I am pretty lenient about a lot of things. But I have one hard rule that 99.9% of the time I will not back down on.

Never call me Debbie. NEVER.

If you ever meet me, you’ll soon find out that I refuse to be called Debbie.

The first time you do it, I’ll let it slide once. I’ll just assume you made a mistake. Even then, I’ll give you a look. It doesn’t matter who you are. The second time you do it, I’ll correct you. You do it again after that? I won’t respond to you. To quote Rumpelstiltskin, “That is not my name!”

My parents named me Deborah after the judge in the Bible. It’s gone out of fashion as the years go by. Other than one other girl I met in college, I don’t know a single person my age or younger named Deborah. Every other person with my name has always been older than me. They also spell it lots of different ways. Sometimes I wish I had a different name. Deborah seems very boring and combined with my middle name, I either have a 50’s housewife name or a very Jewish name. At other times though, it’s unique and I do sometimes like the fact that I am usually the only Deborah because then people know and remember me just by my first name (especially since spelling my last name is extremely difficult).

However there are many people who also go by the name of Debbie.

I do not.

Forgive me to any readers of mine or who come across this that go by that nickname. I’m sure you are all very nice people and I hold no ill will to you at all and I hope you are not offended by this.

I however am not a Debbie. A Debbie to me is a very peppy, very preppy 80s cheerleader name.

Or:

Or

Or a grown up film that includes a city in Texas of which I will not reference here because I don’t want Google search keywords finding it that way.

I have never been a Debbie. Even as a little kid, I also corrected people who insisted on calling me that. I never have and I never will be.

There is only one exception I have ever made to this rule and it involves two of my very good friends and their adorable baby. I’ve allowed them to refer to me as “Aunt Debbie” for him. I basically lost the battle with this but he’s so cute that I’ll allow it. But no one else gets this. Not even when I have future nieces and nephews of my own.

Interestingly though, I will allow Deb as a nickname. It’s not preferred but I’ll go along with it.

It just think it’s funny how people will just shorten your name without your consent. It’s one thing if you introduce yourself as Mike instead of Michael. But it’s another thing if I start calling you that without you telling me it’s ok to do so AND after you tell me to call me Michael. I realize that to some people it’s a small thing that they probably don’t care about. But to me, your name is your identity. And if someone respects you, they should follow your wishes when it comes to something like this.

My point is that my name is not Debbie. it’s Deborah. I would be pleased and honored if you called me by that name.