TS: Mike vs. Michael vs. Mikey vs. Mickey

As for me, I kind of prefer people who know me to call me Nik or Nikki, but I'm not too particular about it.

I am very formal about other people's names. Matos is not Matos, he is Michaelangelo. Mike Daddino is not Mike, he is Michael. My boss is not Joe, he is Joseph. My coworker Pat is not Pat, he is Patrick. Etc. etc. I refuse to call people by nicknames at all. That being said, I lose my mind completely at being called "Allison".

There's a certain frisson to the full 'Michael' - reeking as it does of admonishing calls from Mater downstairs, or gentle chiding from the Vosene-scented girl I sat next to in Geography on Thursdays aged 14 (no one else at school called me that).

'Mike' I almost don't hear but still answer to, so that's the one. There was an odd period when it had a modifying prefix, and some folks used only that (an icy blast, but a comfort too), but that's another story.

I don't much care for anything but Martin for me. Marty seems too Ernest Borgnine, even if I am moving in that direction visually.

You should TELL me these things! I've known you for six years now! Man.

Just spell it right and pronounce my last name with a hard g, please. All I ask.

I have 2 older brothers named Larry and Jerry. My mom is Taiwanese. We never had any clue who the hell she was yelling at.

i don't mind it when people whom i've known for a long time call me 'yertle the turtle'

'dall' is okay with me.

I don't particularly like "Katharine" but Kathy sends me into a killing fit. I will not answer to it. Nor Katie, either. That's not my name. One short, sharp syllable. With hard consonants and a hard vowel. Yes.

Hence why I prefer Mike to Michael. Mike sounds like a bite. Michael sounds more mushy-mouthed. And people who call themselves by their full name are almost always pretentious gits.

The only time that you should ever use someone's full name is if you are pissed off with them and they are in trouble. To do so under other circumstances just sounds patronising and parental. Next time (well, actually... if ever...) HSA pisses me off, I will address him as "Joseph!" so he knows he's in deep shit. ;-)

To everyone else it is 'Mike' or 'HEY YOU!'

When I put my name in to wait for a table at a resturant, I use my mom's name sometimes because my ears will catch her name but not any weird way they'll mispronounce mine.

In terms of the "general nickname" question, I've been called Dee nearly all my life. Sometimes it annoys me, but most of the time it just feels like a comfortable old pillow, cushy and homey and evoking memories of days gone by. I do like it, though, when people call me by my proper name, because I kinda like "Deanna". And people used to mess up my last name all the time until a certain Pop Tart (with the same last name as mine -- curses!) came onto the scene. Now I get, "Are you related to _______ ?" half the time. (Hell no.) (Just in case you're wondering, my last name begins with the letter A. You figure it out.) So I've spent all my life either liking my last name but wishing people would pronounce it correctly or having it pronounced correctly but running away from the baggage of having said last name.