[antigone_]

The NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages site is down today so I haven't been able to try looking this up but I'd like to know if there are various ways you can register a baby name.

My grandmother was registered as:

Etheldreda (Audrey) Middle name, Last name,

so Audrey, the name she was actually called, was offically part of her name. This was in the UK in the 1920s, however.

If I wanted to register my baby's name as, for example:

Elizabeth (Betsy) Beatrix Last name

Would this be possible?

Has anyone else registered the intended nickname, together with the full name?

This post has been edited by antigone_: 08/01/2013, 09:19 PM

[FluffyOscar]

Was Audrey your grandmother's nickname, or was Etheldreda?

[antigone_]

Will swap them, thanks

This post has been edited by antigone_: 08/01/2013, 09:18 PM

[Chief Pancake Ma...]

I recently registered our babies name and I don't recall any provision for nicknames. I was just the standard form with fill in the boxes for first names and surname - so unless you added the nickname as part of the name I dont think you can, ie the name would end up Elizabeth Betsy Beatrix Smith - Betsy would be a middle name.

[Puggle]

Register the full name, then most forms (school enrolment etc) seem to have a space for 'preferred name' so you can fill in the nickname there.

[jameses mum]

I recently registered our babies name and I don't recall any provision for nicknames. I was just the standard form with fill in the boxes for first names and surname - so unless you added the nickname as part of the name I dont think you can, ie the name would end up Elizabeth Betsy Beatrix Smith - Betsy would be a middle name.

I spend a fair bit of time helping people with birth certificate applications. What you register them as is their official name.
Why do you want to register a nickname?

[tibs]

Didn't see a way to do that when I registered my DD 2 months ago.

[antigone_]

I just seems a shame that the intended nickname can never be more official, especially in cases where the nickname is quite radically different from the formal name.

I am really in doubt about using my favourite name (Kit) because I want him to be called it exclusively, but also want my father's name of Christopher on the birth certificate, even though he won't ever be called Christopher.

I wish there was some simple way of formalising the nickname - so simple just to put it in brackets as per my grandmother's birth registration

[Sassy Girl]

Your grandmother's bc is very unusual. Audrey is unlikely to have been a nn but more likely was an extra mn that became a nm. I've never come across a bc with a name in brackets before both here or in the UK and I've been doing genealogy for 30+ years.

Why would you want a nn on a bc when in all likelyhood the nn you choose now will not be the nn that your child goes by as they grow up ?

[PatG]

If you really want both Christopher and Kit as names on the birth cert then just put them both on. E.g. Christopher Kit Brown. Even if you could do it like you Grandmother's seems to have been, what does the child door the rest of his life where there isn't provision on any form he comes across to do anything except first, middle(s), last? As PPs said, schools usually have "known by" or "preferred name". Often used by students with Asian names who also have an anglicised one, as well as the Thomas (Tom) scenario.