Nicknames

I never really ever had a nickname growing up. My parents called us by the names they gave us at birth. I didn't get my first nickname (which I am only called by a small precious few) until high school from a best friend, "Annie". I remember that I felt special in a sense to have been given a nickname. Other than that I am just plain ol Anne Marie. Jonathan on the other hand seems to have a million and one nicknames, over half dubbed by his family, but even friends make up nicknames for him all the time. Im not sure he really cares much about a nickname either way. All this to say with a baby on the way, these things come across your mind. In the name selection process you pick names that you fall in love with for one reason or another. Jonathan and I both adore the names we have picked out for our little angel, but I have found when you tell others the names you have picked they seem to think they can start making up nicknames. It is the strangest thing. I guess it falls right in line with "everyone is going to give you their opinion so you can let it go in one ear and out the other." But I feel like names are important and play a role in the person that you are, after all it is part of your identity. If you have seen the names we have picked you would probably have picked up on what people may try to potentially pull with their names. For our daughter her name will be Emersyn. I just love this name, that is why we chose it. I do NOT like the name Emmy. If I did I would have chosen that name. We love Elijah for our son, I HATE ok don't like that word, STRONGLY dislike the name Eli. Again, if I did I would have chosen that name. So I guess I would love to know your thoughts on nicknames, are they fun or is it annoying when people call your child by something you didn't name them? I don't think we will have as hard of a time with Emersyn, but I have a feeling with Elijah, people may try to shorten it. How do you go about kindly making sure people call your child by the right name? I guess this REALLy hits home for me because all through my childhood I was called by the wrong name. That is mainly because my birth certificate read Anne as my first name, Marie as my middle, and Farmer as my last (my dad says mistake on the hospitals part, we did have it corrected my senior year in high school). However, Anne Marie is my first, no middle name, and Farmer was my last. So all my teachers called out Anne Farmer. Every year I had to correct them. I even had some never correct it and call me Anne the entire year. What does that say about someone who does not even take the time to get your name right. That doesn't include the times I was just called Marie, or Anna Marie, or Anne Maria, the list goes on. I don't want my children to go through that and I am confident we chose names that are not that difficult for even someone who has a brain the size of pea. Ok, we know God doesn't make people with brains the size of peas, but we do know people sure can act like their brain is the size of a pea.