Baby Naming Issue: How To Explain That Jack Is A Nickname For John?

W. writes:

My husband and I had our first child, a boy, at the end of the year and we named him John in honor of my grandfather. Also in honor of my grandfather we’re calling him Jack. There are just too many Johns on both sides of the family right now!

Whenever we introduce him to strangers, we just call him Jack, but to close acquaintances (co-workers that we see outside of work, friends and family) we say his name in John, but we call him Jack. This usually gets looks like we’ve grown a second head and didn’t realize it!

I know Jack is a traditional nickname for John, my husband and our families know this, but apparently other people in my generation (we’re both 30) don’t know this! Now all I can think of is when he goes to school having to explain ad nauseum to his teachers that yes, Jack really is a nickname for John and that’s what he goes by. Do you have any ideas on how to mitigate that explanation? I’ve tried looking it up online the reason why it became a nickname, but I think that just confuses things even more.

I love his full given name and I love how Jack flows with our last name (two syllables, and ends in a “ck”). Furthermore we’ve been calling him Jack since we found out we were having a boy, so ditching the nickname is not an option.

I know that not everyone is familiar with Daisy as a nickname for Margaret or with Polly as a nickname for Mary, but I thought Jack as a nickname for John was at least WIDELY known if not by every single person. Your letter is giving me pause. I think there are several possible explanations:

1. You happen, just by coincidence, to have a group of friends and co-workers who are all oblivious to this traditional nickname.

2. You’re interpreting the looks you’re getting as looks of not knowing Jack is a nickname for John, but your interpretation is incorrect.

3. I’m wrong about the general familiarity of the John/Jack connection.

If the situation is #1 (“coincidentally, your group doesn’t know”), then this will be a fast fix: you have already spread the word that his name is John and his nickname is Jack, so you’re done with your part unless someone openly remarks about it. If any of them think it’s truly weird, they will tell someone they know about it, and the person they tell will say, “Um…Jack is a traditional nickname for John,” and then they will feel kind of silly for a moment.

If the situation is #2 (“you’re misinterpreting the looks on faces”), then this will be a fast fix: There is no problem to fix. Maybe they are looking surprised because they don’t expect the name John (it’s common in older generations, but a fresh surprise on current babies), or because they wonder why you didn’t just go straight to Jack, or because they’re surprised you’d use the name John when there are so many men named John in your family, or because they were sure you were going to use a different name for some reason, or because John and/or Jack is their own choice for a future baby and now they don’t know what to do, or because they don’t know how they’re supposed to react when they hear a baby’s name (“What a great name!”). We don’t really know WHAT that face says, unless they combine it with some words. If you tell someone new and they give you that look, you can say, “Oh, hadn’t you heard of that nickname before?” if you like. That gives them the option of giving an alternate explanation for their face, though personally I don’t think I’d want to invite them to say it: they may need work on facial expressions, but they’re doing the right thing by keeping their opinions to themselves.

If the situation is #3 (“I’m wrong about how familiar people are with John/Jack”), then this will be a longer fix but still a fast one. The “longer” element is that it will occur again and again throughout his life—up to once per school year when he tells his teacher, and up to once per new acquaintance. The “fast” element is that you/he will say that the name is John and the nickname is Jack, and then you will wait for someone to make the funny look that shows they didn’t know this, and then life will continue as usual. Either someone will ask about it, in which case you’ll say in the gentle and kind voice we use when we’ve accidentally uncovered a knowledge gap in someone else and don’t want them to feel bad about it, “Oh! Er, Jack is the traditional nickname for John” (if you’re in the U.S., you can add “you know—like JFK”), or else they won’t ask about it and you have no work to do. At that point, they will either not care and never give it another thought, or they will look into it further and find that you are right. Either way: no work for you to do.

It’s hard to imagine anyone going on and on about it and needing to have it repeatedly explained to them, but such people DO exist (“I just can’t get over you using a BOY NAME for your daughter, hur hur hur!”). If such a person DOES enter your life and DOES persist in acting all confused again and again, you can bring in a name book or direct them to Wikipedia, and/or you can conclude that they’re one of those jerks who acts confused in an attempt to make you feel stupid/crazy/wrong. You can start responding with things like, “Yep, nicknames are strange, that’s for sure! Bob for Robert, Jim for James, Chuck for Charles. I’ve never understood how Meg got to be a nickname for Margaret, either” if you like, or you can start shrugging and saying, “Well, anyway, that’s his name” before changing the subject. But it doesn’t sound like this is happening to you right now.

An additional idea is to look up some celebrities named Jack, and see if any of them are named John. Jack Nicholson’s given name is John, for example, and so is Jack White’s. This can be incorporated into your “further chatty remarks” arsenal, along with things like, “Yep, nicknames are odd, aren’t they!” and “And did you know Polly was originally a nickname for Mary? Neat, huh?” and “That was my grandfather’s name/nickname, too.”

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