Why Harry/Henry??

[Lumutqueen]

Originally Posted by LauraS3514

Just think of it along the lines of naming your son James and calling him Jim or Richard and calling him Rick, or like a friend of ours whose daughter is Alexandra but is always called Allie.

But it's different to your child having a nickname, Harry is always known as Harry and only rarely spoken about as Prince Henry. When he was annonced during the Olympics, nobody knew who they were talking about.

[Roslyn]

Originally Posted by LauraS3514

Just think of it along the lines of naming your son James and calling him Jim or Richard and calling him Rick, or like a friend of ours whose daughter is Alexandra but is always called Allie.

I see what you mean, but I think this is a bit different, and more extreme. When you name your child James or Richard or Alexandra, you don't announce at the time of their birth or christening that you will be calling them by the nickname. My husband is a Richard. His parents often called him Rich, and his friends often called him Rick when he was young. I call him Richard. Richard is his name. When he was born his family didn't say, 'His name is Richard but we're going to call him Rich'. Nicknames usually just happen, they aren't planned, and sometimes different people use different nicknames for the same person.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I remember the announcement at the time and I thought it was strange. I thought, 'If you're going to call him Harry, why don't you name him Harry?'

[purple_Lulu]

There seem to be two schools of thought on this. My sister (and apparently Prince Harry's parents) subscribed to a more traditionalist position: it's fine to plan to use an informal name day to day, but the child needs a "proper" name.

Thus my niece is officially Eleanor and has been known as Ellie from the day she was born; she has a "grown-up" name to fall back on.

My friend on the other hand named her daughter Kate as, like a number of folk on this thread, she couldn't comprehend why you would name a girl Catherine if you set out with the intention of calling her Kate.

(My sister finds "Eleanor" useful for occasional emphasis, similar to something I remember PoW saying about Prince Harry "he's only Henry when he's very naughty indeed!")

[camelot23ca]

It isn't uncommon, IME, for parents to name their child one thing and make it known right away that his or her name for daily use will be a certain nickname. A couple may like Jack or Ellie or Will - maybe more than they actually like John, Eleanor or William - but not be willing to give their child a moniker that's traditionally been a nickname. Most parents wouldn't make a formal public announcement of it, no, (although I've seen a couple of birth announcements where the nickname's been included), but, then again, most parents wouldn't be making an official public announcement regarding anything about their newborn.

[MichelleQ2]

Personally I like the more formal name and let the child grow into whatever derivitive of the name fits their personality.

I think Royals are famous for having a formal name and a nickname

Edward VIII - was always called David ... his last of 6 names
George VI - was Bertie a derivitive of Albert his first name

[Roslyn]

Originally Posted by MichelleQ2

Personally I like the more formal name and let the child grow into whatever derivitive of the name fits their personality.

I think this is the way it should be.

I think Royals are famous for having a formal name and a nickname

Edward VIII - was always called David ... his last of 6 names
George VI - was Bertie a derivitive of Albert his first name

And HM is known as Lilibet to her family and friends.

I'm wondering whether it is a cultural thing to give a child a formal name and then plan from the start to call them something else. It is common in the USA or the UK, or other countries? I do not think it is a common practice here in Australia.

[cepe]

"Harry" is not a nickname. Examples of nicknames could be my poster name on here which is used by close family. There's a reason for it and I'm sure others on here have friends and family with nicknames. It is not linked to my given name.

Harry is an abbreviation of his given name - as is Kate for Catherine, Bertie for Albert etc.

[UserDane]

Originally Posted by Roslyn

I'm wondering whether it is a cultural thing to give a child a formal name and then plan from the start to call them something else. It is common in the USA or the UK, or other countries? I do not think it is a common practice here in Australia.

I agree, it must be a cultural think; one poster in this thread seems to find the original question really odd. I find it a very good question - I too have always found it very odd that Harry's parents give him one name and then at the same time announce another name to be used for him. I've never heard of parents who have done that in Denmark.
Of course nick/pet names will develop - but they somehow develop naturally and are not announced as a name the child should be called.

[Lee-Z]

Yep, cultural difference then: here (south of the Netherlands, the catholic part) it has always been common practice, I can't think of anyone in my family who has the same baptism name as everyday name, and the everyday name is announced from day 1 (although the last decades the traditional baptism names seem to be replaced more and more with "exotic" (read: english ;-) ) names and then the baptism name tends to be the same as the every-day name...)

For me it's really odd that you guys even noticed that Henry/Harry as something out of the ordinary

edited: ah, I remember one of my cousins has the same name for both, and that was very odd and "new-age" back then when he was born

[Roslyn]

Originally Posted by cepe

"Harry" is not a nickname. Examples of nicknames could be my poster name on here which is used by close family. There's a reason for it and I'm sure others on here have friends and family with nicknames. It is not linked to my given name.

Harry is an abbreviation of his given name - as is Kate for Catherine, Bertie for Albert etc.

Hmm. Have to take issue with this, I'm afraid.

My trusty Concise Oxford Dictionary defines nick-name as:

"Name added to or substituted for person's, place's, or thing's proper name; abbreviation or familiar form of Christian name."

Therefore "Harry" is most certainly a nickname, being a substitute for, or familiar form of, his proper name. It is not an abbreviation of his given name. An abbreviation, by definition, is a shorter form, and "Harry" has the same number of letters as "Henry". Neither Kate nor Bertie is an abbreviation, either, merely a familiar form of the proper name; though maybe "Kate" could squeeze into the definition.

[cinrit]

In the Catholic religion (and perhaps in others?), it's traditional to name a child after a saint. So, using the name "Martin/Marty" as an example, a Catholic child would never be baptized with the name "Marty", even if that's the name his parents intended to call him, because there is no St. Marty. There is, however, a St. Martin. I'm not saying that's why Prince Harry was named Henry (I still hang with the fact that it has more to do with ancestors/relatives).

[scooter]

Originally Posted by Roslyn

I've always thought it strange to choose a name for your child, all the while planning to call him something else.

My husband's family does this a lot and I have always found it inexplicable. Especially because they continue to foist the name Adolph as a first name (not kidding) and then call the kid something else. Obviously

[Daria_S]

Originally Posted by cinrit

In the Catholic religion (and perhaps in others?), it's traditional to name a child after a saint. So, using the name "Martin/Marty" as an example, a Catholic child would never be baptized with the name "Marty", even if that's the name his parents intended to call him, because there is no St. Marty. There is, however, a St. Martin. I'm not saying that's why Prince Harry was named Henry (I still hang with the fact that it has more to do with ancestors/relatives).

I believe same thing is done in the Eastern Orthodox faith.

[Rebafan81]

I just stumbled on this thread but it is great because this has always been a pet peeve of mine. I had a sister in law who named her child Kristin Nicole but informed us at the hospital, she would be known as Kristi, IMHO, I always felt if you were going to call the child something, you should name them that. I had a brother named Michael Steven, but we called him Stevie, his whole entire life. I asked my momma, why, she said they just liked Stevie. LOL. I took this into consideration when naming my son, I like a couple of other names but they all had "nicknames" so I decided on Justin because in the states, there really isn't a nickname for Justin.

[Grandma828]

Don't forget that Henry is french and when pronounced in english it sounds like Harry.

[Roslyn]

Originally Posted by Grandma828

Don't forget that Henry is french and when pronounced in english it sounds like Harry.

But isn't the "H" not pronounced in French? Isn't it more like "Ongry", which is really nothing like Harry, in which the "H" is sounded clearly, followed by a short "a".

[Grandma828]

I will have to leave that to a native french speaker.

[Roslyn]

Originally Posted by Grandma828

I will have to leave that to a native french speaker.

We must have a few of those here. Come out and play, francophones.

[Iluvbertie]

Just another perspective:

I am a teacher as many of you know and came across a family that decided rather than use the formal names - William, James, John and Henry for their sons - they baptised and registered them as Bill, Jim, Jack and Harry but...everytime the boys have tried to get things like a license or a passport, even with a 'certified' birth certificate they have a real problem convincing people that the birth certificate they hand over is genuine and one has even been stopped at an airport because the officials didn't believe that his name was actually 'Jim' and thought it was a forgery and that he was so stupid that he forged the document using his nickname rather than he formal name.

The situation ended up with at least one of the boys formally changing his official name from the nickname to the formal name for documentary purposes.

The girls didn't have the same problem with names Jane, Sue (not Susan but simply Sue) and Ellie (not Ellen or something like that).

[Kataryn]

Originally Posted by cinrit

It would be difficult to find a king with a worst reputation than Henry VIII, but there were seven other King Henrys before Henry VIII. One of them was the founder of Eton College, so it's not really such a bad name.

Henry I. was the son of William I.....