My father's older brother was called by his middle name by our family, by his first name by his wife and by his last name by the rest of her family. My father - who had an odd name - was called "Jim" when he was in the Air Force and by a number of other people and by his initials by some of his co-worker/friends. Me? I go by my middle name - a family name which is also a man's name, so phone calls at work usually involve spending some time explaining that yes, that's my name - and spelling it - and yes, I'm a woman, so now can we get to why you called.

My family had Big Bill & Little Bill, Big Chris & Little Chris, Big Mike & Little Mike.

My mom's family has at least plurals of Michael, Kevin, Thomas, George, and even Ralph and Roger (though the Georges, Ralphs and Rogers are dead now). Same with my dad's family and William, Judy, and Connie (and "big" and "little" are used to distinguish the women, but not the Bills).

It feels like 50% of my husband's family is named "Anthony." He even has a sister named "Toni," who is married to another Anthony.

There are so many Anthonys, we call one "Jimmy." The problem is, Jimmy married a woman who was divorced from a Jim, and already had a son named Jimmy, so she calls our Jimmy "Tony." They've only been married for a few years, but when s-i-l talks about "Tony" to us, you can see our wheels turning until we figure out she means Jim. When she says, "Jimmy" she means her son. When she says, "Jim," she means her ex.

Oooh, interesting, Sparky1!

Empress Maria Theresa named all her daughters "Maria [middle name]". If it's good enough for the ruler of the Austro-Hungarian empire, why not for others?

I just found out that my niece has tested positive for COVID. She's in her mid-20s and reasonably healthy. I hope she'll come through it with no major complications.

I found out fairly late in life that my uncle Svetik went by Steve in the army and at his job. I didn't find out until his funeral that Svetik was a nickname for a longer name with only a few letters in common. And Babushka's second husband Arkady was called Mike out in the world, which I found out when I introduced him to my friend Mike at a holiday dinner and he said "oh, my name is Mike, too" and the whole family went "bwuh?"

Niece~ma, Calli

My dads family had a lot of boys with the same names, so Big Mike and so on. I’m occasionally annoyed my name is so unique but it definitely is!

My family seems to have as little desire/energy to go Christmas shopping as I do. We are just giving presents to the pets.

I have two uncles that were Uncle Nicknames and then to find out they were known in later life jobs as real name and I can call them real name, but never Uncle real name. Butch and Skip ftr, Charles and Joe.

Calli, I hope your niece is okay. Was she feeling ill, or was she tested due to work/contact tracing?

My cousin's wife is back at work after having had it. She isolated in her room, and my cousin and the kids who are still at home didn't contract it, which is great.

My father's family was country - from rural Tennessee. They got ... inventive ... with some of the names. My aunts Willie Martha May and Myrtle Dew and uncles who died young named Harmon Woodrow (which is pretty reasonable) and Claude Oppolous. My grandmother Roxy Ludella (called Della) and grandfather Harvey called Dick.

I guess we're kind of an identity crisis built in.