Does Clay have to be Clayton?

krissymac · January 2011

We are considering Clay for a boy's name, however, does it necessarily have to be short for Clayton? I do not like Clayton, but would Clay be perceived as a nickname?

I prefer one syllable names because we have a long and hard to spell last name.

forensicmama · January 2011

No, it doesn't IMO. I think they're totally separate names with Clay being more of a reference to the soil and Clayton being a surname/town name.

mlf625 · January 2011

No.

I'm Mandie. Not Amanda, Mandie. It's not an issue and I've never felt like I needed a "full name" for any purpose. Mandie is my full name.

ubermoose · January 2011

I think Clay can just be Clay.

To me, there's two classes of middle names: those that are generally short for a specific name, and those that can be short for something, but also have a following as a stand-alone name.

In the first category, we have Bob, Dave, Steve, Liz, Em, Matt, etc. Though you can name your kid Steve if you like, people will often wonder what it's short for, or why you didn't go with the full name.

Then you have Jack, Max, Toby, Molly, Bella, Clay. Sure, Bella can be short for Isabella and Max for Maxwell--but they also work by themselves. In these cases, if you strongly perfer the shorter version, I think it's generally okay to use it.

VTFutureMrs · January 2011

Nope! I have 2 cousins just named Clay. My one aunt named her son Clay and my other aunt (her sister) loved it so much she named her son Clay too. There is about 15 years age difference between the two, so it's not that weird, but it does get confusing sometimes!

ClareML10 · January 2011

My brother is a Clay, actually a Clayton, but I am pretty sure only my mother remembers that is his actual name. No one has ever called him anything other than Clay since he was born