Two more ladies nicknamed me since I last posted (in email). Not sure how to respond to that in the future. I detest teh "cute".

It's harder when it's someone I have to work with or deal with continually. Women who call other women things like "cutie" when they hardly know them are usually the type to get offended if I say I don't like it. They seem to take it as personal rejection and a sign that I'm not "friendly". Which, I'm not, not in the way they are, but I still want to have pleasant dealings with them.

My boss (a woman) occasionally calls me "Lady". As in, "Hey, Lady, how are you today?" with a big smile. I have no idea why. It creeps me out. And she's my neurotic boss, so I can't just tell her to stop it.

Everyone in my family calls me Hillie. I don't mind it too much from them, or from people who've known me since I was a baby, as long as they spell it that way when they write it out (I just don't like the spelling Hilly), but it really annoys me when I meet someone new, and I introduce myself as Hillary or Hil, and then they meet my family and hear them calling me Hillie, and then the new people start calling me Hillie.

then they meet my family and hear them calling me Hillie, and then the new people start calling me Hillie.

My mom is one of those people who has a million nicknames for everyone, including the dog. So if anyone tried to nickname me based on my family, they would be terribly confused. There are several variations on my middle name (or just my middle name, period). There's "Dolly", whose origin I genuinely can't remember, and then many variations on "Dolly" -- Dollmeister, Dolly Lama, Doll-o-rama. My brother generally just addresses me as "Sister", though never "Sis", because we already have an Aunt Sis.

Tim's dad is one of 6 siblings, and a lot of them nickname him with the first syllable of his last name. Which is hilarious, because they ALL have that last name. (Like if their last name was "Macdonald", and they called him "Mac".) (I don't know why I'm being circumspect about their last name when it's my name on FB.) At a big family shindig last week, I said that fully 80% of the people at the shindig could answer to that nickname, including me now.

As the youngest of 7, I was always "Danny."

Some of my siblings' children still call me "Uncle Danny" because of their parents.

My mom is the only person I don't mind calling me danny. Most others have gotten the message of "Uncle Dan"

I use Daniel a lot because at work, the a sound in shortened names like "Dan" "Pam" "Sam" etc caught my ear too often.

Of course, people who don't have the foggiest why are always the ones who are shocked! Shocked! that I might think they called out "Dan" across the room.

So my last few jobs I became "Daniel" Unless someone calls a spaniel by it's species, I'm golden. Well, maybe "Samuel" but how many people would use that long form? Spaniel is more likely, at least up north.

My RL name is Heather, which doesn't leand itself to cutsifying. Thank goodness.

My name isn't condusive to shortening, either. My nickname is Captain, to close friends, and that's fine. It would be weird if anyone else called me that, though.

My sister, though, is another Suzy. She's actually Patricia Susan, but when she was a baby, my grandpa called her SuzyQ from the beginning and it stuck. I have called her Boo (shortened from Sue-Boo) since we were little, and I'm the only person in the world who may do so. She has no compunctions about telling people REAL BLUNT that they call her SUZY; not Sue, not Susan, not Patricia or Patty Sue, and god help them if they call her Boo.

And it's S-U-Z-Y, thankyouverymuch.

My RL name is Heather, which doesn't leand itself to cutsifying. Thank goodness

My sister's BFF was a Heather. They all called her "Head."

I'm Jennifer to family and pre-college people. In college, people (mostly) shortened to Jen, which I liked a lot. Only one person (co-worker) ever called me Jenny, and she had a lovely accent that made it sound pretty to me, so that was fine. It's never weird when anyone calls me Jennifer, and that's how I introduce myself, but Jen is fine and usually where it ends up. Except it's weird whenever a family member tries it, so they don't. Definitely not Jenny (except for Ingrid).

At least it lets you avoid the whole 8675309 thing.

I had one teacher who insisted on calling me Regina. She could not accept that there is no Re- in my name. I will answer to "Yo, G!" though.

I would never presume to use nicknames that a person's family uses.