Anyway, the only person in my family who has an actual nickname (outside of family nicknames, I mean), is my father. In fact, everyone knows him by his nickname and never uses his given name except for formal occasions (such as when filling out government forms or when he’s interviewed for a job or something).

That said, what Lorena mentioned is exactly what my grandmother did. She gave my mom a short name so that she couldn’t be nicknamed and teased by kids. Well, guess what? It didn’t work! The kids nicknamed my mom anyway (and trust me, none of the nicknames were very flattering!). Today she has two nicknames….But both of them are very endearing ones. One is what her friends call her, the other is what my dad calls her.

I do however have about a thousand and one silly nicknames from my family which range from my little cousins who call me Bethy to my brother who often calls me “Bethany” or “Bethlahem” just to be funny and my dad who sometimes calls me “Bepper”.

I think what my family (and I’m sure others as well) likes about nicknames is that they ensinuate a certain amount of familiarity and closeness to a person when you aren’t calling them by their formal name.
In my brother’s case, I think he has a very cool name. We always tease him that it sounds very blue-blood. Also, he actually changed it himself as to how he signs his name to official documents and writes “W. Davidson Jones”