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HelpRe: How easy is it to start using a new nickname?
in reply to a message by Violet
I've never tried to change a nickname, in fact, I've never had a nickname, but I've been related to two people who tried, one unsuccessfully and one more or less successfully, so I'll tell you their experiences.
My sister Patricia, who had always been called Patty, tried to change her nickname to Trish when she was in the fourth grade. She got her fourth grade teacher to call her Trish but nobody else would. Certainly nobody in her family. It didn't stick. By the fourth grade, she was Patty again to everybody.
My husband changed his nickname from Jamie to Jim when he entered high school. More or less, it worked. I say more or less because: He was entering a new, much larger school, where he would be meeting many new people, and these new people had no trouble calling him Jim. Thereafter, he introduced himself to Jim to every new person he met in his life and they all called him Jim. Except myself. He introduced himself to me as Jim, but I hate the nickname, and called him nothing until we'd known each other a few months, at which point, upon hearing his family call him Jamie, I began to call him Jamie, which he liked, coming from me.
Which brings me to my next point. Jim was not accepted by his parents, his brother, or his sister, nor was it accepted by the close group of friends he'd had since childhood, who continued to call him Jamie.
So basically I think it can be done when one is entering a new phase of life and meeting a lot of new people---going to college, starting a new job, moving a fair distance, but otherwise, it's difficult. I just couldn't start calling my sister, whom I'd always known as Patty, Trish.
My husband did have a weird mix of people calling him different names---Jamie by myself and his family, Jim by my family and everyone else, and while he was in college his college friends called him JR---his first and last initials--but it never seemed to bother him.
My sister Patricia, who had always been called Patty, tried to change her nickname to Trish when she was in the fourth grade. She got her fourth grade teacher to call her Trish but nobody else would. Certainly nobody in her family. It didn't stick. By the fourth grade, she was Patty again to everybody.
My husband changed his nickname from Jamie to Jim when he entered high school. More or less, it worked. I say more or less because: He was entering a new, much larger school, where he would be meeting many new people, and these new people had no trouble calling him Jim. Thereafter, he introduced himself to Jim to every new person he met in his life and they all called him Jim. Except myself. He introduced himself to me as Jim, but I hate the nickname, and called him nothing until we'd known each other a few months, at which point, upon hearing his family call him Jamie, I began to call him Jamie, which he liked, coming from me.
Which brings me to my next point. Jim was not accepted by his parents, his brother, or his sister, nor was it accepted by the close group of friends he'd had since childhood, who continued to call him Jamie.
So basically I think it can be done when one is entering a new phase of life and meeting a lot of new people---going to college, starting a new job, moving a fair distance, but otherwise, it's difficult. I just couldn't start calling my sister, whom I'd always known as Patty, Trish.
My husband did have a weird mix of people calling him different names---Jamie by myself and his family, Jim by my family and everyone else, and while he was in college his college friends called him JR---his first and last initials--but it never seemed to bother him.
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