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What I don't understand is when parents choose a long gorgeous name with lots of interesting syllables to play in like nooks and crannies in a big house, and then get offended when people do play with the name by making nicknames out of it. For me one of the wonderful things about names in general is handling them in the mouth, feeling them morph in everyday usage etc. A name isn't, like, a "bit" of data that needs to stay uniform. It's sounds that refer to a real person. So the long beautiful name is always available but then there are so many shorter things you can do, too, when you're feeling more playful...

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Insisting on only the short form is equally weird IMO, and when people name their kids Ben or Mike or Katie I feel cheated that if I wanted to dance with the longer forms of their names, I would be doing false historicization.

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