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Comment by jpfromlondon | Hacker News Reader

what surprises and annoys me is Briton's willingness to name their children shortened versions of existing names, it's lazy, so many Archies and Alfies, ugh.

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The hot path goes: parents choose "long" version of name. Everyone calls them the "short" name. The short name is their name for the majority of life. They have to deal with administrative-type friction and confusion every time their long name is needed. Therefore, you make their life less frustrating by making their inevitable shorter name equal to their real name.

thus reducing their agency, it'll be interesting at least to see if this generation grows up to prefer a lengthened name (or "long name") equivalent to todays "short name". For a period my parents called me Jim, a name I despise as an adult, thankfully the root of that short name has many branches, not that it matters because I only use the initial.

I also have an aversion to this. But I'm not sure how you conclude that it's lazy?

aren't contractions lazy by nature?

Regardless, I'm glad you're averse.

The #23 boys name in the US is John.

And #15 is Jack, so the US also does this.

(Mind you, the UK is still worse - Jack is #19 but John isn't even on the list)

Leo, Freddie, Theo, etc.

Yeah, I'm surprised. I'd always assumed that people would use the full form on the birth certificate even if the child was never actually called that in practice.

Doesn't really matter, I suppose - names are pretty arbitrary anyway and I can't imagine the sort of pain that would be involved in trying to force-canonicalise Jack->John, Leo->Leonard, Theo->Theodore (or Theobald?). Even the French don't do that any more!

And? John is not a shortened name.

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