Using my full name

If you want someone to stay away from your possessions, use a name tag with Winnie-the-Pooh on it. Works every time.

The byline on every story I have written is “Nick Dutro.” That would have made 7-year-old me puke.

As a child I had one major request for most people: Call me Nicholas. It was a strange request (I was a strange kid, and a babysitter had recently pointed out to a friend of mine), but one that I was very adamant about. I wanted to be called my full name, and I would not accept any variations on that.


When we are kids, we tend to go by whatever our parents call us. Sometimes, as was the case with my family, we all went by our full names. Chris and I were Christopher and Nicholas for a very long time. My sister Caitlin has always gone by her full name, although we often shorten it to Cait around the house, and I’m sure some of her friends tend to do this as well. My brother Zach on the other hand has never been called anything but Zach. (Although when he was younger I would pronounce the “ch” incorrectly to upset him.)

And over time, I would insist to teachers and friends that I be referred to as Nicholas. It didn’t seem like an odd request, but one I consciously made. At least until I had hit middle school. At this time my name was changed not by myself, but the people around me and I became “Dutro.” It rolled off the tongue and became the name of choice for most of my acquaintances. And while unintended, it traveled with me to college and has continued to be what people refer to me as (so much so, there were often times where I’d meet people and they had just assumed it was a nickname).

So while many of my friends had decided that my name was to be changed, in my head it also was going through a transition, which sadly was due to laziness. Around the 7th or 8th grade I had realized there was no need to write things out in cursive anymore, which was a relief because my cursive was truly awful. So with it I went back to my normal writing style (which I think is interesting and many others find illegible), and quickly fell into a trap of laziness. After the writing change I also began to change the heading of all of assignments, dropping at least half the letters in my name and picking up a “k” at the end. With the exception of my signature (which I also think is interesting) I have not gone back.

In many ways, shortening my name also was a point of growing up. Although I do like the name Nicholas, it seems juvenile to me, if only because I recognize it as the name I held in times long gone. It is not a surprise in thinking back that it was during a period of uncertainty and growing up that I made the decision to become Nick. It was a version of me who was looking for something in his life to control, minuscule as it may be.

To 7-year-old me, I say “Sorry Nicholas.” I know that it was important for you to be referred to with your full name, today I think it is one of the ways I have chosen to distinguish myself from the ghosts of selves passed. Not to mention, it's much quicker to type.