames)? The parents/siblings or the child himself.
Child him/herself.

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When usually is the nickname decided upon? Birth or before child can talk, or when child decides it himself?
The child decides him/herself.

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Where do you live?
East Coast, USA.

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I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab. - "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

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I think parents probably decide nicknames either before the child is born or as their personalities develop.

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Also, I work in a preschool and often older siblings that can't quite pronounce a their younger or older sibling's longer name will come up with a nickname. Usually a shorter version of the longer name.

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Let's just say children can be quite creative. The children I work with have been known to call me any of the following: mermer, ember, amburger and more. :)

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The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not smashing it. (Arnold H. Glasow)

In my family we end up with nn when we were little tots, as our personalitys formed. Most of them it was just called by family. Most of us also have a couple nn within are family. Friends have differ nn for us too. USA

Who decides the nn can vary. In preschool one of my teachers gave me the nn "Meggie-Boo." I have a friend Kristina who before she was born her parents gave her the nn Kristy. I have another friend named Imogen who hated being called by her full name so she uses the nn Imy. There is a boy in my English class whose name is Brandon and his nn is "B-Money" (its a long story.)

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I live in the small suburb of Liverpool (yes, it is named after Liverpool, England) It is just outside of Syracuse. I live in the state of New York in the US of A.

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" Success comes in "cans." Failure comes in "can'ts."

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_,.-~*'`megan`'*-.,_

We don't use a nn

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We had pet names for our daughter, but no nn. I prefer her formal name. Her friends have called her different nn, but now she has decided one for herself. But only her friends call her that, we parents, grandparents and teachers use her full name.

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Nick names seem to be taken very seriously in USA, parents decide before birth, decide the spelling and how it sounds with the surname. I would only use a nn sometimes, every time the name has to be written or used with the surname, I would use the full name. Our daughter also uses her full name when introducing herself with her surname.

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We live in Sweden.

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"You sought a flower and found a fruit. You sought a spring and found a sea. You sought a woman and found a soul. You are disappointed."
"It does not become me to make myself smaller than I am." (Edith Södergran 1891-1923)

This message was edited 10/21/2005, 1:13 PM

I think it all depends on the family. In mine, they evolved naturally, over time. Our parents gave them to us. But they were only ever used within the family. To the outside world, we went by our formal names.

In my family the child and his or her peers eventually chose the nickname thats not to say that at first we dont try and steer them towards a name we like best I detest the nickname Cathy and asked my neices to use Catie or Cate instead which they did

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As for when, well that depends on the child my daughter decided just before she was five that she wanted to be known by her full name instead of a nickname, Within the family she still gets called Catie but her schoolfreinds all know her as Catherine
A freind called her Daughter Susan and refused to let the anyone shorten it but at the age of Ten Susan rebelled and became Suzi to all her freinds and cousins
My neice Victoria used to be known as Vick or Vicky but decided she prefered Tori when she was about nine

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I live in Kent England

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Edited to explain a bit more clearly

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A childs smile is worth more to me than Gold

This message was edited 10/21/2005, 12:47 PM

I live in the US.
I was born Betsy (my Dad still calls me Betsy Lou). No one in my family ever called me anything else. Elizabeth was given to me primarily b/c it is family name and my parents (specifically my mom) wanted me to have a formal name. In high school and college some friends called me Bets but I never introduced myself that ways! I knew a girl in college whose name was Kathleen who decided when she went to school that she wanted to be called something different and started (first day of frosh orientation) introducing herself as Dallas. She was called that throughout college!

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----Betsy-----

Nicknames among my family and friends are established when someone, not anyone in particular, calls the individual in question by a name other than his or her own, and that name afterwards becomes what the stated individual answers to. i.e., Sadie received the nickname Taidlie due to little brother Silas not being able to say Sadie correctly. Israel's parents actually decided to call him Sunshine before he born, and did so for about the first year of his life. I go by Kettie because the same Silas, for some strange reason unbeknownst to me, decided that was a good name for me. Anyway, we're pretty informal about nicknames, and it's my opinion that as long as the child getting the nickname doesn't have any objections, anything goes. Also, I'm from Oklahoma, to answer your question.

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~*|Bethany|*~
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"To thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou can'st not then be false to any man"
Hamlet, Act i, Sc.3
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I live in the South.

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Here almost EVERYONE seems to have a nickname (or two names that they go by), and some of them are very strange. A lot of times the parents or family members give the child his or her nickname. Sometimes the kid might be tired of being, for example, Elizabeth C. because there are six other Elizabeths, so will ask to be called Liz. Sometimes the parents might give a child a specific name knowing they will call him or her something different, but they want their child to have a formal name so that s/he can decide what to be called.

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When the kid gets older, friends might call him or her something different. Sometimes they start out as a joke or because ther person's real name is too hard to pronounce, but sometimes they just start out of nowhere. I had one friend who used to call me Julie. I don't know why, but she made up names for people, and I didn't mind. I liked it so much I thought about changing either my first or middle name to Juliet or Juliana, but I never did.

I live in the Netherlands

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A nickname is not decided at birth, it's something that grows when a child get older if the full name is too long or too difficult, people will use an easier variant of it. The people that will start with nichnames can be parents, siblings, child itself and very often children the child plays with.

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It's usual to not not have a nickname here, most people are called by their full names, that may be because Dutch names tend to be short and already petforms of other names.

Some people never have a nick-name, some acquire it from, friends, or, more usually, siblings. One of my children has one-standard short form for his formal name; the other 2 are simply called their names. I myself have an "ie" on my given name.
I live in Eastern Canada.

Some people never have a nick-name, some acquire it from, friends, or, more usually, siblings. One of my children has one-standard short form for his formal name; the other 2 are simply called their names. I myself have an "ie" on my given name.

I live in the midwestern U.S.

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The answer to all your questions is: it varies. Some people choose a nn for the child before he or she is born and insist that family friends, relatives, and new aquaintances call the child by only that name. Others wait until the child is here to decide if they want to call them by a name related nn, or a non-name related nn (like Bubba, Missy, Buddy [these are not necessarily pet names, as I know people that go by them basically all the time]), or if the baby will go by his or her full name.

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Sometimes a child will pick his or her own nn [or resist a nn] and insist that parents and company call him that. My brother constantly tells people that his name is not Steve, it is Steven.

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I choose names that have nn that I like, just in case my future child wants to go by a nn, but I also have to like the formal name because I do not want to call my child something that I hate. But I won't ever insist that my baby go by a name that he or she hates.

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"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

I'll respond to the questions, too.

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I've only known parents/siblings to give a child the nickname.

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Parents usually decide nickname at birth or else sometimes an older sibling will come up with a nickname. I've never known a child to pick his/her own nickname.

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I live in the US.