Nickname Names

Flip is a cute, attitude-filled nickname for the very proper Philip and variations. A perfect choice if you're looking for a buttoned-up proper name with an informal short form.

For older generations this still summons silent horror star Chaney; for others it's a pleasant if slight nickname name.

A girl named Liz on her birth certificate could feel deprived of her full identity. Call her Liz, but name her Elizabeth -- or at least Lizbeth or Eliza.

Wylie is one Celtic surname with as much appeal for girls as for boys. Wylie is ripe for spelling variations: Wiley is as appropriate as Wylie but when you spell it Wylei, as Corey Parker did for his son, you're getting into yooneek naming territory.

If it's possible for a name to be too musical, this one is.

An exceedingly friendly every-guy nickname that could rise alongside the likes of Ike, Sid, and Ned.

A Dorothy nickname name with a measure of nostalgic charm. Kids will associate it with the funny fish character voiced by Ellen DeGeneres in the Pixar animated instant classic Finding Nemo.

If Frances and Fran are too serious for you, and Fanny too saucy, you might like Franny, still identified by some with J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey stories.

See Zac.

When Kate Hudson named her second son Bingham and announced that she would be calling him Bing, it put this zingy nickname name out on the table. Before that, there was only one, further nicknamed Der Bingle -- and he was really Harry Lillis Crosby.

This jazzy French diminutive of Isabelle was first made famous by the title character of Raymond Queneau’s novel Zazie dans le métro, which was adapted into a film in 1960. It could also work as a nickname for Elizabeth or Susannah.

This perky Spanish nickname deserves to be more popular. Singer Michael Bublé recently used it as one of the middle names for his daughter Cielo, which may give Yoli a boost.

Pitt is the prototypical blond Brad.

A Desi variation that moves the name away from Lucy -- though it's just as dizzy. TV star Jaime Pressly used it for her son.

Gilly is a name that's popped up from time to time in different contexts: As a nickname for Gillian, for instance, and as the name of a town in Switzerland. But it's increasingly associated with Hannah Murray's character Gilly in HBO's Game of Thrones, whom Sam Tarly rescued from Craster's Keep.

This short form of classic Victor is popular in its own right in Belgium and the Netherlands.

You can call your baby "babe," but don't name her that.

This is a name you get stuck with, not (we hope) one your parents choose for you.