about my name

September 9, 2025

How you call me when you reach out to me can tell me a lot about you and your motives.

The name on my birth certificate, drivers license, passport, etc is my first, middle and last name. I go by a diminutive of my first name to anyone who knows me. I never introduce myself as my ____ name. I do this for several reasons. For this essay, I’ll call it my BC name. BC for birth certificate, before change… given time i could come up with a few other things, I am sure.

When I was a kid, I was known by a different diminutive than the one I go by now. My father and I have the same first name, and he had the three letter version. I got called something similar but a name that, to me, denotes a child. Sometime around age 16-17, I decided I was done with that name, and came home and said, as I tell the story, “this shit is gonna stop now”.

Mom protested a little bit. “Your voice is changing and you sound a little like your father,” she said. I replied we’ll deal with that, won’t we? It never really got in the way, I only remember once answering the phone (you know the thing hanging on the wall in the kitchen with a long coiled wire on it), someone asking to talk to Bob, I said speaking, and he said something or other about a planning commission meeting, something about my mom, and then hung up. I told Dad later that so and so had called.

WHat this has done is given me an advanced bullshit detector. If somoene comes up to me and refers me to my BC name, I know one of a few things: * it’s mom and she’s pissed. Not likely, but that has historically been a common use * you’re from HR or something and you’re just reading off a list.

I kind of have to use the BC name for work and other “official” things, but for the most part, i make it pretty clear early in the social interaction that I prefer the shortened nickname. For many years, calling me by the childish diminutive would get my hackles up but I kind of have a special class of people who still get to call me that - they’re all pretty old because they knew me as a child, and there aren’t many of them, 5 at most. One of those folks is on my facebook, and he calls me Robert. When you’re within swinging distance of 100, you get a pass from me. I don’t expect him to use the name I prefer since in his mind that’s my dad and I guess i could take it as a good thing he has the sense not to use the childhood name.

This has been useful on occasion. If somoene approaches me and calls me by my BC name, it make shields come up. I’ve had more phone calls than I can easily count from recruiters who ask for the BC name. I’ll respond with “hello this is preferred name” The good ones, the ones I am immediately interested in continuing with, will adjust. Some get confused… um.. I’m looking for ___… I’ll continue yes, this is Bob, how can I help you? Some will break off, which is fine. I’ve had one say well, BC name, I’d like to talk to you about… I actually hung up on one once because they mentioned something that I knew I wasn’t interested in, but furthermore, they wouldn’t call me by my name.

I had an interaction with a vendor for some stuff at the house. We had to meet, spend time, we had the whole conversation about the name. Then yesterday I got a text from the dude and he called me by the name he had on his call sheet. I almost went off on him, but maybe it’s a different dude. Nope. I know he put a “note” somewhere, at least he said as much.

Lately I’ve been getting pinged from a person who wanted to talk to me about … I’m not sure, something about grants you can get or something. She led with a story about someone who had contacted her about something, and the payment was supposed to be in gift cards (RED FLAG!) and I said yeah, that was probably not something to get involved in. Weeks pass. She sends another “hey how are you”. I look at her profile. She seems to be a friend of people I know. Why is she in my friends list, I don’t know, but I wasn’t always as picky abbout who i was friends with. I am sure there are people who are still “friends on facebook” with people who were little more than interactions in Farmville or Mafia Wars. Simpler times.

She gave me a contact of someone i was supposed to talk to about these grants, but i never reached out. Just sounds scammy. She reached out again a few days ago, and called me by my BC name. Yeah, no, I don’t think so. Obviously reading my name off a list.

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