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My mom avoided using the name James for my brother because she didn't want him to be known by any nickname but honestly, I don't know a single James under the age of like 25 that goes by anything but James, and I know quite a few. I think I've met like one or two Jims and I thought that was the weirdest thing. Any Jamie I've met had Jamie as their first name. Oh I know a Jay too but that's because he's a James Jr so I think they wanted to give him a nickname.

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With the exception of certain names like Elizabeth, I find that most people will generally call you by what you introduce yourself as. So I've known Jacobs that just went by Jacob and a Kathryn that just went by Kathryn, Andrews that just went by Andrew, etc. The only kids I've seen have problems are girls named Elizabeth, people seem to instinctively shorten it to Liz. I guess people shorten my name too, Kimberly, to Kim sometimes but I go by that. But I bet if I only went by Kimberly most people wouldn't. I've actually had people do the reverse, introduce myself as Kim and they'll call me Kimberly because they "like Kimberly more" which is fine by me. I don't really care either way.

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I think the only times you need to worry about it is if it's really instinctive like David nn Dave, Samuel nn Sam, where the nickname is fully in the full name, and it's just the dropping of the syllables after the first.