Nicknames.

I’ve never been one to use nicknames, especially baby names. When Liberty was born someone asked to call her Libby and I said no, it’s Liberty. Hard Tee sound at the end. No Liber-dee here. Most nicknamed she got as a kid was hearing her middle name with her first. I do that often. Trouble or no, she’d often hear “Liberty Skye”. Now she gets Bobby. More often than not. My littles only know her as Bobby. She sunburns redder than a tomato. Most of my kids have never seen Veggie Tales or Bob the Tomato. And yet it stuck.

Eden was Eden Rayne. Always. She never heard only her first name. As an adult she got nicknamed Moe. One of the littles called her Eenie because they couldn’t say Eden and eenie, meanie, miny, mo turned into just Moe. She still hears that from time to time.

Sterling has only ever heard his first name. Rarely his middle. Never a nickname, though for a while there Stellan called him Nerner. I have no idea why. It’s just how he pronounced Sterling.

Ruby has been Ru and Ru Ru and Ruby Do, which has a nice ring to it even though I have never seen Scooby Doo and have no desire to watch it.

Charlotte was the first kid we intentionally gave a nickname to. I wanted to name her Charlie and Blaine thought she needed something more formal in case she ever “works in a professional environment and needs a nice professional name. We have zero aspirations for her in that regard so I don’t understand that, but regardless, we named her Charlotte intending to call her Charlie. She was many weeks old when I had a little fit that we named her Charlotte to call her Charlie and never call her that. If we didn’t start the nickname we’d never do it. Now I’m the one that calls her Charlotte most often. She pulled for Lottie briefly but it didn’t really stick.

Pierce has been Mr P or just Pierce until Lachlan came along. Lach frequently calls him Piercy-Poo and Pierce answers to it. They’re buds. Pretty sure Lach could call him anything he wants and Pierce would be fine with it.

Elliot was also named intending to use a nickname. She was Nora until she was born and nearly died in the process. She needed a stronger name than Nora, and Blaine suggested our boy name, Elliot. It means “the Lord is my God”. More than once I wondered if she needed something stronger still, but I was convicted to remember there is no greater thing than declaring the Lord as God. We chose to call her Ellie. She shortened it to Elli to be more accurate to her given name, but it’s usually still Ellie.

Stellan used to answer to his middle name, Wyatt, but that’s kind of waned. He would love for that to come back but that’s the only nickname he’s had… except for Nerner. He called himself that just the same as he called Sterling when he was a toddler.

Creed quickly became Creeder. I don’t know why. He tells people his name is Creeder. He answers to it. It’s weird and funny and I don’t know why it happened. He’s just Creeder.

Lachlan was Lach early on. Locke had been a favorite name to begin with… so I kind of got it anyway. But then Lach became Lacher to match Creed being Creeder. Calling him Lacher is just weird, I know. When I bought a locker there was some serious confusion for a minute with the toddlers and introducing him to people is funny because he and Creed are dedicated to this -er suffix wholeheartedly. My son is nicknamed the same thing as metal lockable cabinets. I know. Just for good measure, once in awhile he gets Lach-lander instead.

Better, right?

All that to say, when you set out with certain ideas in parenting, be prepared for it all to blow up in your face. You’ll soon have Bob, Moe, Creeder, Pierce’s-Poo, and Lacher and all proper nouns will be liberally slaughtered despite the blood sweat and tears that went into choosing them. Nice names? Nah. We’ll go with the one that sounds like a character from three stooges. It’s better.